Deconstruction & Theatre

A Summary Of Deconstruction and Its Application

Sep 19, 2008 Tuirenn Hurstfield

Deconstruction is an essential element in postmodern theatre.

By unsettling the stability of textual/semiotic signifiers (notably binary opposites), deconstruction allows an open interpretation of its translation – there is no longer a fixed meaning, it opposes the aesthetic.

However, in deconstruction, it is important to note that to simply “replace an aesthetics of presence with one of absence … would merely reverse the traditional structure, not reject it, … Derrida constantly warns us against … merely reinscribing a binary system by reversing its terms.”[i] To exemplify: if we were to perform a production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and, for a feminist political statement, made the female parts be played by men and the male parts be played by women, then the traditional structure has not been rejected. All we have done is reversed the binary opposites and in doing so have simply defined a political problem whereby equality has still not been manifested.

Postmodern performance relies on opposing the aesthetic – what we believe, understand from reading and through convention to be beautiful or correct, and (through the deconstruction of original meaning) turning the common aesthetic around – offering new angles of interpretation. The works of Brecht, Artaud, Derrida and the structuralists Saussure and Pierce have provided this style of performance with the means to oppose the aesthetic.

The methods in which Artaud and Brecht challenged the traditional theatre norms has had a lasting effect and still resonates in the contemporary theatre, particularly so in postmodern performance. Pina Bausch, for instance, with her sequences of montage, the absence of a sustainable plot and the breaking down of barriers between spectator and performer through a non-linguistic medium of dance reflects the principles and ideas derived from Brecht and Artaud.

The deconstructive device formed by Derrida is used by many postmodern practitioners such as the Wooster Group and, together with the Artaudian view of language, is of enormous influence to Robert Wilson and his ‘Theatre of Visuals’.

Further articles here written will explore the common elements used in the works of such compnaies and will investigate how they are presented. Throughout, we will attempt to understand the methods these practitioners use to oppose conventional theatre norms. Also incorporated in this study is a look at censorship and how it potentially threatens postmodern performance and culminates in an insight to the controversial work of Annie Sprinkle, a self proclaimed Post Porn Modernist.

[i] Carlson M Performance a Critical Introduction Ch. 6 p.135

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