-Ellipsis means there was more said that I didn't quite catch.
-In brackets are words I'm not sure if I caught correctly.
-Sorry for bouncing between attempted summaries, and attempts at direct quotes when I wasn't sure if I could summarize. Justin's notes are awesome.
Ellen/announcements: The
readings/things to see to come will have a nice connection with
Davis. Our next prompt and reading
will be up Friday.
Andrea: been thinking about this thing
we’ve come across in several readings: the thing that changes
you, connects you…separate from it and watching it. In my
experience I’ve felt the opposite (I lose my sense of being
separate from it) is it the absorption in what’s going on? Is there something else that’s operating there? Point at which you
yourself change?
Courtney: Justin’s postwhether
or not we operate like switches? Davis never addresses intentionality
of piece…situation of self aware audience…sympathy with
performance…
Derek: Kelly’s postDiderot—actor
is best when when he imitates an emotion…I found that problematic:
what is a success? Something that meets its intended
(purpose/function)
Sara: Davis’s point is that it
doesn’t need to have to do with intentionality…she’s saying
yes, we can operate like switches. Lucid dreams: people generally
say they know they’re dreaming when something in the dream tips
them off that it’s a dream…by noticing “something isn’t
right.”
RNC’s debt clock and “we built
that!” billboard
Derek: you were able to have the moment
of spectactorship awareness because you weren’t part of the target
audience, weren’t part of the trance.
Andrea: maybe the comparison is that
the RNC for you was like someone else’s dream.
Whitney: Are there instances where you
can’t switch off the sympathy? Literally couldn’t not
sympathize?
Jess: a really individual question;
when I see stories about the same sorts of loss I suffered I see
falseness in it…Sara’s post
RNC—“the only way to do harm to the oppressive regime of
spectacle is to be very aware of it.”…politicizing theater vs.
“leisure” theater, which is why most people go to most popular
shows
Ellen: theatricality isn’t dependent
on an absence of leisure. Its fundamental [---?--] is to be political. Are
there examples of that?
Derek: saw American Idiot on the 4th,
but never felt myself in the trance. Wondered what the director was
thinking –whether they were trying to be avant garde? Pretty much
everyone thinks what they're doing is fresh and new
Jess: Wainscott said he was transported
by the play and mentioned the trash onstage
Derek: I got there 15 minutes late and
there were already people leaving. When the characters made love on
stage people left also
Sara: was it their goal? Not empathetic
but experiential?
Derek: there were two live bands
onstage, concert lighting, ensemble cast dancing, superbreif moments
of dialogue (to make sure audience understood progression of time?)
It was based on an 04 album I didn't have reference to, but at
intermission other playgoers said they weren't sure what was going on
either.
Whitney: related disagreeing with the
people sitting behind her at a musical-->alienated from rest of
spectators, which seems to be what Davis encourages: critical stance
Ellen: Brecht and Handke “you are
bourgeois, notice this” vs. Artaud...trance is something to reify
realness? Aristotelian... 'Purged' feeling at end of
performance...Kelly's post-->apathetic realism not what Brecht is
describing...King quote from section 3 of Davis...
Derek: audience claps were different
when they approved/supported decisions of characters in the play
Amy: public signaling, coherence...I
want to go, “Yay” and that would be me centrally allied with
other audience members—co-actors. A form of policing the trance
that exists through agreeing that what's happening onstage matters...
(re-co-opting us, leading us back)
Jenna: RNC—Eastwood--audience unsure
when to cheer during Eastwood's speech; footage of Ryan talking with
his wife and looking confused, wife nudged him, then he began
clapping and the whole room followed suit
Jennifer: reading example: used trance as an enforcement
of police state
Jess: mob rule...Debord...studies of
mob mentality—going along with it
Derek: de-individuation...
Sara: rock concert closest thing to
de-individuation (Artaud)...so loud we all have to have the same
experience. Eastwood broke ra-ra moments encoded in the speech,
creating a theater frame which is nonstandard within convention
speech format.
Amy: the political stuff is easy to use
because i'm easily upset and already looking for straw
men...Eastwood called attention to theatricality...
Ellen: boredom is a rupture in
play-playgoer contract that isn't overtly political. If you're
sitting there going, 'I am not being transported'...classic
definition of a break that's not politicized..p. 145 of Davis,
definition of theatricality: historicizing theatricality; have to go
back to Carlyle's coinage. Why dedoublement?
Derek: p. 148 Davis-equate dedoublement
with acting?
Ellen: p. 141 Davis—Marshall
quote—Smith citation...epistemological void, inability to enter
into subjectivity of the other...affective experience that is the
feeling you, then there's another you that decides when should (I say
or do something?)...self-splitting that has to happen for
empathy...Carlyle's anecdote about him and his wife seeing the play
and she's portrayed as the less sophisticated, cognitively
underdeveloped, less evolved part of the pair because she wasn't able
to sort the split self...for theatricality to happen: spark of
epistemological void, …, yearning for a certain experience
Amy: Slim Shady MTV Awards performance
with hundreds of doubles...forcing us to take on another perspective:
aware of our own reaction, ability to make meaning out of it outside
of what we're being sucked into
Jess: example if I enjoy Lady Gaga in
her meat dress and also say to myself, I see what she's doing
there'...
Amy: not about not enjoying it, but
about a recognition of the meaning-making awareness...some
perspective outside of it...irritated by Davis's non-use of
Smith...sympathy/empathy...doctor in an emergency room can't fully
empathize with the person they're cutting open...
Ellen: theatricality is a choice made
by an audience to be self reflexive or alienated...when it's shown to
the audience that what they're seeing is not real...agency and
volition of spectator...American Idiot maybe eschewing Rogers and
Hammerstein theater, but to me it's still good old theater
Amy: form of it is hard to get
into...[didn't catch it]
Courtney: Handke—sympathy is
theatricality, sympathy is dissociating yourself...
Amy: examining this idea of
sympathy...you might have the 'right' reaction to Handke, but...most
theater wants you to understand the actor is sad, wants the audence
knowing what's happening because of an emotional understanding of the
events onstage—which Brecht, Artaud, Diderot all challenge
Ellen: ...exfoliate this commonly held
idea of theatricality as that which is artificial/insincere
Sara: the book is called
'Theatricality'. If her project is to rehabilitate the term, she
failed, by inviting others to contribute to the book
Ellen: alongside shannon jackson
project. “Ok. Performativity is everywhere. Now let me
intervene”...harder to bear in mind the [didn't catch it]
Jess: hard to pin down this slippery
journey Davis is on with all this
Ellen: clearly an invested feminist
perspective...example of clinton's impeachment: Davis's disgust at
his action and admiration for his rhetorical efficacy...crucial to
how theatricality can be extrapolated to civil society...i want to
know what happens when it's not such a political critique...Davis's
rhetorical questions at the end are beautiful, clearly a spot-on
Brechtian agenda...
Jennifer: if a funeral or wedding has a
poor officiant, people will sympathize with them during the ritual
but afterward will tear them to pieces
Ellen: boredom as apolitical, affective
stance, not encoded into [social environment?] when a poor officiant
interrupts an affective experience...recognition in which sociality
breaks down. When it's broken and we don't get the payoff we've
been trained to get, we look at the larger mechanics...ruptures in
the chain btw [didn't catch it] and performance, how performance
happens, how we do it collectively...ability to extrapolate that into
the social realm
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