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______________________________________________________________________ The "Zeitschrift für
Semiotik": Abstracts ______________________________________________________________________
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Patrice Pavis Hands-Thies Lehmann Marco de Marinis Erika Fischer-Lichte Theater production between text and performance Patrice Pavis, University of Paris VIII Summary. The paper outlines the foundations of a theory of staging which might overcome
the sterile opposition between the aesthetics of production and reception. Staging is to
be distinguished both from the fixed written drama text and from the empirically given
material performance; it results in a structure which forms when the spectator brings into
relation all the systems of signifiers presented in a play. This structure originates in
concretizing, fictionalizing, and ideologizing activities that take place in the social
context of the audience involved. It presupposes a shared situation of theatrical
enunciation which makes the interaction of systems of verbal and nonverbal signifiers
possible.
Theater production: the problems of its analysis Hands-Thies Lehmann, University of Frankfurt Summary. If staging is the object of theater studies, the semiotics of theater must
reflect the stage text an an aesthetic object sui generis. Ist analysis must reveal the
ambivalenta esthetic processes of meaning production on the stage and explicate the
multiplicity of potential relations among the diverse sign matter, including its specific
rhythms and its intrinsic ambiguity. The theatrical event has to be studied as a whole, so
that differences in the conception of theater can be adequately considered as shifts in
emphasis on the factors involved. This approach is exemplified by the analysis of three
staging types: The metaphoric staging of Kleist’s "Käthchen von Heilbronn"
by Jürgen Flimm (1979), the scenographic staging of the smiling sequence in Robert
Wilson’s "CIVIL warS" (1984), and the presentation of the theatrical
situation in the production of the Viennese theater troupe Angelus Novus (1986).
Understanding the spectator: in favour of the socio-semiotics of theater reception Marco de Marinis, University of Bologna Summary. In order to guarantee adequate results in the analysis of theater reception,
the sociosemiotics of the theater must avoid a number of pitfalls: (a) artificial
synthesizing of a homogeneous audience (b) uncritical application of merely quantitative
sociographic procedures, as well as (c) nihilistic preoccupation with arbitrary niceties
in the manner of deconstruction. The present essay postulates that the socio-semiotics of
the theater has the task of understanding the spectator, and develops operationalizable
theoretical concepts facilitating empirical spectator research which focuses on the
spectator’s acts of reception including their preconditions and results. Reception is
not regarded as a one-sided process but rather as resulting from an interaction between
stage and spectator. Apart from socio-economic, psychological, and biological parameters,
cultural factors have to be taken into account, such as the spectator’s general
experience, his knowledge of detail, his expectations and his spatial position in the
theater. This is the theoretical framework that provided the basis for two research
projects carried out by the author at the Metastasio Theater in Prato, the available
results of which are presented and discussed.
Change of theatrical codes: the semiotics of intercultural theater production Erika Fischer-Lichte, University of Bayreuth Summary. Discussing examples from European, Chinese, and Japanese theaters, this study
in comparative theater research provides elements for a theory of code change, which is
based on historically attested principles of cultural change. In intercultural theater
production, the dialectic of code and message facilitates a creative reception of foreign
traditions giving rise to changes in the underlying theatrical code, which may either lead
to its expansion, its dissolution or result in the formation of an entirely new
code. |
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