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Performance does not simply represent a change of mode from writing to speech.
Any consideration of literature in performance needs to take account of how the text
is performed, and this brings into play a range of factors such as manner of delivery,
facial expression and body movement, dress, possibly scenery and lighting effects,
that work alongside the verbal text and contribute to the meaning and literary value
of the performance.
It is likely that most people who read the script will be familiar
with this performance. It may therefore be harder to separate
this kind of script from its televised performance than it is to
consider independently a play produced for the theatre, and
which will have many different performances.
Mick Short [1989pp 8.9] lists the following points in support of his
argument about the value of studying dramatic text independently of
performance:
1 Directors and actors need to read and understand a script before
performing it.
2 Each production of a play can be seen as the play plus an interpretation of
it.
3 If plays could only be understood in the theatre, it would be problematical
to have any discussion of a play except by people who had seen the same
production.
4 Different productions of the same play do not necessarily constitute
different interpretations
5 There is pressure on modern directors and actors to do something
different with plays that have been put on many times before.
6 There are further problems in restricting analysis/discussion to
performance, since each performance of the same production of a play will
differ in some respects from other performances.
READING A
In terms of dramatic text analysis, Vimala Herman analyses an extract from John Osbornes
play Look Back in Anger. In fact, she borrows from conversation analysis researching spoken
interaction and specifically its from.
1-Turn-grabs
Turn-grabs occur when one of the participants interposes himself or herself
into an interaction uninvited and against the rights of the invited speakers.
2-Turn allocation
Allocation implies allotment and distribution; thus, turn allocation occurs
when a turn is allocated by the speakers selection of next speaker.
3-Turn order
Turn order reveals unequal distribution of turns among those present. One
participant among all the interactants appears to be central to all the
interactions and the participant structures in force; all interactants address
him or her , and ,thus, acts as the focal point of their speech.
In contrast to Mick Short, Pavis sees the idea that a production should
be faithful to a scripted text as pointless, as it is based on the
assumption that the text has an ideal and fixed meaning, free from any
social, cultural or historical variations. Pavis uses as semiotic approach.
Semiotics a science dedicated to the study of production of meaning in
society. As such it is equally concerned with the processes of
signification and with those of communication, i.e. the means whereby
meanings are both generated and exchanged.
Its objects are thus at once the different sign systems and codes at
work in society and the actual messages and texts produced thereby.
Semiotics is often exploited in commercials. Semiotics has its roots in
structuralism, deriving in part from the work of Ferdinand de
Saussure.
Theatrical performances are, then, the result of a set of production
decisions regarding the choice of costumes, lighting effects, etc.
Performances are conceived by theatre semioticians as carefully
contrived performance texts in which various sign systems work
together to create meaning.