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September 14, 2004
Performance Studies: An Introduction
| Title | Performance Studies: An Introduction | |
| Author | Richard Schechner | |
| Publisher | Routledge, London & New York | |
| Date | 2002 | |
| ISBN | 0-415-144620-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-415-14621-6 (pbk) | |
| Reviewed by | Jane Szita | |
| In this elegant and comprehensive introduction to the emerging field of performance studies, this book defines performance as, “any action that is framed, presented, or highlighted.” It encompasses not only theatre, dance and music, but also ritual, play, sport, healing, the media, the internet, and the whole range of everyday performances we all carry out in a range of social, professional, gender, class and race roles. Theories of performance are, in fact, nothing less than theories of behaviour. It is an all-inclusive definition, and this book is correspondingly encyclopaedic, full of quotations, definitions, biographies, poetry and pictures, an extraordinary wealth of material which, luckily, is extremely well-organised. While stressing the universality of the “all the world’s a stage” theory, it also makes clear, useful, and thought-provoking distinctions between performance types; so, while an actor in a play is performing “make-believe” actions, a person enacting a social role — whether the US President or a car salesman — is engaged in “make-belief”: creating (or trying to create) the very social realities he or she enacts. Similarly, while play and ritual are both central to performance, they reflect quite different impulses: play is, loosely speaking, spontaneous, whereas ritual is rigid. This book covers an immense swathe of cultural ground, from classical theatre to digital billboards and mass tourism, uncovering much important information about the way we present ourselves, and raising some fascinating psychological issues along the way. For example, it tantalisingly hints at the extent to which we all rely on ‘flow’, in the performance sense of the ability to merge ourselves with our roles. As Yeats wrote, “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” | ||
Posted by Books Editor at September 14, 2004 09:33 PM