“Times long contrasts:” o e d I p u s (2014)
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Sarah Roberts
Abstract
In this paper I focus on the 2014 research project, o e d I p u s, which was devised to forge collaboration between final year performance and design students in response to questions regarding the role of the mise-en-scène and the designer within the actor-centred theatre tradition that characterizes emergent South African production practices. The legacy of specialization fragments the disparate elements of a production and sets up a hierarchical order of contributors subject to the controlling vision of a director. This project challenged that legacy. The paper argues that advancing egalitarian collaborative authorship proves generative and enabling and has implications for contemporary theatre practice. The perspective of contemporary criticism and cultural theory, local circumstances and resources provide means to deconstruct conventional readings and renderings, ultimately liberating new ways of reading old texts, resisting the perpetuation of outmoded practices and introducing fresh approaches to theatre as a medium. The project with its documentation has further implications for studies in situated learning, action-led research and debates regarding the status of creative work as a mode of scholarly output.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Flying Free from History and Reality: Dramatic Representations of the “Crocodile Dilemma” in the Theatre of Martin McDonagh
- Quoting Poetry, Translating Music (and Vice Versa): Mediation in Tennessee Williams’s Something Cloudy, Something Clear
- Staging Childhood Holocaust Survivor Trauma: Diane Samuels’s Kindertransport
- “Times long contrasts:” o e d I p u s (2014)
- How Diasporic?: Psychogeographies of the New Britain in (Post-)Millennial British Theatre
- The Passive Gaze and Hyper-Immunised Spectators: The Politics of Theatrical Live-Broadcasting
- Reviews
- Jade Rosina McCutcheon and Barbara Sellers-Young, eds. Embodied Consciousness: Performance Technologies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 229 pp., £55. Nicola Shaughnessy, ed. Affective Performance and Cognitive Science: Body, Brain and Being. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, 300 pp., £75.
- Martin Middeke, Peter Paul Schnierer, Christopher Innes, and Matthew C. Roudané, eds. The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary American Playwrights. London: Bloomsbury, 2014, 479 pp., £ 19, 99.
- Birgit Däwes and Marc Maufort, eds. Enacting Nature: Ecocritical Perspectives on Indigenous Performance. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2014, 262 pp., € 50.30 (softcover).
- Christophe Collard. Artist on the Make: David Mamet’s Work across Media and Genres. Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 2012, 366 pp., 25 €.
- Vicky Angelaki, ed. Contemporary British Theatre: Breaking New Ground. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, xxxi + 192 pp., € 67.00.
- Dan Rebellato, ed. Modern British Playwrighting 2000–2009. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, ix + 340 pp. (paperback).
- Jürs-Munsby, Karen, Jerome Carroll, and Steve Giles, eds. Postdramatic Theatre and the Political: International Perspectives on Contemporary Performance. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, vii + 324 pp., £65 (hardback), £19.99 (paperback), £19.99 (PDF ebook).
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Flying Free from History and Reality: Dramatic Representations of the “Crocodile Dilemma” in the Theatre of Martin McDonagh
- Quoting Poetry, Translating Music (and Vice Versa): Mediation in Tennessee Williams’s Something Cloudy, Something Clear
- Staging Childhood Holocaust Survivor Trauma: Diane Samuels’s Kindertransport
- “Times long contrasts:” o e d I p u s (2014)
- How Diasporic?: Psychogeographies of the New Britain in (Post-)Millennial British Theatre
- The Passive Gaze and Hyper-Immunised Spectators: The Politics of Theatrical Live-Broadcasting
- Reviews
- Jade Rosina McCutcheon and Barbara Sellers-Young, eds. Embodied Consciousness: Performance Technologies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 229 pp., £55. Nicola Shaughnessy, ed. Affective Performance and Cognitive Science: Body, Brain and Being. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, 300 pp., £75.
- Martin Middeke, Peter Paul Schnierer, Christopher Innes, and Matthew C. Roudané, eds. The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary American Playwrights. London: Bloomsbury, 2014, 479 pp., £ 19, 99.
- Birgit Däwes and Marc Maufort, eds. Enacting Nature: Ecocritical Perspectives on Indigenous Performance. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2014, 262 pp., € 50.30 (softcover).
- Christophe Collard. Artist on the Make: David Mamet’s Work across Media and Genres. Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 2012, 366 pp., 25 €.
- Vicky Angelaki, ed. Contemporary British Theatre: Breaking New Ground. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, xxxi + 192 pp., € 67.00.
- Dan Rebellato, ed. Modern British Playwrighting 2000–2009. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, ix + 340 pp. (paperback).
- Jürs-Munsby, Karen, Jerome Carroll, and Steve Giles, eds. Postdramatic Theatre and the Political: International Perspectives on Contemporary Performance. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, vii + 324 pp., £65 (hardback), £19.99 (paperback), £19.99 (PDF ebook).
