Theatre, Communication, Critical Realism
WHAT IS THEATRE? Series Editor: Ann C. Hall Given the changing nature of audiences, entertainment, and media, the role of theatre in twenty-first century culture is changing. The WHAT IS THEATRE? series brings new and innovative work in literary, cultural, and dramatic criticism into conversation with established theatre texts and trends, in order to offer fresh interpretation and highlight new or undervalued artists, works, and trends. ANN C. HALL has published widely in the area of theatre and film studies, is president of the Harold Pinter Society, and is an active member in the Modern Language Association. In addition to her book A Kind of Alaska: Women in the Plays of O Neill, Pinter, and Shepard, she has edited a collection of essays, Making the Stage: Essays on Theatre, Drama, and Performance and a book on the various stage, film, print, and television versions of Gaston Leroux s Phantom of the Opera. Published titles: Theatre, Communication, Critical Realism by Tobin Nellhaus
Theatre, Communication, Critical Realism TOBIN NELLHAUS
THEATRE, COMMUNICATION, CRITICAL REALISM Copyright Tobin Nellhaus, 2010. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 All rights reserved. Portions of this book derive from the following articles and are used here, in revised form, by permission of the original publishers: Signs, Social Ontology, and Critical Realism, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 28.1 (1998): 1 24; Literacy, Tyranny, and the Invention of Greek Tragedy, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 3.2 (1989): 53 71; Performance Strategies, Image Schemas, and Communication Frameworks, Performance and Cognition: Theatre Studies and the Cognitive Turn, ed. Bruce McConachie and F. Elizabeth Hart (London: Routledge, 2006): 76 94; Critical Realism and Performance Strategies, Staging Philosophy: New Approaches to Theater and Performance, ed. David Krasner and David Saltz (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006): 57 84; Social Ontology and (Meta) theatricality: Reflexions on Performance and Communication in History, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 14.2 (2000): 3 39. Additional portions draw upon ideas first explored in Science, History, Theater: Theorizing in Two Alternatives to Positivism, Theatre Journal 45.4 (1993): 505 27; Mementos of Things to Come: Orality, Literacy and Typology in the Biblia Pauperum, Printing the Written Word: The Social History of Books, c. 1450 1520, ed. Sandra Hindman (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991): 292 321; From Embodiment to Agency: Cognitive Science, Critical Realism, the Framework of Communication, Journal of Critical Realism 3.1 (2004): 103 32. Cover photo: Bartholomew Fair by Ben Jonson. Stratford Shakespeare Festival, 2009. Cliff Saunders as Lantern Leatherhead (center) with members of the company. Photo by David Hou. Courtesy of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival Archives. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-38493-8 ISBN 978-0-230-10795-3 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230107953 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: June 2010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments vii ix Introduction 1 1 Philosophy, History, Theatre 19 2 Orality, Literacy, and Early Theatre 57 3 Embodiment, Agency, and Performance Strategies 95 4 Social Ontology, (Meta)theatricality, and the History of Communication 143 Conclusion: New Media, Old Problems 183 Notes 199 Bibliography 211 Index 227
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Illustrations Figures 1.1 Bhaskar s Semiotic Triangle 36 1.2 The Peircean Sign (basic version) 37 1.3 The Peircean Sign (elaborated version) 38 4.1 Theatrical Doubling 154 4.2 The Ontological Shift 154 4.3 Theatrical Doubling as Semiosis 158 Table 1.1 The Ontological and Phenomenological Dimensions of Social Activity 46
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Acknowledgments My thanks first go to Bruce McConachie. Without his urging, I would never have sought one more time to turn my ideas into a book, and he kindly read an early draft. I began exploring the ideas developed here in a dissertation written under the guidance of Joe Roach, with Leonard Barkan, Sandra Hindman, and Stephen Toulmin. Howard Engelskirchen, Ruth Groff, and other members of the critical realism email discussion list debated some key issues with me. I received invaluable advice and encouragement from Talia Rodgers and LeAnn Fields. Brigitte Shull and Lee Norton shepherded the book at Palgrave Macmillan. Ellen Charendoff of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival Archives made the cover photo possible. My friendships with Susan Haedicke and E. J. Westlake have sustained me perhaps more than they know. I conducted some of my research and writing with the support of a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, and a Fulbright lectureship at the University of Helsinki. I am deeply grateful to both organizations. One of the advantages of critical realism is its commitment to fallibilism. Indeed, one of the few unshakable truths in human possession is that error is always possible. And this is a good thing: we don t improve our understanding unless we first learn where we were mistaken. The errors in the following pages are mine alone; but at least my errors support part of my argument. This book is written in memory of my parents, Gerhard and Arlynn.