From Mimesis to Interculturalism

Readings of Theatrical Theory Before and After 'Modernism'
Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-1-905816-17-0
Verlag: University of Exeter Press

Buch, Englisch, 362 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 616 g

Reihe: Exeter Performance Studies

From Mimesis to Interculturalism offers a series of critical readings of key texts in the history of European and American theatrical and performance theory. It answers the need for a detailed critique of theatrical theory from its origins in Greek antiquity to the present day, asking the reader to re-examine the basis of what have become assumptions, but are all too often perceived as truths. The book complements existing studies of the major modern theorists by giving close attention to the European tradition before Stanislavski, and to the theorists who have gained prominence after Grotowski. The use of language and the creation of meaning is the primary concern of all the readings.

Part One considers classical and classicizing theorists from Greece and the European enlightenment, and Part Two twentieth-century theorists after Grotowski; a concluding Part Three indicates how the approach might be applied to exemplary theorists from the modern canon, and to certain contemporary theoretical proposals.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ley, Graham

Ley, Graham, Prof.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Dramen und Dramatiker
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturtheorie: Poetik und Literaturästhetik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Part I Before:

The idea of sight - Plato and Aristotle

Performances of the mind - Rousseau and Diderot.

Part II And after:

Brook and the theory of rhetoric;

Theatre anthropologies - Victor Turner, Richard Schechner, Eugenio Barba

Part III: some observations on Stanislavski and Brecht;

The significance of theory

Über Autor(innen)

Ley, Graham, Prof.
Graham Ley is Professor Emeritus of Drama and Theory at the University of Exeter.

He has taught drama in the Universities of London and Auckland as well as Exeter, and has directed and translated for the theatre. He was dramaturg to John Barton in Tantalus directed by Peter Hall (Denver USA, 2000, UK, 2001).

His particular interests lie in comparative performance theory, dramaturgy, performance in the ancient Greek theatre, and British Asian theatre. He held a Leverhulme Fellowship in 2000-2001, and was the award-holder for an AHRC-funded research project on the history of British Asian Theatre, active from October 2004 to March 2009.

In July 2010 he was invited to give a keynote on British Asian Theatre at the conference Theater und Migration at the Comedia Theatre in Cologne. In January 2013 he was invited to contribute to one of a series of causeries at the Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, as part of the activity surrounding the preparation of Alexandre Singh's work, The Humans. In September 2014 he was asked to compile the timeline on the history of British Asian theatre production in London for the programme of the London revival of East Is East, at the Trafalgar Studios which opened in October.

His books include A Short Introduction to the Ancient Greek Theater (2nd edition, 2006) and The Theatricality of Greek Tragedy (2007). In 2014 he published Ancient Greek and Contemporary Performance: Collected Essays and Acting Greek Tragedy, a workshop-approach with an associated website at actinggreektragedy.com

Graham Ley is Lecturer in Drama, University of Exeter. He has taught drama in the University of London and Greek literature in Auckland, New Zealand. He is the author of A Short Introduction to the Ancient Greek Theater and has written on theory for New Theatre Quarterly and other journals.