Essay on Modernist Dramatic Works: Meta-Theatre & Porosity of the Stage

Introduction

A common factor that exists for modernist dramatic works is that it foregrounds the conventional status of the theatrical stage. The barrier that existed between the stage and the audience has been reduced to a porous one. It frequently changes depending on the needs of the population.

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The Nature and Impact of Metatheatre

For some, to arrive at a new interaction between the stage and auditorium, some changes are made where a character speaks for the authors and so on. The term "meta-theatre" was first coined by Lionel Abel back in 1960 (Abel 135). Ever since, it has remained a stock concept for many educators, researchers and practitioners who focus on the field of drama.

Unfortunately, there is very little work done to theorize and historicize the forms and functions of the nature of this early modern metatheatre. The authors whose works are analyzed in this research argue that metatheatre has significantly impacted scholarly developments (Abel 136). It has triggered important developments such as performance and rehearsals, gender studies and the reconstruction of history, the ability to use rhetoric and materiality of the stage, the complete use of genre for audience engagement and the ability to trigger stage/page relationships.

The Role of Perception and Reception in Politics

Reception and perception are fundamental to our lives. When we brush our hair, dress up, and behave nicely we try to direct people's reception of us (Willis 197). Our perceptions of the world and it's or organizations determine what charities we donate to, what political parties we vote for, and what actions we take. The fact that in Germany "Rezeption" is a common term for "response" is an example of how we perceive is defined by, and determines, how we respond and react (Keshavarz 139).

Perception plays a key role in politics as well. For instance, public view of a certain country, religion, and group determines the ways they may be treated (Scholes, Phelan and Kellogg 4). If the public perception of the third world residents would not be that they are offensive, trying to make nuclear weapons, or that they are savages killing themselves and others, attacking them would not make sense.

Conversely, if the public view in the Middle East would not be that western countries are imperialists who do not take a step unless to colonize and exploit others, attempts for creating groups against them would fail. In other words, the ways people imagine and depict each other in their minds and media determine the ways they treat each other in real life.

Reconstructing Western-Muslim Relationships through Representation and Reception

Therefore, it seems helpful that in reimagining the other, an attempt to help with reconstruction of Western-Muslim relationships, a few sections are allocated to perception of these two worlds. It seems clear that before any attempt to engage the other, first we need to reconstruct our perceptions of, and reimagine, the other.

Besides, there might be another point which is worth speculation and that is representing self to others. Because, it seems that the ways Western and Muslim countries represent themselves to each other, through personal interactions and media, determine the other party's perception and treatment of them. And until they don't change their ways of showing, depicting, and representing themselves, there will be no change in others' perceptions of them, and their communications gets more and more complicated.

Because, it is almost impossible to ask people to change their perceptions of us while our representation of ourselves still are the same. But, it is possible to change our ways of representing ourselves to others, so the change in our representations may change their perceptions of us. Having said that, a profound knowledge and proper application of Representation and Reception Theories may make a positive change in policy-making, international affairs, and conflict resolution.

To this end, the first step is learning the basics of Representation and Reception Theories. Considering the limit of the scope and unity of the topic required the focus will be on Reception Theories. This work provides a ground for further researches on reception and representation in future.

The Basics of Reception Theories and Aristotle's Poetics

To discover the oldest theory of reception we need to travel back in time and unearth Aristotle's Poetics (Willis 199). In his book, Aristotle describes tragedy as "an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude." (Aristotle 31). It seems that, "By "magnitude" Aristotle means proportionality, as later he writes: A picture of a living organism must not only have an orderly arrangement of parts, but must also be of a certain magnitude; for beauty depends on magnitude and order.

Hence an exceedingly small picture cannot be beautiful; for the view of it is confused, the object being seen in an almost imperceptible moment of time; Nor, again, can one of vast size be beautiful; for as the eye cannot take it all in at once, the unity and sense of the whole is lost for the spectator; as for instance if there were a picture a thousand miles long. So, in the plot, a certain length is necessary [which] can be easily embraced by the memory. (Aristotle 33).

As the authors indicate, "The audience must be able to grasp the whole of the plot with relative ease. If the play is too short, we lose a sense of development; if it is too long, we lose track of what is happening and our appreciation of the story is impaired." (Aristotle 33). We see that Aristotle pays a special attention to a play being graspable for the audience and recommends playwrights to care about this point.

Of course, Aristotle has found his instructions from reading and watching plays and observing their effects on the people's minds. He seems to have observed what features some plays had which made them memorable and effective for their audiences, including for Aristotle himself. Another place that shows Aristotle's regard for the audience is where he declares that, "Poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars."

Some scholar's make Aristotle's point more clear when they write: "Poetry is more philosophical than history [...] because in order to unfold a plot in a manner that is convincing to the audience, the poet must grasp and represent the internal logic, the necessity, of the outcome of those events while a historian must not." (Aristotle 35).

Another place that Aristotle addresses the audience is where he praises the role of surprise in tragedy which is the result of the chain of events. He writes: "Tragedy, however, is an imitation not only of a complete action, but also of incidents arousing pity and fear. Such incidents have the very greatest effect on the mind when they occur unexpectedly and at the same time in consequence of one another."

To clarify Aristotle's regard for the audience, the scholar's words may help where they write: "Aristotle remarks that tragic heroes and the audiences of tragedies experience 'Peripeteia' as surprises. [He] acknowledges the 'scene of suffering' which arouses strong emotions- 'Pathos' -from the audience [...]. Examples of this 'scene of suffering' include the slaying of Agamemnon or the blinding of Oedipus." (Aristotle 34).

The Audience's Role in Aristotelian Tragedy and Catharsis

We see that Aristotle identifies Peripety or surprise as an element which may cause pity and fear in the audience. He emphasizes that surprise should be "[the] consequence" of previous events to seem probable, believable, and convincing, while being shocking to the audience. And, another place that Aristotle writes about the audience is where he discusses his famous concept of catharsis or purgation.

He writes, "[A tragedy's playwright] through pity and fear [creates] the proper purgation of these emotions." Aristotle adds: "Fear and pity may be aroused by spectacular means; but they may also result from the inner structure of the piece, which is the better way, and indicates a superior poet." (Aristotle 37).

Another author comments disclose the relation of Aristotle's remarks with Reception Theories where he writes: "Catharsis therefore, can be defined as a theory of the literature effects on the receiver who in this case is the audience of the tragedy. Not the actual audience, which he appears to despise at times but instead an abstract audience. (Hornby 32).

Literary Criticism and the Study of Texts

As Hornby (33) comments, Aristotelian catharsis may be considered as "a theory of the effects of literature on the receiver. In fact, Poetics itself may be considered as the first book on Reception, as, according to Culpepper (95), it enables us to "look at [the audience's] response through the structure of the work. Poetics marks the beginning of Literary Criticism which is text-oriented and has caused literary critics to approach literary works with the objective of analyzing their internal structures, rather than attempting to identify their external effects on the readers.

However, there have always been attempts to predict or analyze the reader's responses, but they, too, were focusing on, in Culpepper'swords, "an abstract audience" rather than "the actual audience." The actual audience must have waited to gain the special attention of Reception Theorists in the twentieth century.

Other authors also argue that Literary works are [traditionally] distinguished by two characteristics: the presence of a story and a story-teller." Sontag (282) objects to this stating that the fact that all stories are implicitly or explicitly addressed to an audience, whose presence is as variable and as problematic as that of the story-teller, escaped their notice or was considered too trivial to mention.

We can easily trace this back to Aristotle's concept of a text's wholeness that he discusses in Poetics. Readers and audiences of a literary work are multitude, but a literary work may be considered an object which a critic can study. Of course, a critic may study an author as well, which may also be traced in Aristotle's Poetics where he identifies consistencies in the Greek authors' works.

However, the author as an object of study has not been as widespread as the text has been until the emergence of the Auteur Theory in Film Studies in the Twentieth century. Under these conditions, critical controversies, no matter how heated, never concern anything more than the proper approach to, or the proper explication of, the text. The text's centrality, according to Jacques Derrida, is the result of "metaphysics of presence," which he sees as "the dominant mode of Western thought since Plato, and of which the notion of textual unity is but a specific manifestation."

Post-Structuralist Approaches and the Illusion of Textual Unity

For Derrida, "metaphysics of presence" is an illusion according to which there may be a unified object present in front of an observer, which one of its examples is a literary work. Accordingly, a literary critic assumes a unified text is present and exists in front of him/her consisting of elements which serve the purpose of delivering the author's unified meaning. Therefore, literary critic's job is to identify and analyze those elements to find that intended meaning which is embedded in the text by the author.

Derrida's ideas belong to Post-structuralist approaches to the text and various readers' receptions. Centuries of Literary Criticism gave birth to the Russian Formalism which later transformed into "the New Criticism in Britain and in the United States, which dominated the study and discussion of literature in the English-speaking world (Hylton n.p).

Conclusion

Both schools emphasized the reading of texts, elevating it far above generalizing discussion and speculation about either authorial intention (to say nothing of the author's psychology or biography, which became almost taboo subjects) or reader's response." One of the fundamental principles of the New Criticism was its "emphasis on form and precise attention to 'the words themselves.'"

This may remind on...