Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T08:21:00.121Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Drama, Performativity, and Performance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

W. B. Worthen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There is a crisis in drama studies that is reflected in the ways different disciplines understand dramatic texts and performance. Literary studies, absorbed with the functioning of language, often betrays a desire to locate the meanings of the stage in the dramatic text. Performance studies has developed a vivid account of nondramatic performance, which appears to depart from textual authority. Both disciplines, however, view drama as a species of performance driven by its text; as a result, drama appears as an unduly authorized mode of performance. Here, I read a range of critics (Andrew Parker. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Judith Butler on J. L. Austin; Dwight Conquergood on ethnography; Joseph Roach on surrogation) to suggest ways of rethinking the relations of authority that inform texts and performances. I conclude with a glance at the representation of the text in Baz Luhrmann's recent film William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 113 , Issue 5 , October 1998 , pp. 1093 - 1107
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 by The Modem Language Association of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Artaud, Antonin. “No More Masterpieces.” The Theater and Its Double. Trans. Richards, Mary Caroline. New York: Grove, 1958. 74–83.Google Scholar
Auslander, Philip. “Evangelical Fervor.” TDR: The Drama Review: The Journal of Performance Studies 39.4 (1995): 178–83.Google Scholar
Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. Ed. Sbisà, Marina and Urmson, J. O. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1975.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198245537.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barish, Jonas. The Antitheatrical Prejudice. Berkeley: U of California P, 1981.Google Scholar
Bennett, Susan. Performing Nostalgia: Shifting Shakespeare and the Contemporary Past. London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Bentley, Gerald Eades. The Profession of Dramatist in Shakespeare's Time. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971.Google Scholar
Bentley, Gerald Eades. The Profession of Player in Shakespeare 's Time. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984.Google Scholar
Berger, Harry Jr. Imaginary Audition: Shakespeare on Stage and Page. Berkeley: U of California P, 1989.Google Scholar
Berry, Ralph. On Directing Shakespeare: Interviews with Contemporary Directors. London: Hamilton, 1989.Google Scholar
Bharucha, Rustom. Theater and the World: Performance and the Politics of Culture. London: Routledge, 1993.Google Scholar
Bornstein, George, and Williams, Ralph G., eds. Palimpsest: Editorial Theory in the Humanities. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1991.Google Scholar
Bristol, Michael D. Big-Time Shakespeare. London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Bristol, Michael D. Shakespeare's America, America's Shakespeare. London: Routledge, 1990.Google Scholar
Brown, John Russell. “General Preface to the Applause Shakespeare Library.” King Lear. Ed. Brown, . New York: Applause, 1996. v-vii.Google Scholar
Bulman, James. “On Being Unfaithful to Shakespeare: Miller, Marowitz, and Wesker.” Journal of Theatre and Drama 2 (1996): 59–73.Google Scholar
Bulman, James, ed. Shakespeare, Theory, and Performance. London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. “Critically Queer.” GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies 1 (1993): 17–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, Judith. Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. New York: Routledge, 1997.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990.Google Scholar
Carlson, Marvin. Performance: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethan Stage. Oxford: Clarendon, 1923.Google Scholar
Clifford, James. The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1988.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohn, Ruby. Just Play: Beckett's Theater. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980.10.1515/9781400853601CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, Catherine. “Sex and Death on Display: Women, Reproduction, and Fetuses at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.” TDR: The Drama Review: The Journal of Performance Studies 37.1 (1993): 43–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conquergood, Dwight. “Ethnography, Rhetoric, and Performance.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 78 (1992): 80–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conquergood, Dwight. “Of Caravans and Carnivals: Performance Studies in Motion.” TDR: The Drama Review: The Journal of Performance Studies 39.4 (1995): 137–41.Google Scholar
Conquergood, Dwight. “Rethinking Ethnography: Towards a Critical Cultural Politics.” Cultural Monographs 58.2 (1991): 179–94.Google Scholar
Dawson, Anthony. Watching Shakespeare: A Playgoer's Guide. New York: St. Martin's, 1988.10.1007/978-1-349-19362-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. “Signature Event Context.” Margins of Philosophy. Trans. Bass, Alan. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1982. 307–30.Google Scholar
Diamond, Elin. Introduction. Diamond, Performance 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamond, Elin, ed. Performance and Cultural Politics. London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Dionysus in 69. By the Performance Group. Ed. Richard Schechner. New York: Farrar, 1970.Google Scholar
Dolan, Jill. “Geographies of Learning: Theatre Studies, Performance, and the ‘Performative.‘” Theatre Journal 45 (1993): 417–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dolan, Jill. Response to W. B. Worthen's “Disciplines of the Text / Sites of Performance.” TDR: The Drama Review: The Journal of Performance Studies 39.1 (1995): 28–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic, 1973.Google Scholar
Going, Going, Gone. Program. Magic Theatre, San Francisco. 7–18 May 1996.Google Scholar
Goldman, Michael. Acting and Action in Shakespearean Tragedy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1988.Google Scholar
Goldman, Michael. Shakespeare and the Energies of Drama. Princeton: Princeton UP. 1972.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grigely, Joseph. Textualerity: Art, Theory, and Textual Criticism. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1995.Google Scholar
Gurr, Andrew. Playgoing in Shakespeare's London. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987.Google Scholar
Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage, 1574–1642. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1980.Google Scholar
Hodgdon, Barbara. “Replicating Richard: Body Doubles, Body Politics.” Theatre Journal 50 (1998): 207–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard, Jean. The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England. London: Routledge, 1994.Google Scholar
Kapsalis, Terri. Public Privates: Performing Gynecology from Both Ends of the Speculum. Durham: Duke UP. 1997.Google Scholar
Kauffmann, Stanley. “Blanking Verse.” New Republic 2 Dec. 1996:40+.Google Scholar
Landau, Tina. “Source-Work, the Viewpoints and Composition: What Are They?” Anne Bogart: Viewpoints. Ed. Dixon, Michael Bigelow and Smith, Joel A. Lyme: Smith, 1995. 13–30.Google Scholar
Lane, Anthony. “Tights! Camera! Action! What Does It Mean That the Bard Recently Hit No. 1 at the Box Office'?” New Yorker 25 Nov. 1996: 65–77.Google Scholar
Limón, José. Dancing with the Devil: Society and Cultural Poetics in Mexican-American South Texas. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1994.Google Scholar
Marcus, George E. “The Uses of Complicity in the Changing Mise-en-Scène of Anthropological Fieldwork.” Representations 59 (1997): 85–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marcus, Leah S. Unediting the Renaissance: Shakespeare, Marlowe, Milton. London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Masten, Jeffrey. Textual Intercourse: Collaboration, Authorship, and Sexualities in Renaissance Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.Google Scholar
McDonald, Marianne. Ancient Sun, Modern Light: Greek Drama on the Modern Stage. New York: Columbia UP, 1992.Google Scholar
McGann, Jerome J. The Textual Condition. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991.Google Scholar
Montrose, Louis. The Purpose of Playing: Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of the Elizabethan Theatre. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1996.Google Scholar
Murray, Timothy. Drama Trauma: Specters of Race and Sexuality in Performance, Video, and Art. London: Routledge, 1997.Google Scholar
Orgel, Stephen. Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare's England. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.Google Scholar
Parker, Andrew, and Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Introduction. Performativity and Performance. Ed. Parker and Sedgwick. New York: Routledge, 1995. 1–18.Google Scholar
Patraka, Vivian. “Spectacles of Suffering: Performing Presence, Absence, and Historical Memory at U.S. Holocaust Museums.” Diamond, Performance 89–107.Google Scholar
Phelan, Peggy. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. London: Routledge, 1993.Google Scholar
Roach, Joseph. Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance. New York: Columbia UP, 1996.Google Scholar
Roach, Joseph. “Economies of Abundance.” TDR: The Drama Review: The Journal of Performance Studies 39.4 (1995): 164–65.Google Scholar
Roach, Joseph. “Kinship, Intelligence, and Memory as Improvisation: Culture and Performance in New Orleans.” Diamond, Performance 217–36.Google Scholar
Roach, Joseph. “Mardi Gras Indians and Others: Genealogies of American Performance.” Theatre Journal 44 (1992): 461–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roach, Joseph. Response to W. B. Worthen's “Disciplines of the Text / Sites of Performance.” TDR: The Drama Review: The Journal of Performance Studies 39.1 (1995): 35–36.Google Scholar
Rouse, John. “Textuality and Authority in Theater and Drama: Some Contemporary Possibilities.” Critical Theory and Performance. Ed. Reinelt, Janelle G. and Roach, Joseph R. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1992. 146–57.Google Scholar
Savigliano, Marta E. Tango and the Political Economy of Passion. Boulder: Westview, 1995.Google Scholar
Schechner, Richard. “Collective Reflexivity: Restoration of Behavior.” A Crack in the Mirror: Reflexive Perspectives in Anthropology. Ed. Ruby, Jay. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1982. 39–81.Google Scholar
Schechner, Richard. “A New Paradigm for Theatre in the Academy.” TDR: The Drama Review: The Journal of Performance Studies 36.4 (1992): 7–10.Google Scholar
Schechner, Richard. Performance Theory. 1977. Rev. ed. New York: Routledge, 1988.Google Scholar
Schechner, Richard. Response to W. B. Worthen's “Disciplines of the Text / Sites of Performance.” TDR: The Drama Review: The Journal of Performance Studies 39.1 (1995): 36–38.Google Scholar
Schechner, Richard. 'Theatre in the Twenty-First Century.“ TDR: The Drama Review: The Journal of Performance Studies 41.2 (1997): 5–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, Rebecca. The Explicit Body in Performance. London: Routledge, 1997.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. “Queer Performativity: Henry James's The Art of the Novel.” GLQ 1 (1993): 1–16.Google Scholar
Sewell, William H. Jr. “Geertz, Cultural Systems, and History: From Synchrony to Transformation.” Representations 59 (1997): 35–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. Evans, G. Blakemore et al. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton, 1997.Google Scholar
Shillingsburg, Peter L. Scholarly Editing in the Computer Age. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1986.Google Scholar
Strine, Mary S., Long, Beverly Whitaker, and Hopkins, Mary Frances. “Research in Interpretation and Performance Studies: Trends, Issues, Priorities.” Speech Communication: Essays to Commemorate the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Speech Communication Association. Ed. Phillips, Gerald M. and Wood, Julia T. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1990. 181–204.Google Scholar
Styan, J. L. Chekhov in Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1971.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Styan, J. L. The Shakespeare Revolution: Criticism and Performance in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1977.Google Scholar
Taplin, Oliver. Greek Tragedy in Action. Berkeley: U of California P, 1978.10.4324/9780203324301CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taussig, Michael. Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses. New York: Routledge, 1993.Google Scholar
Taylor, Gary. Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History from the Restoration to the Present. New York: Oxford UP, 1991.Google Scholar
Taylor, Gary. “The Renaissance and the End of Editing.” Bornstein and Williams 121–49.Google Scholar
Thompson, Marvin, and Thompson, Ruth, eds. Shakespeare and the Sense of Performance: Essays in the Tradition of Performance Criticism in Honor of Bernard Beckerman. Newark: U of Delaware P; London: Associated UP, 1989.Google Scholar
Turan, Kenneth. Rev. of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Los Angeles Times 1 Nov. 1996: F1+.Google Scholar
Turner, Victor. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: Performing Arts Journal, 1982.Google Scholar
Wall, Wendy. The Imprint of Gender: Authorship and Publication in the English Renaissance. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Warren, Roger. Staging Shakespeare's Late Plays. Oxford: Clarendon, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
When We Dead Awaken. By Henrik Ibsen. Dir. Robert Wilson. Alley Theater, Houston. 22–26 May 1991.Google Scholar
Whigham, Frank. Ambition and Privilege: The Social Tropes of Elizabethan Courtesy Theory. Berkeley: U of California P, 1984.Google Scholar
Whitton, David. Molière: Don Juan. Berkeley: U of California P, 1995.Google Scholar
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Dir. Baz Luhrmann. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Twentieth Century Fox, 1996.Google Scholar
Worthen, W. B. “Disciplines of the Text / Sites of Performance.” TDR: The Drama Review: The Journal of Performance Studies 39.1 (1995): 13–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Worthen, W. B. Shakespeare and the Authority of Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zarrilli, Philip B. Response to W. B. Worthen's “Disciplines of the Text / Sites of Performance.” TDR: The Drama Review: The Journal of Performance Studies 39.1 (1995): 38–41.Google Scholar