On Taking Liberty
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On Taking Liberty: The Role of Emotion in Creating a Mimetic Illusion Ingle Knight BA (Hons) This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Murdoch University I declare that this thesis is my own account of my research and contains as its main content work which has not previously been submitted for a degree that any territory education institution. 2 Abstract Stories need to be told in such a way that they build and sustain a narrative momentum. We tend to think of the story as the art, and the telling of it as the craft of storytelling. The Russian formalists referred to them as the fabula, the stuff of the story, and szujet, the composition of the plot. This thesis is mainly concerned with the szujet, the praxis of telling a story, in the medium of drama. The dramatic performance of a story elicits from an audience a response that has much in common with the way we normally relate with other people. The principle difference between these two situations is with their motivation. We deal with other people for reasons and with motives of our own whereas we deal with dramatic performances for reasons and motives modulated and framed by someone else. These ulterior motives and reasons are usually masked from the audience by the conflict presented to them at the outset of the performance. The conflict evokes an emotional response from the audience and in this way engages them with the unfolding of the performed narrative. The emotional experience of an audience watching a dramatic performance is designed by the dramatist through a complex variety of dramaturgical techniques and devices employed in the narration. As long as this emotional engagement is sustained the audience responds to it as if the reasons and motives of the engagement are their own, thus giving rise to a mimetic illusion of verisimilitude that defines the medium of dramatic performance. To understand the medium it is important to understand how the emotional response in the audience is established and maintained. This two-part thesis considers this question by presenting a specific example of how it was done by the play Taking Liberty. The first part of the thesis is the script for Taking Liberty which serves to demonstrate some of these dramaturgical techniques. The contextual component of the thesis 3 seeks to illuminate how the complex emotional response in audiences is established and maintained. This contextual component has three chapters. Chapter 1 describes some of the dramaturgical techniques used in Taking Liberty . Chapter 2 deals with the receptive activities triggered in an audience by the sort of dramaturgical devices described in Chapter 1 and the way that normal day to day methods of processing sensory data into information and "understanding" are recruited into narrative reception. Narrative reception requires psychic effort by an audience. The motivation for this effort is emotional. Chapter 3 examines contemporary approaches to the emotions and their relation to narrative. Each of drama's great variety of dramatic situations is invented to evoke particular emotional responses. The design of emotional experience, its changes of valence and intensity, is a vital aspect of composing dramatic texts and creating a mimetic illusion. 4 Contents Abstract 3 Part one: Taking Liberty Act One 8 Act Two 57 Part two: Composing Taking Liberty Introduction 110 1 A Dramaturgical Methodology 1) Plotting the material 126 2) Expositions 133 3) Time, predictability and the expectation horizon. 136 4) Aspects of character 1: dispositions. 146 5) Aspects of character 2: status and self-esteem 151 2 Cognition and Mimesis 1) Catharsis and its critics 157 2) The Storytelling Animal 166 3) Schemata, gaps and frames. 175 4) Mimesis 183 3 The Emotional Audience 1) "He's behind you!" - Fiction and empathy 197 2) Emotion as the feeling of a readiness to act 207 3) Desire, intention and the as-if-body-loop 211 4) Gestic music 218 5) Three kinds of emotional action 222 6) Mechanisms of self-deception 234 Conclusion 242 Bibliography 246 5 Acknowledgements: Many people have helped me along the way. My particular thanks for their assistance in writing this thesis go to my generous, diligent and long-suffering supervisors: Dr Josko Petkovic, Dr Jennifer De Reuck and my old friend, adviser and one-man cheer squad: Dr Garry Gillard 6 Taking Liberty (draft 7) Characters and casting for eight actors: 1 - John Bertrand 2 - Ben Lexcen 3 - Alan Bond 4 - Warren Jones Major Peter Costello Press 5 - Hugh Treharne RPYC Commodore 1 Baron Bich Ted Turner Press 6 - Newscaster Lex Bertrand Teacher RPYC Commodore 2 Press John Cuneo Vic Romagna Grant "Maddog" Simmer 7 - Therapist James Hardy "Ya" Smidmore An American judge 8 - The "Commodore" Bill Lucas Bob McCulloch John "Chink" Longley The play could be performed by six but eight actors is preferred. The set should be multipurpose, dominated in the centre by a 12 metre yacht, however that might be represented, with something corresponding to a helm with a steering wheel, two winches, a mast, a boom and various ropes and pulleys, such that the cast can approximate the activity of the crew during the race. Also a generic office and a couple of telephones. 7 Act One A blizzard of audio and visual media from the winning day: a nation celebrates its great victory. Amidst the sounds of cheering, clapping, crowds singing Waltzing Matilda and "Down Under" by Men at Work on the radio, come the voices of newsreaders and broadcasters: "Australia has won the America's Cup!" Etc. Lights come up on John Bertrand centrestage, on a platform from which he will deliver a motivational talk based on his book, Born to Win. JOHN -- Good evening. I'm John Bertrand. Applause and cheers. JOHN -- Thank you. Thanks. As you know, I'm the man who skippered the boat that won the America's Cup. Applause and cheers. JOHN -- Thanks. If any of you can still afford it after paying for your tickets, my book's on sale in the foyer. It tells the story in glorious detail. But you're not here to buy a book. You want to know what it takes to win - against impossible odds. Alan Bond once told me once that trying to win the America's Cup was like climbing a mountain that is never been climbed before. But it was much harder than that. It was more like catching a rare butterfly. A big white butterfly. And then taming it. And riding it. That is what it felt like at the helm of Australia II . That amazing sailing machine was created by my good mate Ben Lexcen. Ben enters, looking a little lost. JOHN -- As you know Ben passed away a while ago. At the funeral I found myself wondering... what would Ben say to… whoever it is that meets us at that last port of call… 8 Ben looks at the audience. BEN -- Is this it then, the last drop of the anchor? JOHN -- ...how would he explain…? BEN -- I'm done? JOHN -- ... what he did? BEN – Oh, I …well, I designed the boat that won the America's Cup. JOHN -- ... And why he did it? BEN – Beats me. JOHN – And you probably heard about another old mate of mine…. We hear the loud slam of a dungeon door resonating away into distant echo and lights come up on Alan Bond. JOHN -- ... I can well imagine what he’d say. ALAN – I'm Pissed Off! BEN – I’m not sure why. ALAN -- I’m not saying I shouldn’t be here. If they see fit to put me in jail for losing shareholders' money so be it. BEN – I don’t think I had a choice. ALAN -- That is not what I'm pissed off about. I’m talking about my medal! JOHN -- When something like that happens,… ALAN -- My Order of Australia. For winning the America's Cup. JOHN --... You can't help wondering... 9 BEN – It is what I was born to do. ALAN -- They took it back! JOHN --... Was it worth it? BEN – It nearly killed me. ALAN -- As if it never happened. JOHN – But it was. ALAN - But it did. JOHN -- I know it was worth it. ALAN -- I won it! JOHN -- But how to explain … ALAN -- I had what it takes. JOHN -- The will... ALAN -- The will. BEN -- How do I start? JOHN -- The drive.... ALAN - The drive. JOHN --... where it comes from... ALAN -- You have to believe in yourself. JOHN -- ... the need… ALAN -- I always had that. A cockney teacher shouts. TEACHER -- Oy! Alan Bond! You come back here, you little brat! 10 BEN – Well,… ALAN -- (a sly child ) You won't catch me! BEN -- I took my first breath in a bush camp near Boggabri, JOHN -- For me it begins… ALAN -- I'm going to Australia! BEN -- next to the Condamine River. JOHN -- with a toy boat... ALAN -- And I'm going to be rich. JOHN -- in the shallows of Port Phillip Bay... BEN -- Once, when the river was flooding,... We hear Frank Miller's voice. FRANK -- Hold on Bob. BEN -- ... my dad tried to carry me across... (remembering ) I'm holding on dad. FRANK -- Hold on tighter, son. The current's getting stronger. BEN -- I'm trying dad... FRANK -- Tighter, Bob, tighter son! BEN -- I can't! FRANK -- Bob!! BEN -- Sorry dad…! And off I went, splish splash! Swept away down the mighty Condamine. ALAN -- I hated it when I got here. 11 JOHN -- \ BEN -- / The water felt like a cradle. ALAN -- The heat, the flies… BEN -- They found me on /the sand… ALAN -- …/the sand.