Output details
35 - Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts
Manchester Metropolitan University
Three Sisters - touring production
This research interrogates and foregrounds several of the dualities inherent in dramatic theatre, relating to both scenography and performance, via a deconstructed theatrical presentation of Chekhov’s play. Working closely to Elinor Fuchs's assertions on the re-emergence of theatrical writing from behind character and spontaneous speech, Susan Kemp’s ideas around reading as performance and Stanton B Garner’s engagement with the perceptual instabilities identifiable in live theatre, and particularly in any performance predicated on failing semiosis, the project ultimately questions whether the presentation of a dramatic text via live theatrical performance might in effect constitute a complex discursive encounter.
This work constitutes a cross-fertilization of large areas of theatrical practice, given the lack of the practical interrogation of this area in the wide-spread engagement with classic dramatic text, and the rejection of dramatic text by much ‘performance theatre’. It also contributes to ongoing debates about the function of deconstructive approaches within live theatre, and extends the impact and potential of dramatic form and text in its relationship to the post-dramatic. Other international contemporary practitioners do re-address classic texts in performance (The Wooster Group (US), TG STAN (BE), Factory Theatre (UK)), but they don’t address the specific question here.
The resultant performance piece, Three Sisters, has been presented at three university theatres and two public arts centres in the UK so far. Additional performances, both national and international, are currently being planned for the next 12 months, following the award of a grant by Arts Council England, in addition to its distribution in DVD format, its articulation in Performing Narrative edited by Jane Turner and David Shirley (2013) and the online presence of video, stills and text based documentation accessible via the website and social media.
