Active experiencing in postdramatic performance : affective memory and quarantine theatre’s wallflower

Crossley, TL

Abstract

Postdramatic approaches to performance and Stanislavsky’s methodology seemingly occupy divergent performance traditions. Nonetheless, both traditions often require performers to mine their own lives (albeit to different ends) and operate in an experiential realm that demands responsiveness to and within the live moment of performing. It is this realm that I explore in this paper, through an analysis of Quarantine Theatre’s Wallflower (2015). I argue that Wallflower represents an example of postdramatic practice that blends a poetics of failure with a psychophysical dramaturgical approach that can be aligned with Stanislavsky’s concepts of Affective Memory and Active Analysis. I also adopt Carnicke’s use of the term ‘active experiencing’ to describe Wallflower’s dramaturgical process. I argue that Wallflower provides a useful case study of practice that challenges the binary opposition between dramatic and postdramatic that is still prevalent in theatre and performance studies scholarship, and suggest that the application of aspects of Stanislavsky’s System, nuanced by cognitive neuroscience, can expand the theorization of postdramatic theatre, which in turn generates techniques that can prove valuable in the rehearsal of dramatic theatre itself.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 9, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Apr 19, 2018
• Publication Date: Apr 19, 2018
• Deposit Date: Mar 26, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: May 1, 2018
• Journal: New Theatre Quarterly
• Print ISSN: 0266-464X
• Electronic ISSN: 1474-0613
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
• Volume: 34
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 145-159
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X18000052
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X18000052
• Related Public URLs: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-theatre-quarterly