Discourse as Performance / Michael Issacharoff.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Issacharoff, Michael, Author.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (168 p.)

Place of Publication:

Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, [2022]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

One of the first books to apply contemporary linguistic and semiotic research to drama, Discourse as Performance is an investigation into theatrical discourse - the specifically theatrical use of language in the broadest sense, from verbal utterance to non verbal uses comprising the visual elements of gesture, facial expression, movement, costume, players' bodies, properties, and decor. The book is in three parts. In the first part, the author deals with theatrical discourse proper and distinguishes between its two main modes: dialogue and stage directions. Both modes address the problem of the specificity of theatrical discourse in contrast to other types of discourse, both literary and non-literary. The dialogue raises the questions of who speaks in a play (author, characters, actors) and to whom; the stage directions raise the question of reading a play, as opposed to seeing it performed onstage. The author links these issues to speech act theory and intertextuality. The second part, with its focus on space and discourse, examines the context of dramatic discourse and hence the various constraints - spatial, topographical, or political - that shape the meaning of utterances on stage. It thus offers a detailed discussion of the types of theatrical space, together with an analysis of the tensions and interplay between them in many major contemporary plays. In contrast, the third part shows how comic discourse in the theater, as opposed to the other modes of theatrical discourse, manages to free itself from these constraints. The author studies the referential status of comic discourse and the ways it violates normal relations between sign and referent and within the sign between signifier and signified. Believing that empirical analysis ought to look further than fragments cited in support of theoretical hypotheses, the author supports his claims with detailed analyses of complete plays by Beckett, Genet, Ionesco, Jarry, Satre, Labiche, Tardieu, Stoppard, and Pinter.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Preface

Contents

Part I From Script to Performance

ONE Introduction to Dramatic Discourse

TWO Speech Acts Onstage, or Scepticism Ionesco Style

THREE Reading Stage Directions

FOUR Theatrical Intertextuality

Part II Space and Discourse: Utterance Constrained

FIVE Space in Drama

SIX The Visible and the Invisible: Huis clos

SEVEN Sequestration and Reference: Les Séquestrés d'Altona

EIGHT The Politics of Space: La Cité sans sommeil

Part III Comic Discourse: Utterance Liberated

NINE Comic Reference

TEN When Referent Is King: Un chapeau de paille d' Italie

ELEVEN The Signifier Triumphant: Ubu roi

TWELVE The Assassination of the Sign: Jacques ou la soumission

THIRTEEN The Discourse of the AvantGarde Spectacle

Notes

Bibliography

Index of Plays Cited

Index of Names

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 31. Jan 2022)

ISBN:

1-5036-2327-0

OCLC:

1294426786