A Silent Theatrical Production Representing a Speaking Fictional World: Analysis of A Fleeting Shadow

Abstract

The twentieth-century avant-garde sought to create a theatre dominated, not by language, but by stage images. Is a performance, based solely on speechless images and adopting the style of silent movies, capable of describing a complex fictional world? A superficial study of such movies reveals that even these do not represent silent fictional worlds. On the contrary, their silent frames are meant to evoke verbal interaction, too. This study suggests seven principles, which account for the fact that a speechless theatre production, A Fleeting Shadow (The Khan Theatre, Jerusalem, 1999), despite utter complexity, was fully understood and warmly received by critics and public.