Text and Context: The Operative Word: A Handbook for Script Work and Directing in the Theatre - Brossura

Greenblatt, Richard

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1927922739 ISBN 13: 9781927922736

Casa editrice: J Gordon Shillingford Pub Inc, 2021

Riassunto

A handbook for script work and directing in the theatre, Text and Context: The Operative Word is essential reading for post-secondary students and young directors in the theatre, as well as an effective resource for other disciplines, including actors, designers, and production personnel. Part 1: Text describes the method of text investigation that Greenblatt has developed and employed over his four-and-a- half decade career, including a variety of exercises. It is a highly pragmatic and non-academic approach to discovering the essence of a script in order to reveal its potential for interesting and unique interpretations. Part 2: Context explores the various ideas, philosophies and precepts Greenblatt uses when directing for the stage, following the order and rhythm of most rehearsal processes. It challenges misconceptions about the position of the director, and debunks traditional assumptions that are harmful to a truly creative and inclusive process. Part 3: New Text examines three genres of theatrical works: Theatre for Young Audiences, New Play Development, and Devised Work, which utilize the principles of text analysis and directing found in the first two parts.

Sprinkled with personal anecdotes, Text and Context: The Operative Word offers theatre practitioners techniques for communication and artistic collaboration, reimagines traditional hierarchical structures, and provides tools to create healthy, truly creative, highly productive, and more equitable processes of theatrical practice.

Su questo libro

Estratto. © Ristampato con autorizzazione. Tutti i diritti riservati.

The work of the interpretive artist is to unearth and reveal specificity. If you attempt to create art that is trying to be universal, you will inevitably veer towards cliche. As a species, we respond most strongly to a specific tale, told in unique ways, as a way to empathy and understanding.

When Ted Dykstra and I wrote 2 Pianos 4 Hands, we were convinced that it was only going to speak to piano nerds, or at best, classical music nerds. After our first workshop presentation, our old friend Andrew Akman came up to us and said, "The play's not about the piano at all. It's about tennis." Andrew had been a promising young tennis player in Winnipeg as a teenager, and he related every scene from our play to his experience. When Ted said to me as one of my teachers in the play, "You're not Glenn Gould!" Andrew heard, "You're not John McEnroe!" something that had been said to him by a teacher at a similar juncture in his life.

Specificity, like so many other worthwhile endeavours, is a bottomless pit. We don't know what will ultimately speak the strongest to an audience or any member of it. But we do know that any chance of real, significant communication must be rigorously specific in order to have even achance to speak to the many.Language as a whole, and individual words in particular, lose specificity from overuse, or appropriation, or incorrect application. We all make assumptions. A lot.

If I say the word "entertainment" to you, what do you see? Close your eyes and let your imagination roam. Most people talk about a Broadway show, a movie musical, a Super Bowl halftime show starring a well-known pop star, or even an interactive video game. There might even be a slightly dismissive judgment of these imaginings, as in "it's only entertainment," as opposed to deep, complex drama, perhaps. However, the word comes from a Latin root: "enter" means "between," and "tain" comes from "tenere," meaning "to hold." So, the original meaning of the word means "to hold between," presumably interest between a performer and their audience. And yet, we have all these assumptions, preconceptions and cliched images about the word, and even a judgment about its definition! Blame the mass media, our fast-paced life, or a conspiracy of the Freemasons, but language is constantly in a state of reductivism. This is not necessarily a bad thing, although many decry the death of interesting verbal dexterity and debate. But these assumptions must be taken into account, since most people don't obsessivelylook for specificity in their day-to-day communications. But theatre artists must.

So. The story is slowly being revealed. As the questions are asked and discussed, and as the operative words are chosen, all manner of narrative content is uncovered, and within the context of an exercise. What's important about this is that there is a focus to the discussion, instead of a free-for-all, where often only the loudest voices in the room are heard, and where the discussion can lack a structural and forward thrust. And hopefully, nothing is left unexamined.

Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: J Gordon Shillingford Pub Inc
• Data di pubblicazione: 2021
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1927922739
• ISBN 13: 9781927922736
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 204
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile