Staging Stasis, Repetition and Duration in the Theatre

University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 1954-2016 University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 2015 Entanglements with Time: Staging Stasis, Repetition and Duration in the Theatre Deborah Pollard University of Wollongong Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses University of Wollongong Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorise you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this work may be reproduced by any process, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the permission of the author. Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. A reproduction of material that is protected by copyright may be a copyright infringement. A court may impose penalties and award damages in relation to offences and infringements relating to copyright material. Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form. Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong. Recommended Citation Pollard, Deborah, Entanglements with Time: Staging Stasis, Repetition and Duration in the Theatre, Doctor of Philosophy thesis, School of the Arts, English and Media, University of Wollongong, 2015. https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/4933 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] Entanglements with Time: Staging Stasis, Repetition and Duration in the Theatre A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of the degree Doctor of Philosophy from University of Wollongong By Deborah Pollard (BCA, UOW, 1989) School of The Arts, English and Media 2015 ii Thesis Certification I, Deborah Pollard, declare that this thesis, submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy (Creative Practice), in the Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts, University of Wollongong, is wholly my own work unless otherwise referenced or acknowledged. This document has not been submitted for qualification at any other academic institution. Deborah Pollard October 30 2015 iii Acknowledgements The journey I have undertaken while doing this thesis has been long and transformative and there are many people who have guided me, supported me, and encouraged me to keep going. I would like to thank the following: my ever patient and encouraging supervisor Margaret Hamilton, who has opened so many new avenues of thinking for me to pursue in the future; Sarah Miller for her early supervision and particularly for her assistance in the realisation of Yowza Yowza Yowza; Ashley, Dara, Carly and Jackson my intrepid collaborators; to all my friends who continue to inspire me; John Stockler for his continued belief that I would make it to the end, and to my family who have cheered me on from the far flung fields of Canberra. iv Table of Contents Abstract ix Chapter 1. The field of temporal aesthetics in theatre: an introduction 1 A fascination with time 1 Time, mimesis and theatre 5 Time as an aesthetic and dramaturgical strategy 12 Time back in the spot light 17 Time, theatre and mediatisation 22 Interrupting presence 24 A shift in the notion of politics in theatre 26 A practical exploration of time 27 A dramaturgical and theoretical approach to methodology 32 Anecdotes and chapter outlines 37 Anecdote #1 40 Chapter 2. An unsurveyable duration: Forced Entertainment’s And on the Thousandth Night… 44 Theatre as an act of rebellion 47 The new naturalism 51 Shaping an audience response through temporal composition 57 The reception aesthetics of duration and repetition 67 The spirit of the times in which we now live 70 Anecdote #2 74 v Chapter 3. Staging sleep and exhaustion in an era of Accelerated living 78 Part 1. Sleep 82 Anecdote #3 108 Part 2. Exhaustion (Yowza Yowza Yowza) 114 Anecdote #4 136 Chapter 4. The experience of time structured through space: staging the stasis of grief 139 The role of stasis in the radical practices of turn of the century dramatists 144 Stein’s proposition 146 Landscape aesthetics 148 Shaping the experience of time through space 152 Landscape reception 153 The potential of the static moment within an era of mediatisation 157 The time tabling of grief 161 Anecdote #5 164 Chapter 5. Site specificity, logos and time: Back to Back’s unique approach to representing disability 166 Back to Back theatre’s ‘staging’ of a dramatic play 171 The temporal aesthetics of site specificity 173 vi Forging new understandings of performance material through the traditions of text in theatre 175 Back to Back’s city landscape stage 176 The static time of ‘the Other’ 183 Conclusion 193 The current environment in which we make art 199 Future research 202 Bibliography 205 Appendices 223 vii List of Figures Figure 1. Post Card, Mendut, Indonesia, 1996. Image courtesy of the artist. Figure 2. Shapes of Sleep, Theatreworks, Singapore, 2008. Photography by Vivien Lee. Image courtesy of the artist. Figure 3. Detail of video stills of the ‘sleeping task’ video. Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 2003. Image courtesy of the artist. Figure 4. Shapes of Sleep, featuring Monica Wulff, performance space, Sydney, 2003. Image courtesy of the artist. Figure 5. Detail of ‘rules of the marathon’, video still, 2014, Sydney. Image courtesy of the artist. Figure 6. Yowza Yowza Yowza still from webcast featuring Jackson Davis and Carly Young, 2014, Wollongong, NSW. Image courtesy of the artist. Figure 7. Yowza Yowza Yowza still from webcast featuring Jackson Davis and Carly Young, 2014, Wollongong, NSW. Image courtesy of the artist. Figure 8. Yowza Yowza Yowza still from webcast featuring Jackson Davis and Carly Young in the final moments of the performance, 2014, Wollongong, NSW. Image courtesy of the artist. Figure 9. Still of twitter feed for Yowza Yowza Yowza, 2014, Sydney. Image courtesy of the artist. Figure 10. Screen shot taken of the website page during the performance, featuring the live feed. Figure 11. Blue Print, featuring Deborah Pollard in front running through the chalk floor plan, 2007, Performance Space, Carriageworks Sydney. Photography Heidrun Löhr. viii Figure 12. Blue Print, featuring Daniel Fenech dancing as the fireman to Led Zepplin, 2007, Performance Space, Carriageworks Sydney. Photography Heidrun Löhr. ix Abstract Entanglements with time: staging stasis, repetition and duration in the theatre examines the historic and contemporary function of time as a compositional tool in the theatre medium in order to further the conceptualisation of developments in performance practice that counter and reflect upon the underlying temporal dynamics of mediatisation. The project is informed by my extensive history of practice as a theatre maker and proposes the term time-based dramaturgy in its analysis of work by Forced Entertainment, Back to Back Theatre, practitioner case studies, and the development of a twenty-four hour performance, Yowza Yowza Yowza. It asks: What is the aesthetic and political significance of compositional temporal strategies based on duration, repetition and stasis to the theatre medium in an era defined by accelerated perceptions of time? The thesis argues that time-based aesthetics and specifically duration, repetition and stasis directly counter two dominant perceptions of time: firstly the developmental time of drama and its adoption within mediatised technology, specifically television and film, and secondly the acceleration of time as defined by mediatisation that renders information immediate and the pace at which life is now lived as one of increasing exhaustion and economic and social exclusion. As a result the thesis deploys foundational drama and theatre theory; Lehmann (2006), Halliwell (1987, 1998), Weber (2004), Szondi (1983) and Benjamin (1939), seminal nineteenth- and twentieth-century dramatists including Zola, Strindberg, Maeterlinck and Stein and recent theoretical developments; Lehmann (2006, 1997a), Fuchs (1996, 2007) Kattenbelt (2007), Boenisch (2009) and Ridout (2009) in order to re- think how forms of theatre engage with historic modes of x performance and the notion of collective ‘liveness’ that has defined the medium. Entanglements with time seeks to advance recent theoretical conceptions of a shift in time as a representational tool to a central aesthetic concern of the theatre medium (Lehmann 2006, 1997b) and provide insight into the temporal strategies that underpin the practitioner’s work and that of other contemporary practitioners in the field. It does this firstly, by interrogating examples of contemporary performance that exemplify time-based compositions informed by the dramatic framework and secondly, by examining the artistic processes deployed in the creation of three works, including a performance that directly engages with the theoretical proposition of time-based dramaturgy as well as offering invaluable insights on future possibilities of time-based applications. In doing so, the thesis sets out to address a gap in scholarship on contemporary Australian performance and offers the perspective of artist-observer in its analysis of the compositional strategies intrinsic to the development of forms of theatre. 1 Chapter 1. The field of temporal aesthetics in theatre: an introduction A fascination with time Outside of me, in space, there is never more than a single position of the hand and the pendulum, for nothing is left of the past positions. Within myself a process of organization or interpenetration of conscious states is going on, which constitutes true duration. (Bergson, 2001: 108) ‘Time’ as a thesis is complicated and fascinating.

Load more