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The Haunted Stage: Recycling and Reception in the Theatre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

Marvin Carlson
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Extract

Some of the most thoughtful analysis of the theatre during this century was generated by a group of semiotically-oriented linguists and aestheticians in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in the 1930s and 1940s. These Prague theorists considered all aspects of the theatre experience—the dramatic texts, the various production elements, the audience—but they gave special attention to the complex matter of acting, developing a three-part model for the analysis of this phenomenon that may be taken as typical both of their strategies and of their theoretical concerns. They began with the actor, the living being appearing on the stage. This actor utilized expressive work, physical and vocal, to create the impression of an absent personage. The sum of this work resulted in the creation in the theatre of the stage figure. This figure was then interpreted by the audience, using whatever strategies seemed appropriate to them, to result in their mental image, the character. The character in short was the stage figure as received by the audience.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , May 1994 , pp. 5 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1994

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References

Endnotes

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