Fletcher's Dramatic Extremism
111 Chapter 6 Fletcher’s Dramatic Extremism Because the theatrical projection is fully and brilliantly achieved, Fletcherian tragi- comedy may be enjoyed today, once it is recognized for what it is, an extreme of dramatic formalism. (Waith 1952: 201) [Brunhalt.] [he] should be the actor Of my extremes (Thierry and Theodoret 2.1.14–15) As Chapter 2 has observed, Fletcherian drama operates with aspects that require a sensitive balance in the relation between the theatre and the idea. The plays cre- ate their own, peculiar worlds with sets of ad hoc conventions and rules that the plays’ fictional world is governed by. These conventions however do not directly represent conventions of the outer world; they intentionally enhance a certain clash between the onstage world and reality. The relation may be one of analogy, hyperbole (certain grotesqueness of representation), or even contrast and sarcas- tic subversion (such as the attempts on Lucina’s virginity in Valentinian). A technique that Fletcher frequently applies is a disparity between what the story is and what the stage shows; or more specifically, Fletcher often uses and stresses the margin between the dramatic person, or character (which is the resulting fictional mental image, the noetic ‘amalgam’ that arises in the spectator’s mind; Zich 1931: 52), and its associated stage figure, or acted figure (sometimes referred to as role; Zich 1931: 46).1 The stage action becomes a figurative code which both expresses the fictive happenings (the sphere of dramatic persons) and, at the same time, has its own, dramatic and theatrical habitat. This phenomenon has been 1 I am using an unpublished translation of Zich’s Aesthetic of the Dramatic Art, made by Samuel Kostomlatský, revised by Ivo Osolsobě, and ad hoc by me.
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