Davis opens with a very subtle and pointed question that
ultimately drives her entire argument – “why did a word with a new suffix
emerge in 1837, nearly three hundred years after ‘theatrical’ appears” (Davis
127). She moves from this question into a concise outline of the history of the
relationship between these two terms and a statement about where she will
position herself within this history. There seems to be a subtle shift between
“theatrical” in relation to the stage and “theatrical” in relation to role-playing
off the stage – a shift that allows for a grounded instance of commensurability
between the stage and theatricality in the social realm, as Sara helpfully
highlighted in her response. She then seems to discard the previously
intertwined and ultimately tautological relationship between “theatrical” and “theatricality,”
and grounds her own argument in the distinction between the two – a distinction
that “hinges on the audience” (Davis 128).
In her subsequent tracking of various instances and definitions
of “theatrical” and “theatricality,” Davis focuses on the instances where the
audience and/or the spectator are specifically implicated. Ultimately, her
definition of theatricality is summed up here: “A bystander, like an unengaged
spectator, does not contribute to making meaning because there is no
participation, whereas a sympathetic spectator ‘changes places’ with the actor
through emotional participation. Such a spectator, who distinguishes between
actor, role, and situation; self and other; and between self and self-as-actor,
creates theatricality” (141). She backs off a bit from the stance that
theatricality can be used to show direct relationships between the stage and
the social realm, arguing instead that, “theatricality…is not about politics per
se” but “it may exist in [either] the theatre or in everyday life as long as
spectators grant it” (Davis 152). It seems to me that, for Davis, theatricality
can never be a stand-alone term. It can never, in and of itself, describe the
state of theater or everyday life. For Davis, it is only by the engagement of
the spectator that theatricality can be properly used as an adjective; its
activity (agency?) as a concept is completely reliant on the spectator becoming
active.
For the final question of the prompt, I want to try to put
Brecht and Davis into conversation, though more in terms of a scenario that
both arguments coaxed me to think about. When we read Brecht several weeks ago,
I thought a lot about the relationship of his theories to a (maybe not
mainstream but certainly consistent) trend in plays to have the transformation
into the imaginary world occur on stage in front of the audience. I’m sure
everyone has either seen, heard of, or been in at least one play that enacts
this framing mechanism – the actors come out in “plain clothes” and, during the
first scene, somehow decide that they are going to put on a play and then use
clothing or props on stage to transform into the characters. Brecht’s arguments
made me think about this technique in relation to the role of the actors and
Davis’ argument makes me think about it more in terms of how such a spectacle
reflects back on the spectator/audience. It seems that this technique is
generally meant to ease the audience into the action (and ultimately bring them
further into the imaginary world of the play) by allowing them to see both the
mechanism behind the transformation and the transformation itself. But, maybe
if we engage this technique with Davis’ argument, the framing has more to do
with effectively modeling a version (maybe even an ideal version?) of engaged
spectatorship. Using Davis, could we read this technique differently: the plain-clothes
actors are essentially originally spectators but then they become so engaged
that they actually take up the mantle of acting out the play?
3 comments:
After spending some more time thinking about Davis' arguments and then rereading my post, I just want to amend something I wrote earlier. When I included the long quote that, in my words, "sums up" her definition of theatricality, I think my phrasing was misleading. That quote puts a bit too much emphasis on sympathy, which Davis does address throughout as a more traditionally dealt with element of "theatrical experience," but it's not ultimately part of her definition of theatricality. The important part of that quote is where she emphasizes the need for distinction or "alienation" between "actor, role, and situation; self and other; and between self and self-as-actor" (141). Even, this, though, doesn't do complete justice to her ultimate definition of theatricality because, at that moment, she seems to be dealing specifically with the relationship of the actor to his or her role. The important thing for Davis, I think I finally realized, is the disassociation between the spectator and the spectacle. Only in the moment when the spectator recognizes the spectacle as spectacle and, consequently, his or her relationship to it as spectator - that instance of "self-reflexivity" - can the important moment of self-possession take place, leading to "a critical stance" on the part of the spectator (153). That seems a better explanation for where Davis situates her ultimate definition of theatricality. Maybe.
As you say, Davis puts herself in conversation with Brecht, although she says that she does not focus on creating an atmosphere that moves the audience toward theatricality. Brecht has a very particular plan for how to create an environment that will actively dissociate, alienate, or inspire self-reflexivity in the audience (147, 153).
This is the point I had in mind after I read your piece. Then I returned to your scenario of the metadramatic/play-within-a-play Brechtian performance. While I think such a play would create an atmosphere that would become theatrical (distancing the audience), I don't know that a model in which the players re-become sympathetic actors models Davis directly. Rather, it seems to show the Brechtian/Artaudian dangers of sympathy. If audience members are so invested that they become part of the action, don't they lose the role of spectator? Don't they become part of Carlyle's mob, rather than Carlyle himself?
However, if one of them stays outside the action and shows how an audience member can reflect on the action while everyone else jumps into it, perhaps that would be more Davidian?
As you say, "Maybe."
Whitney, I'm so glad you called attention to the “-ity” phenomenon. It is a big deal to tack on an ending to a word that fundamentally shifts the way we perceive what it signifies. I have a friend who recently moaned on facebook about “-ness” as an ending, and how it enacts some corrosion of scholastic standards ever to employ it. When, for my part, I'm much more taken with what this means about how we're thinking of whatever we're “ness”-ing or “ity”-ing than whether that act itself is somehow indicative of the long, slow fall of the ivory tower. Your summation of what Davis is doing there is immensely mine-able (“the spectator becoming active,” etc): there's almost a 'lived requirement' to that understanding of theatricality as far as the understanding asks for an enactment of that which it signifies. That's an implication of the audience, all right!
Davis's "subtle shift between 'theatrical' in relation to the stage and 'theatrical' in relation to role-playing off the stage” was a dichotomy I wanted to hear more about, as well as “ the previously intertwined and ultimately tautological relationship between “theatrical” and “theatricality”: specifically, how exactly Davis is relating that relationship to the function of the audience. I haven't quite wrapped my mind around that dialectic.
I also wonder about the work you're doing to highlight the spectatorship that actors' characters undergo/experience onstage when the play-within-a-play conceit takes hold, as it did, most memorably in my mind, in “A Midsummer Night's Dream.” In one of the last scenes of the play, the reunited lovers--who have awoken free of the complicating and star-crossing “spell” (ha!) Puck put them under when he botched Oberon's Cupid's-arrow orders--cheerfully look on and whisper and nudge each other over the course of what is, the viewer is to know, a really hilarious piece of amateur theater. Could it be that the audience is implicitly asked to perform/undergo mimesis, and feel themselves as the charmed and 'resolved' characters who 'look on'?
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