Lecture 8 and 9 - Drama

• intertextual

  • Story world within the play

• 4th wall as an imaginary wall

  • Characters don’t know they are being watched

• Goes always both ways (intra – and extratextual)

• Drama is not bound to any mediating instance like a narrator but seems to exist unconditionally and purely on its own

• one of the most prominent playwrights of the twentieth century

• thirty-second playlet Breath with the visual arts (mess on the stage)

• Theater of the absurd

• How many conventions can be broken to still be considered a play

  • Literature studies rather than raising questions than answering them

• does not include actors, text, characters or drama but only stage directions

  • only semiotics  (a man breathing and a baby crying)

  • drama is multimedial (light, sound effects, set design, etc.)

  • ultimate venture to define the borders between a theatrical performance and purely visual representation

  • focus on this primary human physiological function and its relation to arts and culture

• Contextualization of the scene

  • First interaction between Gallimard and Song

• Characterization of Song based on how she (he) is presented in this scene

  • Graceful

  • Shy in the view of Gallimard

  • Confident (I will never do Butterfly again)

  • Calling out Gallimard (Expand your mind)

  • Brave by defending her heritage (Convincing? As a Japanese women)

  • Condescending tone towards Gallimard

  • Plays with Gallimard through her (his) tone and sarcasm

• Power of inequality

• The male gaze (view of a man)

• Gender

  • western works hard

  • eastern part is lazy

  • orient femine

  • europe masculine

• Heteronormativity

• Vietnam war

• Identity

• Hegemony

• Betrayal

• Intermediality

• Orientalism

  • 
    

• Politics

• Colonialism

  • critic on postcolonialism as Gallimard was defeated by a men (Asian should be feminine)

  • east week and feminine

• The Western gaze (view of the western culture)

• Sexuality

• Imperialism

• Idea that only men can be spies

• Western way of thinking about somewhere in Asia or the eastern parts of the world

• Not one specific country

• Western discourse

• Extratextual communication is the information we get from the character while talking

  • implicit communication in intertextual communication

• Breaking the 4th wall implies  talking to the audience to give them information

  • explicit communication

• Unity of action

• unity of time

• unity pf place

• Play should have one action with minimal subplots

• Due to minimal costs, technology and the form of the theatre

Usually only 24 hours

• play should exist in a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography nor should the stage represent more than one place

• special form of discrepant awareness

• Everything a character says Seems ironic to the audience as they know more

• based on the two levels of communication

implies that information between characters and audience differ

• One character speaks, others are on stage listening

• Not totally extratextual

• Usually character explore their own ideas coming to terms with themselves

• Addressing the audience

• Links scenes and episodes

• Provides information about off-stage events

• Doesn’t necessarily break the 4th wall

• Subcategories of nomological speech

• subcategories of nomological speech

• One character is alone on stage or believes he is alone

• doesn’t drive the plot forward as nothing is happening

  • no interaction with other characters

  • still important for the play

• Sharing secret thoughts and feelings

• 4th wall can be broken

• subcategories of nomological speech

• Short secretive speech directed to the audience or another character on stage

• 4th wall can be broken

• Soliloquy

  • nobody is listening as it is just in his imagination

  • doesn’t drive the plot forward

  • information about what happens at the moment on stage

• Monologue

  • talking to someone

  • drives the plot forward

  • we get plot information

  • Gallimard acts as the narrator

  • starts telling a story of how he was in love with the perfect woman

 …In order to you to understand what I did and why…

• chronological information

• giving information about off-stage events

• Talking to the audience (stage direction – to us)

• Breaking the 4th wall

  • Talking to a audience in his head doesn’t break the 4th wall

... now you will see why my story…

• because of the stage direction we imply that he is not talking to his audience in his head

introduction followed by rising movement until we reach the climax

falling movement followed by a catastrophe (end)

beginning – main part – end

climax when the audience realizes the tragic flaw

end is not as important as the climax

• No background events are influencing the beginning

• Ending is finale

• Violates structure

• Doesn’t follow Freytag’s pyramid of the Unities (action, time, place) of Drama

• Closed

  • assume that Gallimard’s story ends at the end of the play

  • rising action

  • climax when the audience gets to know that Song is a spy and actually a man (Act II Scene 4)

  • discrepant awareness (Act III Scene 2 when Gallimard finds out about the betrail)

  • no background information

• Open

  • background information as the character introduces himself to the audience

  • takes place in two dedicates

  • doesn’t follow classic structure (no unity of time, place)

• old form of art

• tragic hero

  • not a perfect person

  • starts as a good character

  • turning point

  • downfall (catastrophe)

  • catharsisi when audience realizes the tragic flaw before the character

• tragic flaw

• early form, centered on high-born, aristocratic characters

• serious tone

• ends in disastrous conclusion catastrophe

  • failure belongs to life and even the highborn can fail

• catharsis (relief for the audience)

• failure on the individual (classical tragedy)

• amusement instead of catharsis

• mark of shame (look down on a character)

• ends well often in a celebratory event

• triumph of the community

• tragic hero

  • we need a tragic flaw

  • Gallimard as a superior character (upper status as he is a diplomat)

  • desire as a tragic flaw

  • desires the character from the opera (Asian women)

  • Gallimard realizes his tragic flaw (can tell the difference between reality and fantasy but chooses fantasy – Act III Scene 2)

  • thinks gender and race go together (submissive women)

  • gets the idea from the opera written by an Italian man

  • oriental women (Eurocentric perspective)

!!!BUT

• racism is a social concept (can’t be a tragic flaw)

• Western perception of the west

• he represents the Western ideas of the Orient (East)

• play is about colonialism, imperialism, sexualism

• doesn’t like the person desires the character M. Butterfly from the opera

• character is blinded by his perception that he can’t look at reality

• play critics his perspective

• he lost against himself

• defeated by a man

• text is reproducing what it is criticizing

  • not real Asian man in the text

  • no Asian women who gives a different version of the text

  • not articulating an alternative

  • play has tension

• Comedy

  • mark of shame (look down on a character - Gallimard)

  • But would lose its meaning if it was

• whether tragedy or comedy

  • atypical drama

• Theater can be drama

• The theater is a social institution

• drama meaning plays

• Lesedramen meant to be read not to be performed

• part of ritual practice and religious festivities

• way of communicating

• stand out through spectacular architecture to get the intention of the people

• the stronger a symbol is the more power it has (symbols to express the invisible)

• the first theater was religion

• the power of the Theater got utilized by the church and used for ritual plays and later for Moral plays

• takes away the power of symbolism by the church

• Theater as entertaining good

• People need to pay for a ticket (expect something which they like - popular art)

• for the mass not for the elites

• not only about religion anymore

• theater as a form of Reality TV of its age

• considered morally corrupted due to its origins

• educate the public (education of the mass with a political statement)

• Puritans brought their distrust with them

• staged the European place

• no American writers writing dramas

• Metatheatre or metadrama, breaking down the 4th wall

• An explosion of American dramas (American writers)

• A radical cut of conventions with the past

• form changes which are why American writers came up

• not racist anymore

• breaking the 4th wall (actor and character become one, the actor knows that they are watched character doesn’t)

• actors playing a character

• theater wanted to be as real as possible (modern theater does the opposite (Verfremdnungseffekt))

• no narrator or mediating instance in drama

  • there is only a narrator in narration, fiction or novels

• Drama only exists as a generic concept and therefore can’t exist by itself

  • Mostly realized through plays

  • Text-type in which characters communicate

  • Usually written to be performed on stage

  • usually political

• play through dialogs

  • characters talk to us while talking to each other

  • stage directions can be included in the play

• drama is multimedial

  • doesn’t rely on language

  • nonverbal codes are important

  • technical aspect eg sound design, lighting, special effects, costumes, set design

  • body language

• characters inform the audience while talking to each other

• characters are usually not aware they are being watched (only the actors)

• always extratextual

• no difference between intertextual and extratextual its always both

• act as if there is a wall and no audience

• intertextual communication becomes extratextual communication

• storytelling through the characters

• authorial

• figural

• talked directly about the character

• breve description of the character through stage directions

• most common

• the character describes huimself through actions

• Moves the plot forward

• Entertains the audience

• Clarifies the opinion of the characters while talking to each other

• The transmission of introductory information that is necessary for understanding the events on stage

• Combination of all possible perspectives of the characters

• Dramatic text in the form of an intertextual level of communication

• exposition

• discrepant awareness

• dramatic irony

• perspective structure

• refers to the word expressed by the characters on stage during the performance (the dialogues)

• includes all the information that is not spoken aloud during a production

• stage direction

• Includes title, preface, scene numeration, dramatis personae (= all the people in a play – usually the written text includes a list of them at the beginning)

• during the decade of 1960 to 1970 in Beijing

• from 1966 to the present (1986) in Paris (in a prison)

• In 1964, René Gallimard, a representative of the French embassy, met Song Liling at a diplomatic reception in Beijing, after she performed a version of Puccini's Madame Butterfly

• Fascinated by her exotic charm, the married Frenchman falls in love with the Chinese diva and begins an affair with her.

• promoted to Vice consul

• Song submissively surrenders to him in her role as a lover but does not want to undress in front of him.

• is a spy for the Chinese secret service to find out plans about the Americans plans in the Viertnam war

• one night Song appears at his door. She is carrying their supposedly common child in her arms

• Gallimard wants to marry her

• accused of having passed on information to the Chinese government

• betrayed by Song Liling, but that Song is, in fact, a man

• Gallimard rejects him as he has obviously not loved him, but a dream figure

• Song is expelled, while Gallimard is sentenced to prison. In prison, he performs a specially staged version of "Madame Butterfly

• Introduction to the play M. Butterfly

  • Description of René Gallimard himself and the cell (beginning of Scene 1)

  • begins with extratextual communication

• Story about M.Butterfly and the feelings he felt for her (him)

  • first interaction in Scene 6

  • Song has control over him

  • Promotion due to his affair and good understanding with the Chinese (Scene 13)

  • Song plays with Gallimard in order to get information

• Beijing in 1960 (scene 2)

  • Song and Gallimard live together in a flat on the outskirts of Beijing

  • Song wants to get information from Gallimard

• Beijing in 1961 (scene 4)

  • Song is a spy (only we know)

  • Has to find out information about the Americans for his supervisor Miss Chin

• Beijing from 1961 to 1963 (scene 5)

  • Gallimard still doesn’t know Song is actually a man as he never got undressed in front of him

  • Talking about children

• Beijing in 1963(scene 6)

  • Gallimard has an affair with a women called Renee

  • Song tells Gallimard that she is pregnant, which is why he want to marry her (him)

• Beijing 1963 (scene 7)

  • Song need to get a baby as she (he) is not pregnant

  • Talks to Miss Chin to get it

    
    

    • Return to Paris from 1968 to 1970 (scene 11)

• Court in 1986 in Paris

  • Song still feels for Gallimard, but he doesn’t want her (him) back

  • Holds on to the memories of the affair instead (scene 2)

• Prison cell in Paris (scene 3)

  • Thinking about M. Butterfly every night searching for a new ending

  • Realizes the search is over and that it only exists in his fantasy

  • Kills himself in front of Song who smokes a cigarette ( we don’t know if he really killed himself)

    
    

• Former French diplomat

  • Influenced by his culture

  • Orientalist and imperialistic ideas

  • Thinks Asian women are devoted to men

• Doesn’t believe women are interested in him (explicit)

• Treasures the love he gets from Song (implicit)

  • Was willing to do everything for Song

• Male, homosexual Chinese opera singer

• Acts as a women in order to get information from Gallimard

  • Spy for the chines secret service

• Perceptive and intelligent as he influences Gallimard

• Acts as the perfect women (only men knows what a men expect from a women)

• Flirty

• Gallimard functions as a narrator

  • drama doesn’t usually have a narrator

  • he might be lying to himself (unreliability in the play)

  • uses an unreliable narrator

  • what we get is Gallimard’s fantasy