Re: Stage Direction and Doubleness -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 13:49:49 04/15/08 Tue
Author: CS Holden
Subject: Re: Stage Direction and Doubleness
In reply to: Betsy Peters 's message, "Stage Direction and Doubleness" on 04:29:26 04/15/08 Tue

Interesting observation. From a theatrical/theoretical perspective, there's a whole camp of dramatists that are playing on the idea of versatility, of letting one actor play more than one character, and of letting the audience know what's going on. It has an interesting effect. Two examples...

A year ago I saw a production of Seamus Heaney's "Burial at Thebes," his translation of "Antigone." The same guy who played Tiresius also played Haemon, the son of Creon who sides with Antigone. The actor was the most talented in the cast, so it was nice to see more of him, but on another level, the production showed that the play is not about individual people so much as it is a war of ideas. The same idea that fuels Tiresius against Creon is what fuels his son, transcending lines of state and family. And the actor playing Tiresius and Haemon played them differently but the staging was almost identical: Creon on a pedestal talking down to the one who defied him.

The other example is a play I've never seen staged, one that will never be staged at Hillsdale. Still, I recommend reading it. It's "Cloud Nine" by Caryl Churchill, a brilliant take on role reversals. There is a patriarchal character who has problems controlling his servants and family. And he is the only character in the whole play who is played by the same actor in the first and second acts. Every other role has a different person in it after the intermission. It's hilarious. For instance, his baby is played in one act by a full grown man in a baby outfit, and his babyish rebellions have a twinge of maturity in them; but in the second act, the baby is just a doll: easily controlled, tossed about, with no autonomy whatsoever. The actor who played the baby, on the other hand, has become a different character. The idea of "Cloud Nine" is to dissolve all conventions of actor-character recognition so the audience has to focus on what has been done to the characters thematically.

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