theatre of consciousness
i remain interested in the work of
Georges Poulet, Gaston Bachelard
and Roland Barthes in the era of Sur Racine
the theoretical movement often called
the Geneva School of Existential Phenomenology
my interest in this theoretical approach
derives
I believe
from its apparent theatricality
apparent
because the practitioners of phenomenological criticism,
with the exception of Roland Barthes,
tended to avoid discussions of the theater
or theatrical metaphors
even though Georges Poulet
wrote about dramatic texts.
I find their analyses theatrical
in the sense that
the image of consciousness they build
reminds me very much of a performance space
a field whose coordinates can be transformed
a field in which images can display themselves
in complex
dynamic relationshipsthe interplay
between transforming acoustic and visual images
dominates the theatre of consciousness
even if the phenomenological critics
never employed that metaphorthe defined
but transformable
space of performance
I think
functions well as a metaphor
for the field of consciousness
where images perform rhythmically
in time as within the space of the imaginationI conceptualize the imagination
my imagination
as a site rather than as an activityas a director
I conceptualize the actual theater
the space theatre inhabits
as a metaphor of consciousness
and use that site
in a sense
to perform a series
of psychological transformationsI suppose
I look at the individual dramatic text
as a manifestation of consciousness
my interaction with that text
in which I appropriate a virtual consciousness
configures a variant of that consciousness
a consciousness that
through the rehearsal/production process
gains specific embodiment within the performance space
the ideal spectator of this specific performance
recieves from the production
a manifestation
an embodiment of
my consciousness
and
my mediation
of the imagination of the playwright
I’m assuming the conceptual integrity
of the idea of the subject
the unique subjectivity of the playwright
and my individual subjectivity as director
and–by implication–of the spectator
these three subjectivities are expanded
realistically
by the reality of other artists
in the collective process
as well as the diversity of the audience
but in conceptualizing this process
in theorizing the phenomenlogy of production
I am limiting my thinking to three subjects
the playwright, the director, and audience
this is not a process of identification
assimilation is a better choice
identification
suggests projecting the image of the self onto an object
assimilation suggests a kind of opening of subjectivity
creating a space for the psychological processes embodied
within the text
in the production
Posted on Tuesday, August 5th, 2014 at . Filed under: Speculation Tags: Notes, Roland Barthes RSS 2.0 feed.
