Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

From the deus-ex-machina of Euripidean tragedy to Robert Lepage’s staging of the Wagnerian Ring Cycle, the convergence of embodied knowledges – the actor – and stage machine have a long history. Through the trope of the god-from-the-machine we frame our approach in dramatic terms to establish relations between performer and image, knowledge/truth/power relations. We then focus on the theatre as a site of convergence of subjectivities and knowledges embedded in this encounter. The mechanized stages of twentieth century Western theatres frequently house each night the meticulous reproduction – or facsimile – of a premiere of a blockbuster commercial musical. Via Edward Gordon-Craig’s template of the uber-marionette, we expand on the conceit of considering the theatre company a machine. In contrast with this model, we analyse the more rudimentary presentation style of actor-centric performance and its celebration of the empty space. This type of ensemble, comprising human agents and subjectivities with diverse knowledges, may be mobilized to devise new work based on personal experience or in trans-cultural local adaptations of an extant script. Focusing on performance, we further test the metaphoric understanding of “machine” via a dual aspect interrogation. The diversity embedded within the heterogeneous knowledges of performers making up the ensemble becomes a productive site of debate and negotiation in the story-telling project; and, audiences participating of the subsequent theatrical encounter bring different knowledges to the process of making meaning and ascribing value of the text presented.