250 pages

English

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Intellect Books - James Macdonald

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250 pages

English

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Description

Carnival Texts comprises three related dramatic works, all of which have as their point of departure Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of carnival, a literary style designed to subvert dominant assumptions through chaos and humour. Making creative use of post-Brechtian performance theory, these texts blur the distinction between spectator and performer in a fascinating exploration of physical, moral and cultural upheaval in a postmodern age. Performance theory is crucial to understanding how performance affects collective understanding, and this book will be of interest to a broad range of students of drama and theatre.

Preface

PART ONE: TEXTS

Strangers to Paradise

Brides, Bombs and Boardrooms

Fete

PART TWO: ESSAYS

Fear into Laughter – James MacDonald

Bodies in Pain: Realism and the Subversion of Spectacle in Brides, Bombs and Boardrooms – John Lutz

Blowing Up the Nation: Vulnerability and Violence in James MacDonald's Post-national England – Jessica O'Hara

Sujets

Arts visuels

Théâtre

ART

General

General officer

Sociology

History of art

Theatre

Performing Arts

Informations

Publié par	Intellect Books
Date de parution	27 mai 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781841505008
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	4 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0005€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Carnival Texts

To Martin Harvey – who brought my best work to life

Carnival Texts

Three plays for ensemble performance

James MacDonald

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First published in the UK in 2011 by
Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK

First published in the USA in 2011 by
Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street,
Chicago, IL 60637, USA

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without written permission.

Series: Playtext Series
Series Editor: Roberta Mock

A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library.

Cover designer: Holly Rose
Copy-editor: Macmillan
Typesetting: Mac Style, Beverley, E. Yorkshire

ISBN 978-1-84150-416-2 / EISBN 978-1-84150-500-8

Printed and bound by Gutenberg Press, Malta.

Contents

Preface

PART ONE: TEXTS

Strangers To Paradise
Brides, Bombs and Boardrooms
Fete

PART TWO: ESSAYS

Fear into Laughter
James MacDonald

Bodies in Pain: Realism and the Subversion of Spectacle in Brides,Bombs and
Boardrooms
John Lutz

Blowing Up the Nation: Vulnerability and Violence in James MacDonald’s
Post-national England
Jessica O’Hara

Notes on Contributors

13
77
145

217

219

227

239

247

Preface

arnival Textstakes its eponymous lead from the work of the Soviet critic Mikhail
rootCed in medieval culture in applying it to such diverse authors as Rabelais, Shakespeare
Bakhtin (1895–1975), speciically his theory of Carnival. his is very much a
contemporary appropriation, but then Bakhtin himself carries forward a concept
and Dostoevsky. he intersection of various texts from diferent cultures and eras is the
subject of the companion essays, but it may be helpful to introduce the topic here. Carnival,
in the Bakhtinian sense, has essentially to do with spectacle, and it seems altogether itting
that it should occupy a place in current performance theory. hese performance texts began
life, in fact, as part of an undergraduate module in Interpretive Acting at the University of
Exeter’s drama department, and Bakhtin already formed part of the curriculum. A more
formal inquiry into Carnival seemed a natural progression from what the students were
studying by way of Stanislavsky and Brecht and what came to be known as Political heatre
and Ensemble Acting. Broadly speaking, this has involved a larger than average group of
performers presenting a scripted piece whose theme partook of contemporary issues and
whose style involved addressing the audience directly.
One of the basic tenets of Bakhtin’s Carnivalesque is the slippery relationship between
spectator and spectacle, and this was key to our productions as well by treating the audience
as an additional character through the removal of the fourth wall. Carnival also posits a
reversal in the established order by having the disenfranchised celebrated as aristocracy.
Our latter day appropriation rendered this as a celebration of physical deformity and ethnic
diversity in the free play of characters who are laws unto themselves. It was not so much a
case of ofending the audience as of disorientating them with unfamiliar characters who
behave in ways that even miscreant nationals are unaccustomed to doing.
In the introduction toRussia, Freaks and Foreigners– my earlier volume of performance
texts for Intellect – I speak of writing about non-British characters in foreign contexts, a
number of whom are also severely deformed. his present volume develops these elements
by presenting non-British characters in a British setting and several British characters
who are severely deformed. he idea is to create a world of the Carnivalesque in which the
unfamiliar is featured as standard. his may well be interpreted by some as postmodern and
as a dystopia, and they are welcome to their views. My own view, for all that it is worth, is

Carnival Texts

that this special meaning of Carnival empowers both spectator and performer and celebrates
what in more familiar contexts would be shunned as grotesque to the point of repulsive. Our
aim was not so much to suspend judgement as to invite engagement with the unfamiliar
through Carnivalesque celebration and, if possible, laughter.
In the case ofStrangers To Paradise– the signal text, performed out-of-doors, in a carnival
setting – spectator response was ideally receptive. People were especially responsive to the
forthright presentation of deformity, laughing in a way I had never known them to do.
he aim was similar to the aim of disabled stand-up comedians like Liz Carr and Laurence
Clark, who invite their audiences to laugh at the interaction between the disabled and the
ordinary public – without depicting the one as saintly victims or the other as inhuman
villains. he humour was simply in the juxtaposition of the strange and the less strange.
Judgement might be withheld through the inability to categorize – a welcome element of
all artistic expression. But certainly the spectators’ predilection to laugh in the presence of
physical deformity was cause for Carnivalesque celebration. his is the governing feature of
all three texts, as it was of their productions.
hese texts could be marketed as disability plays, since I am congenitally disabled
and these partake directly of my disabled experience. But the term ‘disability’ suggests a
relaxing of standards and a special-interest audience, and, in this sense, I would no more
wish to be a ‘disability’ playwright than Tennessee Williams is a ‘gay’ playwright. He used
his unique experience to comment on the general human condition; that’s how I’d like to
use mine. he demarcations aren’t always clear, though. he incidence of discrimination
and interaction with the police is very much based on personal experience. he director/
module leader encouraged me to be as open as I dared about my experience. To illustrate
how this translates into dramatic action, I was once targeted by a young cerebral palsy
woman for money. If the transaction had been allowed to take place, I’d have given her
everything I had on me except for the fare home. But someone who knew her caught sight
of us and intervened: ‘Is this guy bothering you, Kate?’ And he proceeded to knock me
over and ‘rescue’ the woman. he normal response would be to tell the man I was trying to
help the woman. But would an able-bodied person even have been stopped? I don’t want
to come across as a victim, but my point is that this is an experience that only a disabled
person would know, and in these plays I’m using that uniqueness to comment on the
human condition.
Chronic disability revises everything one knows about the status quo: how one receives
and bestows love, the sources of income one has, literally, how one moves and interacts with
the world as a whole. Some day there is going to be a movement where disabled experience
takes its place alongside ethnic, gender and orientational representations of the status quo.
he presence will be greater than mine, the statements will be full and clear. I’m content that
I’ve gone as far as people in my circumstance can go right now. But I’m also aware that these
people need to go farther. It’s probably utopian to wish for a removal of diference. But the
easiest recognition of diferenceispossible, and this is why the Carnivalesque is so attractive
to me and why it is central to these plays.

Preface

he realization of the productions, like the coming to pass of this volume, was
quintessentially a collaborative achievement and needs to be acknowledged as such. his was
all the more vital for the death of my father, which coincided with the production ofBrides,
Bombs and Boardrooms.Withstanding their own real needs to make a success of the project,
the performers embodied compassion and sensitivity to a degree that my father would have
cherished. All three groups paid me the ultimate tribute of claiming ownership of the texts
and giving owners’ commitments to their realization. Martin Harvey, the volume’s dedicatee,
crowned nearly a quarter century’s working together by making these the best texts we have
ever brought to performance. Our colleague, Jon Primrose, managed the technical side of the
performances with consummate skill and also provided the photos for this volume. homas
Fahy and I have worked together for nearly ten years, an association whose brilliance is
relected in the excellence of the essays he organized. Tom it was, also, who alerted me to the
relevance of Bakhtin’s Carnival in his own inspired research. And his colleagues’ excellence
is more than enough to convince any interested reader that cultural discourse in the 21st
century is more vibrant – and necessary – than it has ever been, conclusions certiied by
the continuing courage and enterprise of Intellect and its staf. Of course, I am especially
indebted to Roberta Mock and to Jelena Stanovnik for their instrumental work in bringing
this volume to life. Everyone here mentioned deserves my heartfelt thanks. Without any one
of them, this project would not be the solid thing that it is. I consider it nothing less than
the best thing I have done, and this is largely because of what these collaborators have done
in bringing it to life.