In this book, Daniel Johnston examines how phenomenology can describe, analyze, and inspire theater-making. Each chapter introduces themes to guide the creative process through objects, bodies, spaces, time, history, freedom, and authenticity. Key examples in the work are drawn from Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Sophocles’ Antigone, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Practical tasks throughout explore how the theatrical event can offer unique insights into being and existence, as Johnston’s philosophical perspective shines a light on broader existential issues of being. In this way, the book makes a bold contribution to the study of acting as an embodied form of philosophy and reveals how phenomenology can be a rich source of creativity for actors, directors, designers, and collaborators in the performance process.
Brimming with insight into the practice and theory of acting, this original new work stimulates new approaches to rehearsal and sees theater-making as capable of speaking back to philosophical discourse.
174 pages | 7 halftones | 6.69 x 9.61 | © 2021
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
A Note on the Text
1. Beginnings: Being There
Touching Hands with Being
What Is Phenomenology?
Performance and Phenomenology
Philosophers on Stage
Mapping the Self
2. Phenomenology: Being-in-the-World
Some Background Terms
Space and Bodies
The History of Being
Destruktion and the Text
From Theory to Practice
Observe a Walk
Observe Stillness
Scrutinize an Object
Chart a Place Well Known to You
Unpack a Place Where You Feel At Home
Dissect a Familiar Activity
Describe a Person
Recount a Time When You Struggled to Communicate
Demonstrate a Moment When You Had an Unusual Experience of Time
Stage a Life Choice
Recreate the Instant in Which Your Life Was Threatened
Text-Character-Performance
3. Being-with Others: The Cherry Orchard
Equipment
Involvement
Touch
Being Elsewhere
Other People
- Authenticity and Freedom: Antigone
Falling
Nothingness
Moods and Faring
Thrownness and Projection
Fate and Destiny
5. Time and Resoluteness: Hamlet
Timeliness
Having a History
Being-a-Whole
Resoluteness
Being-towards-Death
6. Possibilities: Aletheia
On the Essence of Truth in Theatre
Poetry, Language, Theatre
Building, Dwelling, Theatre
The Question concerning Theatre Technology
Ereignis
References
Index