Beyond Character a Post/Humanist Approach to Modern Theatre Louise Emma Lepage Royal Holloway College, University of London
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Beyond Character A Post/Humanist Approach to Modern Theatre Louise Emma LePage Royal Holloway College, University of London Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2012 1 Declaration of Authorship I, Louise Emma LePage, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: Louise LePage Date: 19th December 2011 2 Abstract Beyond Character: A Post/Humanist Approach to Modern Theatre The thesis explores what it means to be human; specifically, what characters in drama and theatre reveal about what it means to be human. It also explores what it means to talk about dramatic character; specifically, what the human’s various forms reveal about dramatic character and how such forms interact with critical approaches to character. The thesis, thus, has a dual focus but the human and dramatic character are, in the context of my project, importantly, entwined and mutually enlightening. One of the aims of this thesis is to rehabilitate dramatic character. In doing so, it works to rehabilitate humanist subjectivity, too, albeit of a sort that is modified by hybrid structures of being and identity which are informed by posthumanist discourse. Such a structure, I argue, enables humans to be conceived simultaneously as creators and creations. I name this structure post/humanist. The first three chapters consist of theoretically engaged discussions which present the post/humanist framework underpinning this thesis’s arguments for identity, subjectivity, and modern dramatic character. Chapter One claims it is a mistake to view the modern human being in exclusively liberal humanist terms and employs Donna Haraway’s cyborg to reveal and argue for its indeterminate post/humanist form. Chapter Two makes the case for this thesis’s alternative post/humanist account of modern subjectivity by revealing that the representation of liberal humanist subjectivity as the orthodox form of the modern period may have been overstated. Chapter Three argues for a post/humanist method of analysing dramatic character that conceives it as a structure of natural and cultural parts. Chapters Four, Five, and Six present case studies of the characters of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (circa 1599-1601), August Strindberg’s Miss Julie (1888), and Sarah Kane’s Blasted (1995). Focusing in these three different versions of modern dramatic characters, detailed analyses reveal forms and identities in process in a world – dramatic and real – that forms character and is, in turn, also formed by character. 3 Table of Contents Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………. ... 6 Introduction: What Makes a Human?............................................................... 7 What Makes a Human?........................................................................................... 7 A Post/Humanist Approach to Dramatic Character……………………………… 8 Frankenstein and the Creature: Which the Monster, Which the Human?.............. 11 The Problem of Finding an Approach for the Study of Dramatic Character…….. 14 Narratives that Create Worlds: The Coupling of Fact and Fiction, Literature and Science, Nature and Culture…………………………………………. 23 Apocalyptic Narratives and the Posthuman……………………………………… 27 ‘The Death of Character’………………………………………………………… 33 The Study of Dramatic Character: A Post/Humanist Approach…………………. 36 The Focus and Scope of this Thesis…………………………………………….... 40 A Note on Terminology………………………………………………………….. 44 Outline…………………………………………………………………………..... 45 1. The Human and the Cyborg: A History of Border Play.………………….. 48 1.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………... 48 1.2 Introduction to Donna Haraway’s ‘Cyborg’…………………………………. 52 1.3 Cyborg Origins……………………..………………………………………... 56 1.4 The Human-Animal Boundary………………………………………………. 57 1.5 The Human-Machine Boundary…….……………………………………….. 59 1.6 The Physical-Nonphysical Boundary: Technology and the Re-Emergence of Mind…………………………………………………………….. 67 1.7 An Emergentist Model of Mind: The Possibility of Indeterminacy in a Physical Universe………………...…………………………… 72 2. The Subject(s) of Humanism………………………...……………………… 78 2.1 The Concerns of the Chapter………………………………………………… 78 2.2 Some Posthumanist Views of Humanism..………………………………….. 81 2.3 A Post/Humanist Tale of Subjectivity……………………………………….. 87 2.3.1 The Liberal Humanist Subject: An Historical Product…………….. 87 2.3.2 The Early Modern Humanist: A Hybrid and Indeterminate Individual…………………………………………………………. 95 3. Beyond Character……………………………………………………………. 101 3.1 An Argument for Character………………………………………………….. 101 3.1.1 The Problem with Character……………………………………….. 101 3.1.2 What is Character?............................................................................. 102 3.1.3 ‘The Death of Character’: A Problematic Tale…………………….. 105 3.1.4 Putting Character Back into Drama: The Importance of Subjective Being and the Role of the Imagination………………… 111 3.2 Modern Dramatic Character…………………………………………………. 118 3.2.1 The Search for Hamlet and the Rise of Modern Dramatic Character…………………………………………………………... 118 3.2.2 A Very Modern Hamlet: Problems of ‘The Gap Technique’……... 124 3.3 New Character Criticism…………………………………………………….. 131 4 3.3.1 A Post/humanist Approach to Character…………………………… 135 4. Post/humanist Hamlet: A Protean Performer……………………………... 140 4.1 Hamlet: A Protean Actor…………………………………………………….. 140 4.2 The Protean Character of ‘Man’……………………………………………... 144 4.3 David Tennant is Hamlet: A Post/Humanist Interpretation of Actor and Character…………………………………………………………….. 147 4.4 Human Borders and Hamlet’s Ghost………………………………………… 153 4.5 ‘What a piece of work is a man’……………………………………………... 154 4.6 Nature and its Mirror………………………………………………………… 158 5. A Question of Human Character: August Strindberg’s Natural Actors…. 167 5.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………... 167 5.2 Casting Modern Character in a Physical Universe: A Clash of Perspectives... 168 5.3 Strindberg’s Human Character: More than an Automaton, More than an Animal?....................................................................................................... 174 5.4 Strindberg’s Scale of Humanness……………………………………………. 176 5.5 Miss Julie: Breaching the Borders of ‘The Human’…………………………. 179 5.6 Self-Navigating Cyborgs: Strindberg’s Characterless Characters…………… 183 5.7 ‘Theatricality and Authenticity’: Strindberg’s Natural Actors………………. 186 6. Sarah Kane’s Dramatic Worlds: Moving Beyond Character……………... 192 6.1 Sarah Kane’s Characters: The Story So Far………………………………….. 192 6.2 Some Problems with the Story of the Death of Kane’s Characters…………... 195 6.3 The Importance of Borders…………………………………………………… 199 6.4 The Politics of Storytelling and of Character………………………………… 201 6.5 ‘Posthumanist Identities in Sarah Kane’……………………………………… 205 6.6. Blasted’s Ian and Cate: Never Really Naturalist Characters………………… 209 6.7 Kane’s Human Characters……………………………………………………. 211 6.8 Kane’s Characters: Underneath It All, Just Animals?....................................... 213 6.9 Metaphysics and Hope in Kane’s Creation of Character and Place………….. 216 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….. 225 ‘What makes a human?’………………………………………………………….. 225 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………….. 233 5 Acknowledgements Thanks go to… The Drama and Theatre Department at Royal Holloway for my Studentship and the ongoing support its members of staff have shown me. (Especial thanks go to Chris Megson, Lynette Goddard, and Sophie Nield.) I think it is pretty much the most wonderful Drama department on the planet. David Barnett who was my MA supervisor, the individual who said I could do this thing called a PhD. Adam Alston, Sofia Apospori, Laura Higgins, Marissia Fragou, Marie Kelly, Daniel O’Gorman, Emer O’Toole, Billy Smart, and Jesse Weaver, who I am fortunate to count as friends and peers and who gave so generously of their time, energy, and expertise in reading and responding to sections of my work. Without their critical insights my chapters would not be in the shape they are in. Thanks, too, to my Mum for her proof reading prowess. The wonderful Gilli Bush-Bailey, my advisor, whose interest, encouragement, and criticism has been unstinting and inspiring. The superhuman Dan Rebellato (I am going to buy you a cape), without whom this PhD thesis, quite simply, would not exist. Thank you, Dan, for sticking with me even when I was totally clueless; thank you for endlessly prodding me with your critical questions, which pushed me (sometimes kicking and screaming) to research better, write better, and question better; and thank you, finally, for all the myriad additional ways you have supported me through my PhD career (facilitating my teaching, being my emotional counsellor, delivering keynotes - organising keynotes!, giving incredibly short-notice feedback, and being an all-round fabulous person). Finally, there is my family to thank. In getting to do exactly what I love for the last five years, Todd, my long suffering husband, has put up with being poor and over-stretched; Lucien, my son, has lately come to have a virtually absent mother; and Mum and Dad have a mortgage they didn’t have before and a grandson who has recently become more or less resident at their house. Each of you has made this PhD possible for me. I do not know where or how I can possibly start to thank you; words are inadequate. I don’t just think I am the luckiest daughter and wife in the world; I know it. All I can hope is that I have made you proud. I have done it; we have done it: Dr. Louise LePage! (Well, pending that