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The Dramaturgy of the Perverse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Richard Paul Knowles
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Extract

Les œuvres des dramaturges contemporains canadiens-anglais, Margaret Hollingsworth, George F. Walker, Judith Thompson et Beverley Simons entre dans la catégorie de la «dramaturgie de la perversité». La «perversité» est, selon Knowles, un principe structurel dialogique qui remet en question les concepts aristotéliciens du renversement et de la reconnaissance, aussi bien que les notions modernistes de pureté, de clarté et de cohérence. Est pervers ce qui fait éclater les concepts traditionnels tels que la convergence et l'unité, et toutes les stratégies théâtrales mises en œuvre pour fragmenter la perception du spectateur, pour l'obliger à repenser sa position vis-à-vis de l'objet spectaculaire, c'est-à-dire, à se repenserr. Knowles se propose, done, d'analyser ici les pièces les plus représentatives de ce courant choisies parmi les œuvres des quatre auteurs cités.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1992 , pp. 226 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1992

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References

Notes

1. Hollingsworth, Margaret, ‘Introduction: Margins’, Endangered Species: Four Plays by Margaret Hollingsworth (Toronto, Act One Press, 1988).Google Scholar All page numbers will be cited in parentheses throughout this article.

2. Bahktin uses ‘dialogic’ to suggest a ‘polyglot’ polyphony of voices, opposing this to the ‘monologic’ in his discussion of alterity and polyphony as revolutionary in potential. See Bakhtin, M. M., The Dialogic Imagination, trans. Emerson, Caryl and Holqvist, Michael (Austin, University of Texas Press, 1981)Google Scholar, glossary, p. 427 and passim.

3. Frye, , The Myth of Deliverance (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1983), p. 13.Google Scholar

4. Frye, Northrop, The Great Code (Toronto, Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovitch, 1983), p. 9.Google Scholar

5. In conversation with the author, 29 10 1987.Google Scholar

6. In conversation and classroom visits 1984–90. Walker is thinking of parody in the usual sense as ridiculing imitation rather than in the specialized sense of ‘repetition with critical difference’ that Linda Hutcheon uses in A Theory of Parody (New York and London, Methuen, 1985), p. 7Google Scholar and passim. Hutcheon's ‘parody’ is related to what I am calling ‘perversion’: however I am focusing on intertexts that operate on the level of structure and semiotics without conjuring any conscious reflection of specific texts.

7. Walker, George F., Love and Anger (Toronto, Coach House, 1990).Google Scholar

8. I am indebted in my discussion of Sarah and Walker's characterization to Mary Pat Mombourquette, ‘Walker's Women in the East End Plays’, (University of Guelph, unpublished M.A. thesis, 1990), pp. 130–5.Google Scholar

9. First produced at the DuMaurier World Stage in June, 1990, and as yet unpublished. I am using a revised script used for the Tarragon Theatre production in November, 1990.

10. In a panel discussion at Harbourfront in Toronto, 5 June 1990. Robert Cushman called the play a ‘daisy-chain drama’, comparing its structure loosely to that of Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde (The Globe and Mail, 4 06 1990).Google Scholar

11. Peter Brook comments in The Empty Space (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1972), pp. 64–5Google Scholar, that ‘Beckett's plays are symbols in an exact sense of the word…: a true symbol is hard and clear’. ‘They stand on the stage as objects’ he says, and ‘we get nowhere if we expect to be told what they mean’. The iconic status of these plays was apparent in Ken Garnhum's distinctly perverse Beuys Buoys Boys, first produced at Tarragon Theatre in January 1989 and remounted for the DuMaurier World Stage in June 1990. Garnhum used a running gag, ‘Barbie's Beckett’, in which a Barbie doll appeared in the completely recognizable settings of different Beckett plays and conjured up the worlds of those plays with delightfully disarming incongruity.

12. In Hollingsworth, , Willful Acts (Toronto, Coach House, 1985), pp. 17–32; 113–118.Google Scholar Page citations to this edition will appear in parentheses in the text.

13. See Kristeva, Julia, Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, trans. Gora, Thomas, Jardine, Alice and Roudiez, Leon S., ed. Leon Roudiez (New York, Columbia University Press, 1980), pp. 133–5.Google Scholar

14. Lister, Rota Herzberg, ‘Beverley Rosen Simons’. The Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre, ed. Benson, Eugene and Conolly, L. W. (Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 497.Google Scholar

15. See Hay, Peter, Introduction to Crabdance (Van couver, Talonbooks, 1976), p. 9Google Scholar (quoting Bertram Joseph); Hopkins, Elizabeth, ‘Beverley Simons’, The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature gen. ed. Toye, William (Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 758Google Scholar; and Lister, Rota Herzberg, ‘Crabdance’, The Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre, p. 118.Google Scholar

16. Thompson, Judith, White Biting Dog revised edn. (Toronto, Playwrights Canada, 1985).Google Scholar Page references will be cited in parentheses.

17. Thompson, , in conversation with the author, 16 01 1985.Google Scholar

18. Cape tells Glidden that the dachshunds had been buried the previous week, but before doing so, he smells the cup into which Pony claims to have thrown them up (p. 94). The uncertainty here ahout what ‘actually happened’ has a similar effect to the more radical uncertainty used in Lion in the Streets, described above.

19. Hollingsworth describes her plays as ‘presenting the inner world’, in Rudakoff, Judith and Much, Rita, Fair Play: 12 Women Speak: Conversations with Canadian Playwrights (Toronto, Simon & Pierre, 1990), p. 157.Google Scholar

20. Rudakoff, and Much, , p. 159.Google Scholar