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I — Theatricality Introduction: Theatricality: A Key Concept in Theatre and Cultural Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Erika Fischer-Lichte
Erika Fischer-Lichte
Affiliation:
Erika Fischer-Lichte is Professor of Theatre Studies, Johannes Gutenberg- Universität, Mainz.
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Extract

At the Theatre Historiography Symposium, held during the 1993 Helsinki IFTR/FIRT Conference, a specific term came into circulation which infiltrated and permeated the discussion to such an extent that it appeared to adopt the position and function of a key term in theatre historiography: ‘theatricality’. This was no great surprise, however. For the symposium set out to consider two basic issues: first, to examine the application of analytic strategies from other disciplines to theatre history and, secondly, to identify the distinctive features of theatre history as a single discipline. Both concerns are closely related to the concept of theatricality.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , Summer 1995 , pp. 85 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1995

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References

Notes

1 In the seventeenth century, when the metaphorical use of the term theatre was most widespread, a series of books flooded Europe which used the term in very similar ways to those found today in cultural studies as, for example, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1570), Theatrum Europaeum (1627 ff.), Theatrum Cometicum (1681), Theatrum poenarum, suppliciorum et executiorum criminalium (1693–7).

2 Schramm, Helmar, ‘Theatralität und Öffentlichkeit. Vorstudien zur Begriffsgeschichte von “Theater”’, ed. Karlheinz, Barck et al. Ästhetische Grundbegriffe. Studien zu einem historischen Wörterbuch (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1990), p. 206.Google Scholar

3 See Tony Pearson articles on Evreinov, in Theatre Research International, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Summer 1987), pp. 147–67Google Scholar, ‘Evreinov and Pirandello: Twin Apostles of Theatricality’ and Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring 1992), pp. 26–38Google Scholar, ‘Evreinov and Pirandello: Two Theatricalists in Search of the Main Thing’.

4 Fiebach, Joachim, ‘Brecht's “Straßenszene”. Versuch über die Reichweite eines Theatermodells’, Beiträge, Weimarer, 1978, 2, pp. 123–47.Google Scholar

5 Brecht, Bertolt, Arbeitsjournal. Vol. 1 (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1973), p. 204.Google Scholar

6 See note 2.

7 With the exception of Schramm's article which was specially written for this issue.