Authenticity in Contemporary Theatre and Performance: Make it Real

by Daniel Schulze, Enoch Brater (Editor), Mark Taylor-Batty (Editor)

Overview

Authenticity is one of the major values of our time. It is visible everywhere, from clothing to food to self-help books. While it is such a prevalent phenomenon, it is also very evasive. This study analyses the 'culture of authenticity' as it relates to theatre and establishes a theoretical framework for analysis. Daniel Schulz argues that authenticity is sought out and marked by the individual and springs from a culture that is perceived as inherently fake and lacking depth. The study examines three types of performances that exemplify this structure of feeling: intimate theatre seen in Forced Entertainment productions such as Quizoola! (1996, 2015), as well as one-on-one performances, such as Oentroerend Goed's Internal (2009); immersive theatres as illustrated by Punchdrunk's shows The Masque of the Red Death (2007) and The Drowned Man (2013) which provide a visceral, sensate understanding for audiences; finally, the study scrutinises the popular category of documentary theatre through various examples such as Robin Soan's Talking to Terrorists (2005), David Hare's Stuff Happens (2004), Edmund Burke's Black Watch (2007) and Dennis Kelly's pseudo-documentary play Taking Care of Baby (2007). It is specifically the value of the document that lends such performances their truth-value and consequently their authenticity.

The study analyses how the success of these disparate categories of performance can be explained through a common concern with notions of truth and authenticity. It argues that this hunger for authentic, unmediated experience is characteristic of a structure of feeling that has superseded postmodernism and that actively seeks to resignify artistic and cultural practices of the everyday.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350000971
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	03/23/2017
Series:	The Talon Saga
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	296
File size:	496 KB

About the Author

Daniel Schulze is a teaching fellow in English Literature and Culture at the University of Würzburg, Germany. He combines artistic practice with scholarly research and teaching, and has worked in professional theatre as personal assistant to director Robert Wilson.
Daniel Schulze works at Theater Konstanz, Germany. Prior to this he was a teaching fellow in English Literature and Culture at the University of Würzburg, Germany.
Enoch Brater is the Kenneth T. Rowe Collegiate Professor of Dramatic Literature, Professor of English and Theater at the University of Michigan and the series editor of Methuen Drama's Miller scholarly editions. He has written extensively on the work of Samuel Beckett and Arthur Miller.

Enoch Brater is the Kenneth T. Rowe Collegiate Professor of Dramatic Literature, Professor of English and Theater at the University of Michigan. He is series editor of Methuen Drama's Arthur Miller scholarly editions, and with Mark Taylor-Batty of Methuen Drama's Engage series. He has written extensively on the work of Samuel Beckett and Arthur Miller.
Mark Taylor-Batty is Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies at the Workshop Theatre, School of English, University of Leeds, in the UK. He is co-author with Juliette Taylor-Batty, of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and has authored two further books on Harold Pinter's writings.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
1. In Search of Authenticity
2. Intimate Theatre
3. Immersive Theatre
4. Documentary Theatre
5. An Ending
Notes
Bibliography
Index