Word: playwrights
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Ionesco's stage directions indicate, or does she keep her mouth closed and merely toss the socks as in Nicolas Bataille's original Paris production?) is a question about the seat of power in theatrical productions-and ultimately a question about the very nature of theater. Does the playwright, as the creator of the story being told, have the first and last word over how that story is to be staged? Or does that power fall to the director, the man or woman who is to bring the playwright's story to life? Is the theater a cousin of literature...
...This playwright-director dialectic may in fact be fundamental to the nature of modern theater as an artform which focuses on the depiction of conflict. But that hardly stops theater practitioners from debating the issue. And, unfortunately, the contentions about personal priviledge so often heard in this debate would seem to do more harm than good for all involved. "A production belongs to its director," I've been told. "He or she has the right to make whatever changes are necessary to create a unified vision." Or from the other side of the battlefield: "Only the playwright really knows...
...more interesting approach can be found in some of theater's most famous theoretical literature. French playwright and critic Antonin Artaud argues in his seminal work The Theater and its Double that the theater has too long been dominated by text, the director has too long been slave to the author. Theater is not literature, he argues, and it should not pay undue homage to the authority of written words. Theater is a unique set of experiences based fundamentally in space rather than letters. As such it has a visual language all its own, a language which cannot be notated...
...problem with Artaud's argumentation lies in his decision to ignore the playwright's role as storyteller. Regardless of whether or not one wishes to tell a story with a given piece of theater, it is impossible to put anything on a stage without telling a story on some level. Narrative, in its most basic form, is simply a direct and inevitable byproduct of time. And unlike artforms such as painting or sculpture which work only with space, both space and time are the fundamental media of theater. Artaud condemns the overemphasis on dialogue in modern theater as a means...
...Drama is about conflict, yes, but I wonder how well conflict can be portrayed by a medium already in conflict with itself. To strip the playwright of authority over the visual aspects of his or her own show is essentially to strip him or her of half the storytelling capacity of theater. The result will inevitably be a half-story all told in words. And I wonder what director would even care to try bringing a half-story to life...