The Theatre of Form and the Production of Meaning

Download or read book The Theatre of Form and the Production of Meaning written by Richard Paul Knowles and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do dramatic forms shape social formations? This study of Canadian dramatic structures asks this question of an extraordinarily wide range of contemporary plays. Knowles begins with a look at inherited naturalistic and modernist forms based, respectively, on time and space. He then uses this division to extend his inquiry first into post-naturalist forms of collective and collaborative creations, community plays, and historical metadramas, and then into postmodernist structures of environmental theatre and “dialogic monologue.” The book ends with a brief epilogue on the structures of “spacetime,” as Canadian theatre moves “towards a quantum dramaturgy.” From Michael Cook and David French through George F. Walker, Judith Thompson, and Sally Clark, to Monique Mojica, John Mighton, and feminist performance art, this book revolutionizes the study of contemporary Canadian drama. It’s a thoughtful and timely advance in our ways of thinking about dramaturgical form and meaning in Canadian theatrical production, and in Canadian society.