Authoring Performance (What is Theatre?)


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Provides a comparative approach to the internationally wide-spread phenomenon of the contemporary director-auteur in the theatre, urging a historical and theoretical exploration of the visions, methods, and stage idioms in the work of established artists. Sidiropoulou examines prominent examples of both older and more recent director-auteur work, aiming at re-asserting - to its artistic and academic audience - the value of balancing the established emphasis on the diegetic aspects of theatre with the ever-spreading varieties of dramatic de-"centering" and "dis-semination." This exciting work also poses questions of authorship, which necessarily imply the redefinition of the relationship between "playwright" and the director-playwright.Authoring Performance (What is Theatre?) Review
Avra Sidiropoulou's study Authoring Performance: the Director in Contemporary Theatre comes to fill a void in the theoretical exploration of directing practice worldwide and would make for a valuable handbook for students of directing, acting, theatre studies and performance theory on both undergraduate and graduate level. Not only does the book plunge into the history of directing from the beginnings of the twentieth century on, but it also draws very helpful parallels between the work of the early experimentalists and avant-garde directors today, identifying the methods and aesthetics these employ during the "writing" of the performance. I found Chapters 4 and 5 extremely well-written and original in scope, especially the part where Sidiropoulou argues for the need of meaningfulness as a complementary component to formalist structures, balancing masterfully the pros of a powerful visual idiom to the cons of gratuitous stage wizardry. The book is also a must-have for playwrights: Chapter 6 in fact asks all the right questions, examining the boundaries of directorial freedom and the issues of interpretation and authorship that seem to be constantly present in the on-going dialogue between writers and directors, but also among all those involved in the making and the "reading" of the performance, actors and spectators, included.Most of the consumer Reviews tell that the "Authoring Performance (What is Theatre?)" are high quality item. You can read each testimony from consumers to find out cons and pros from Authoring Performance (What is Theatre?) ...

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