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UMI A Bell & Ifowell Information Company 300 North Zed) Road, Ann Arbor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 TELEVISUAL REPRESENTATION, SCHIZOPHRENIC EXPERIENCE, AND APOCALYPTICISM IN LATE TWENTIETH-CENTURY DRAMA AND THEATRE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Roger Dee Freeman, B.A., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1998 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Dr. Alan Woods, Adviser Dr. Esther Beth Sullivan Adviser Dr. Jon Erickson Department of Theatre UMI Number: 9911192 UMI Microform 9911192 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Roger Dee Freeman 1998 ABSTRACT This study examines a range of late twentieth-century theatre and drama, mainly American, that deviates from traditional causally-oriented narrative models. The works addressed are examined within several extra-theatrical contexts, chief among which is television and particular representational features associated with that medium. The principal focus of the study is on several recent plays and performances that employ dramaturgical and theatrical devices similar to features of televisual representation. Aside from this mostly formal concern, attention is given to how both the works in question and critiques of television intersect with definitions and interpretations of both schizophrenic experience and apocalypticism. Chapter One provides an introduction to the study and some preliminary definitions of terms. Chapter Two offers a brief inventory of televisual representational features, followed by a survey of critiques of the epistemological, sociological, and psychological effects of the proliferation of television, as offered by several media theorists. The chapter concludes with an examination of three recent American plays that exhibit televisual qualities and that reflect some of the concerns that have been raised in regard to the proliferation of television. The two subsequent chapters consider how descriptions and critiques of television programming intersect with definitions of schizophrenic symptomatology and apocalyptic concerns. Each chapter examines works ii that have televisual features and that contain, to varying degrees, resonances of schizophrenic experience and apocalyptic sensibilities. Chapter Five concludes with a discussion of various ways in which the contexts addressed throughout the study intersect with one another. The chapter includes commentary on how notions concerning the mass media, schizophrenia, and apocalypticism have been positioned within considerations of the so-called postmodern condition. The chapter also addresses the problematic relationships between notions of narrative continuity and definitions of postmodernism, media theory, schizophrenia, and apocalypse. An appendix following Chapter Five surveys several other recent American plays and performances that exhibit televisual features. Ill Dedicated to the memory o f Bill Gular IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS For their help and guidance throughout this project, I thank Alan Woods, Esther Beth Sullivan, and Jon Erickson. I have benefitted from discussions with Cristina Markham, Jackie Czerepinski, Scott Phillips, Laurie Schmeling, J. B. Lawton IE, and Michael Mauldin. For their continual support and encouragement, I thank my mother and stepfather Elsie and William Gular, my sister Cynthia Race, and my brother and sister-in- law Randall Freeman and Julie Vreeland. Thanks to my father and stepmother, Larry and Ruth Freeman. VITA September 23, 1964 ............................................. Bom - Rupert, Idaho 1989...................................................................... B.A., University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 1991 -1993............................................................ Research and Graduate Council Fellow, The Ohio State University 1993...................................................................... M.A., The Ohio State University 1993-1996............................................................ Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University 1996-1998............................................................ Lecturer, Department of Theatre, The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS Roger Freeman, “Narrative and Anti-Narrative: Televisual Representation and Non- Causal Linearity in Contemporary Drama,” Journal o f Dramatic Theory and Criticism 12.1 (1997): 39-55. Roger Freeman, ""Looking at Shakespeare, by Dennis Kennedy,” Theatre Studies 40 (1995): 70-72. Roger Freeman, ""Melodrama and the Myth o f America, by Jeffrey Mason,” Theatre Studies 40 (1995): 84-85. Roger Freeman, ""Recycling Shakespeare, by Charles Marowitz,” Theatre Studies 39 (1994): 91-92. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Theatre VI TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Dedication............................................................................................................................ iv Acknowledgments............................................................................................................ v V ita....................................................................................................................................... vi Chapters; 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 2. Televisual Representational Modes in Contemporary American Drama 17 Introduction ............................................................................................... 17 Television and Narrative Representation................................................ 26 Television Flow as Anti-Narrative, “Information Overload”................ 29 Television and Social Fragmentation...................................................... 36 Contemporary Drama and Theatre and Televisual Representation 37 In Perpetuity Throughout the Universe .................................................. 39 Reckless.................................................................................................... 44 Tales o f the Lost Formicans .................................................................... 47 Precedents and Deviations....................................................................... 50 Televisual Representation: Psychological Dimensions ......................... 55 Conclusion ................................................................................................ 65 3. The Intersection of Televisual Representation and Schizophreniform Experience in Contemporary Performance ......................................................... 68 Introduction ............................................................................................... 68 Schizophrenia: Definitions and Symptomatology, Correlations with Televisual Representation................................................... 70 Interpretations of Schizophrenic Experience .......................................... 79 vu Televisuality and Schizophreniform Experience in Contemporary Performance.............................................................................................. 84 Robert Wilson and Primitivistic Models of Schizophrenia ................... 85 Contemporary Performance and Schizophrenic Hyperconsciousness Section I: 1000 Airplanes on the Roof ........................................ 93 Contemporary Performance and Schizophrenic Hyperconsciousness Section II: The Medium ................................................................ 107 Schizophrenic Alienation and Media Isolation ........................................ 122 4. Apocalyptic Sensibilities in Contemporary Drama: Intersections with Schizophrenic Experience and Televisual Representation .................................. 129 Introduction ................................................................................................ 129 Apocalyptic and Millennialism: Definitions and Interpretations 132 Apocalyptic Resonances in Contemporary Drama Section I: Marisol .......................................................................