Abstract:In recent years, the concept of dramaturgy has been expanded to include a wide range of new fields that rarely concern the analysis of the drama text itself, but rather the facilitation of creative processes. This article investigates dramaturgy as an analytical practice. The article provides an analytical, historical investigation of methodological approaches to drama analysis. The aim is to examine how drama analysis came to be regarded as a literary discipline that rarely considers aspects of performance an… Show more
“…We take our point of departure in the contention that playwrighting aims at performance, including an implied spatial, material context and an embodied presence of actors, conditioned by specific, historical performance practices (Kallenbach & Kuhlmann, 2018), and that playwrighting is aimed at a group of implicit, equally present spectators, who react with their bodies and minds during the performance (Kallenbach, 2016, 2018). We thus follow theatre scholar Josette Féral's definition of theatricality as:the result of a perceptual dynamics linking the onlooker with someone or something that is looked at.…”
Section: The Drama As Text: the Body In The Textmentioning
Digital studies of drama have tended to emphasise the written text and network analyses. As theatre scholars, we have approached the field from a different perspective by focusing on levels of presence. This includes the embodied presence of not only the speaking characters, but also the non‐speaking characters and the imagined characters mentioned by characters present on stage. This in turn includes another embodied presence, namely that of the audience, which actively engages with the text in performance and gives presence to these imagined characters. We also emphasise the implicit performance, the spatiality of the play and the maintenance of the temporal dramaturgical structure. The study is based on the 37 plays of the Danish‐Norwegian playwright Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754), published during the period 1723–1754. Holberg's comedies were heavily influenced by Italian commedia dell'arte and stock characters, or masks, were central to his plays. In this article, we discuss the question of how we can analyse levels of presence in drama texts via digital drama analysis, both from a historical and dramaturgical point of view. Our article points to a number of potentials as well as shortcomings of digital drama analysis and to the necessary synergy of close and distant reading.
“…We take our point of departure in the contention that playwrighting aims at performance, including an implied spatial, material context and an embodied presence of actors, conditioned by specific, historical performance practices (Kallenbach & Kuhlmann, 2018), and that playwrighting is aimed at a group of implicit, equally present spectators, who react with their bodies and minds during the performance (Kallenbach, 2016, 2018). We thus follow theatre scholar Josette Féral's definition of theatricality as:the result of a perceptual dynamics linking the onlooker with someone or something that is looked at.…”
Section: The Drama As Text: the Body In The Textmentioning
Digital studies of drama have tended to emphasise the written text and network analyses. As theatre scholars, we have approached the field from a different perspective by focusing on levels of presence. This includes the embodied presence of not only the speaking characters, but also the non‐speaking characters and the imagined characters mentioned by characters present on stage. This in turn includes another embodied presence, namely that of the audience, which actively engages with the text in performance and gives presence to these imagined characters. We also emphasise the implicit performance, the spatiality of the play and the maintenance of the temporal dramaturgical structure. The study is based on the 37 plays of the Danish‐Norwegian playwright Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754), published during the period 1723–1754. Holberg's comedies were heavily influenced by Italian commedia dell'arte and stock characters, or masks, were central to his plays. In this article, we discuss the question of how we can analyse levels of presence in drama texts via digital drama analysis, both from a historical and dramaturgical point of view. Our article points to a number of potentials as well as shortcomings of digital drama analysis and to the necessary synergy of close and distant reading.
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