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Copyright by Ryan James Swankie 2018 The Dissertation Committee for Ryan James Swankie Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation: Aesthetic Activism: The Poetics of Stage Direction in the Theaters of Apollinaire, Artaud, and Genet Committee: Alexandra Wettlaufer, Supervisor Hervé Picherit Jean-Pierre Cauvin David Kornhaber Aesthetic Activism: The Poetics of Stage Direction in the Theaters of Apollinaire, Artaud, and Genet by Ryan James Swankie Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2018 Dedication For Donatien-Alphonse-François de Sade, who taught me that reading and writing are the lights in the dark. I did it for DAF. They stage the text as fields of action, who through activist reverie offer their work as a commodity. Yet there’s purpose to the delivery! Politics provoke poetic measures to expose systems of despotism that regulate distributing pleasures. The reader : I am the trick. (who after voting with the text feels sick) Shame on these italics! complicit evil! (returns home after infected) poisoned with the truth; power is only a theater of authority to mask the materiality of our powerlessness before death. RJS Austin '18 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my committee for their guidance and support during the dissertation process. I look forward to communicating with them further as I continue to grow aesthetic activism through research and publications. I would also like to thank the Department of French and Italian at UT for all the wonderful opportunities. Teaching amazing students, working abroad in Paris and Lyon, directing plays, and being able to live in the beautifully weird community of Austin; these opportunities of a lifetime not only helped mold the project, but they made the whole experience amazing and fun! In addition to my committee members, I am grateful to Ashley Voeks who inspired me to bring an element of activism to the dissertation. She opened my eyes to see the importance of activism in our current society. There are many forms of activism, and theater, both performative and textual, can disrupt power and express protest. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their support over the years. v Abstract Aesthetic Activism: The Poetics of Stage Direction in the Theaters of Apollinaire, Artaud, and Genet Ryan James Swankie, Ph.D The University of Texas at Austin, 2018 Supervisor: Alexandra Wettlaufer This dissertation explores textual stage directions (didascalie) in selected works of twentieth-century French drama, specifically, Guillaume Apollinaire's Les Mamelles de Tirésias (1917), Antonin Artaud's Les Cenci (1935), and Jean Genet's Le Balcon (1956). With close readings framed by current scholarship, I determine how theatrical properties of sound, appearance and gesture work to create dynamics between the modes of stage direction and performed dialogue. I argue that the authors' stage directions establish a poetics that undermine discourses of power voiced by characters who are figures of authority: hero, husband, father, judge, etc. The poetics of stage direction in these dramas are purposeful to challenge traditional power structures, provoke sociopolitical commentary, and transform a community. I define their poetic systems within the dramas as 'aesthetic activism,' that is the disruption of traditional forms of representation as a means of sociopolitical expression. vi I evaluate the textual dynamics between didascalic and dialogic modes, that results in the disruption of representation, alongside Jacques Rancière's concepts of 'mute speech' and 'aesthetic regime.' In doing so, I determine how the innovation of a 'mute but not silent' stage direction poetics work with discourses of power related to contemporary social contexts. Through manipulating the communicative system of stage direction--that seeks articulation between playwright and reader concerning material conditions and didactic commands--each author creates a space of interaction through work. This is purposeful to challenge the reader and make them question how power functions within the drama, as well as outside the text, off the stage, and in the real world. Aesthetic activism, as a theoretical approach to artistic forms, offers a multidisciplinary payoff for studies in aesthetics, literature, history, and activism. Moreover, mute speech poetics, like those of stage direction, offer contemporary directors, poets, scholars, and performers alternative approaches to social commentary within and around textual and discursive modes. vii Table of Contents Introduction: Defining Aesthetics, Poetics, and Didascalie ................................................ 1 Didascalie as a mode of Mute Speech ...................................................................... 11 Organization and Chapters ....................................................................................... 21 Chapter 1: The Poetics of Props in Apollinaire's Les Mamelles de Tirésias .................... 26 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 26 The Esprit Nouveau and the Drame-surréaliste ....................................................... 30 Cocteau's Parade and L'Esprit nouveau et les poètes ................................... 31 La préface and le drame surréaliste .............................................................. 34 Prologue, la scène unique ............................................................................. 36 Aesthetico-political poetics .......................................................................... 38 Reading Apollinaire's Poetics of Props .................................................................... 40 Thérèse's transition ....................................................................................... 44 The Husband's transition .............................................................................. 53 The completion of Thérèse ........................................................................... 58 Changes to the interior change the exterior .................................................. 61 The Transition of Aesthetics .................................................................................... 63 Emptying form of content: A modernist prop .............................................. 65 La femme nouvelle and l'esprit nouveau ...................................................... 71 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 74 Chapter 2: Artaud's Poetics of Cruelty ............................................................................. 76 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 76 Trauma, Awakening, and the Poetics of cruelty ...................................................... 82 viii Reading the Poetics of Cruelty in Jet de Sang ......................................................... 90 Reading the Poetics of Cruelty in Les Cenci ............................................................ 96 Act 1 Scene 3, Creating Menace ................................................................ 100 Act 2 Scene 1, The traumatized witness ..................................................... 111 Act 3 Scene 1, After the rape ..................................................................... 118 Act 3 Scene 2, A failed assassination ......................................................... 121 Act 4 Scene 1, The activism of the mute assassins .................................... 124 Incest and Cruelty ................................................................................................... 131 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 136 Chapter 3: The Poetics of Difference in Genet's Le Balcon ........................................... 138 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 138 Defining Difference in Genet's Political Theater ................................................... 143 Reading the Poetics of Difference .......................................................................... 152 The Appearance of Didascalic Reality ....................................................... 152 The Sound of Difference ............................................................................ 162 The Poetics of Bodily Gesture .................................................................... 170 Staging Sade ........................................................................................................... 176 Plural judges, same injustice, and a parody for protest .............................. 182 Putanisme ................................................................................................... 187 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 191 Conclusion: Aesthetic Activism as a Theoretical Approach ........................................... 194 Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 204 ix Introduction One could argue that stage direction