The Text In Play

Download or read book The Text in Play written by Robert Baker-White and published by Bucknell University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many modern playwrights have dramatized the process of theatrical creation within their plays. In doing so, they have disregarded the "do not disturb" sign on the rehearsal room door, and have opened the art of theater to a particular kind of scrutiny. This scrutiny is unusual given the long-standing tradition of secrecy that surrounds theatrical rehearsal. Viewing modern drama generally as a drama that juxtaposes authority and freedom, and viewing contemporary criticism as essentially an extended debate on the issue of meaning's closure, this study invokes the critical perspectives M. M. Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, and Bertolt Brecht to create a general theory of rehearsal practice that differentiates it from the practice of performance. Working with notions of textual authority explored in a variety of critical contexts, this volume attempts to explore the theoretical ramifications of metatheatrical representations of rehearsal.