Malditah Musings

Defining Postmodern Theatre

I want to begin by differentiating postmodern theater from its preceding periodizing categorization, the 'classic' and the 'modern' drama. Classical drama is characterized by the value placed on the plot and its adherence to Aristotle's law of dramatic unities. In the nineteenth century we also follow how Hegelian philosophy in modern drama filtered the movement of 'people' / character at the forefront of the character dramaturgy dramas Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekov. We also see how Aristotle's mimesis is taken to the heights during the naturalism as influenced by Darwinian science stagings of modern theater. Raymond Williams observes the perfection of tragedy in modern drama in which the alienated human predicament in a highly industrialized world are highlighted. He sees Beckett's tragicomedies represents the reduction and degradation of people in a new absurdist dramatic structure.

To Elinor Fuchs, it is postmodern theater we have witnessed the "death of character" and the depletion of the plot. In this statement we are reminded of Barthes' announcement of the "death of the author" Foucault saying the "death of man" and Lyotard hailing the dissolution of metanarratives. As hard categorization and structural collapse of modernism, eclecticism now characterizes Postmodernism. But unlike Jameson's notion of pastiche and extreme consumerism of the multi-national capitalism, critical postmodern theater derives its theory from the post-Structuralists' views on semiotics. De Saussure laid bare the true construction of human language structures explained its signs and codes. Taking off from this, Derrida's analysis of the subjectivity of human sense-making has furthered the validity of metanarratives. Now that the validity of sign-signified and code definition constructs of the language is put into question, postmodernists are forced to investigate the construction language itself. Finally, we come to realize that meaning and thought are subjective and should contextualized. With this, categorizing boundaries set by the collapse of modernism as well.

How do all these reflect the postmodern theater?

Raymond Williams explains the notion of this theater convention. Conventions in the theater by Raymond Williams techniques such as figurative speech, stage blocking, songs or by dance of specific dramatic purpose is achieved. He pointed out how the theater conventions if, performative technique or literary device, is characterized by its owned by the public and its relationship to specific criteria provided. With this, he stressed the fact how dramatic conventions are maintained as "the terms in which authors, performers and audience agreed to meet, so that performance can lead to." Nicole Boireau expounded on the concept of dramatic conventions by the Hamletesque metaphor of the 'mousetrap'. From this, he claims that truth can be accessed through the world of illusion, that it is only with the theatricality that reality is revealed. Theater expresses reality through the use of artificial conventions. He explained that only through the reflective nature of drama and dramatic conventions truths presented are validated drama. It was then through both exciting and dramatic conventions set as a medium to express truths, truths that can be validated declared. It is through self-limits and means confined sense could be the foundation truths expressed.

Williams and Boireau's explanation is a profound expression of structuralist and post-structuralist concept of laying bare language and systems of signs and codes. Although rooted in the Modern Theatre and Classical traditions, this is a postmodern realization of what Linda Hutcheon calls self reflexive nature of postmodern theater.

On the validity of a 'universal' language, postmodern theater was provoked but to look at the history and cultural context for speak a language itself. The same features are seen in other art forms. Postmodern choreographers created dances about the dance, asking the very core of vocabularies movement that gave birth to choreographical work with walking, skipping, etc. This is also true experimentations in different dance styles seen in Twyla Tharp's combination of jazz, ballet and ballroom. In the Philippines, it is found in Agnes Locsin's and Alice Reyes' fusion of jazz and ballet and ethnic and Philippine indigenous movement. Postmodern architects see the history of architectural design as a diverse source of signs combined and recombined, so the Greek columns, decorations and Modern Art Deco Industrial materials are eclectically put together in one building.

Postmodern theater seeing different cultures and historical traditions as a major source signs. Kaye describes how Postmodernism sees history as a store of signs available for training postmodern theater. In a recent production of Hamlet in Singapore, Hamlet is shown as a Noh actor Ophelia as a Balinese dancer. Or in the recent presentation Woven's Dulaang plays musical in the Kingdom of the Day, readers are taken on a seemingly incoherent world of a cabaret / rock concert, a Peking opera stage, and an extremely expressionistic theatrical world. The music is a blend of Broadway influenced pop and rock songs, and fusion of classical and traditional Filipino ethnic and folk music. In the postmodern theater, performance representation style, clothing, production design, music and other elements taken from different contexts.

To collapse the boundaries of modern, postmodern theater takes on pluralism and multiplicity in styles, techniques and over-all process. It see different approaches to production. Another important postmodern theater practice is to use the inter-text, or in what Jameson calls a culture of reproduction, which where different texts can be used to provide feedback to each other. Such is a production of Romeo and Juliet, which played the edges in the closing monologue puck from midsummer A Night's Dream. In Nick Pichay's musical version of Lullaby of Rain, Dugong character complained about the trash accumulating in the ocean. He remarked that the worst kind of waste is the postmodern poetry of new-poets of course includes the Pichay itself.

The same collapse of the modern notion of Aristotle's linearity and the Hegelian logic of cause and effect, postmodern theater is characterized by multi-dimensionality and simultaneity. A simplified example of Maria Irene Fornes it's Fefu and Her Friends where readers divided into groups to see different views of the play is happening in different places. Or the shore scene of the 2002 staging of In Kingdom of the Day, past and present converge in the form of Paolo's parents died on the same stage where Paolo lovingly recalls them. Both place on the stage actor of a fish on one side, while another plays with a rain stick, while the other actors waiting for their signs sit well the chair onstage. Here, multi-dimensionality and simultaneity are not only seen how bad the plan is (dis) arranged. Although the actors playing the characters go through various dimensions of performance and representation in both time and space. Although the actors dressed for the character he has performed the paper sits in a chair on the side waiting for his cue, adopt the same as actors and as characters. People to exist as both actor and character but simultaneously in different sizes – Where at one point, while he waits for his cue he really was not part of the game but at the same time, physical and conscious, he was physically there.

As Fuchs mitigation of seeing the characters and plot in postmodern theater, he sees the other dramatic elements taking equal importance to these elements. He sees that "signifying Each element – the lighting, visual design, music, etc., as well as plot and character elements – stand to some degree as independent artists. "He pointed out that the Aristotelian elements survived but their classical and modern structural hierarchies ceased to operate. This attitude takes theater production its roots from Brechtian Epic Theatre. Brecht said earlier: "Now we see the theater being given absolute priority over the actual performing. The priority theater equipment is a priority of the means of production … The Theatre can stage anything, this movie all of it "(Raymond Williams, p.280).

And as postmodern theater see the "death of the author" (the playwright), the director now takes central role as a theorist is responsible for creating the language of a production.

Postmodern theater are also differentiated from the modern theater with its mode-of-production. The Industrial Revolution and the idea of mass-production and the division-of-making affected by music and theater production. The symphony orchestra and the opera is megalomaniac inventions of modernism. The eighteenth century symphony acquired the huge sound of modernism. Here music has made a large group of musicians divided into sections. The drama is an even larger modern creation. This huge theater production requires a complex web of 'workers' / artists who work as a major company to include an orchestra, singers, sky, clothes-makers, carpenters, etc. Even the art-products are now produced for mass consumption. While the music used to perform in court and chamber, the symphony and the drama was staged in major opera houses sit thousands.

The new paradigm in theater production that calls for a different attitude from the audience as well. Sa postmodern theater, Aristotle's notion of catharsis when it comes to extreme obscurity in the postmodern theater. Aesthetic experience becomes totally dependent on the method of making sense. The aesthetic experience that transpires sa postmodern process is closer to Kant's sublime. Unlike the cathartic Aristotle's drama succumbs its audience empathizing attitude towards mimetic illusion of classical and modern drama, Kant states that the distance is necessary to achieving aesthetic pleasure. Brecht in turn, suggests 'complex seeing' in the theater: "Complex seeing must be practiced …. Thinking above the flow of play to be more important than thinking from within the flow of play "(Ibid., p281).

As much as postmodern theater are required to go through a dialogic process of taking theory to practice and theory to back it will be able to express himself, postmodern audience and then called to go through this process of meaning-making. Here, postmodern theater forces its audience to always take a critical stance on watching. Language-creation and meaning-making postmodern theater is not a simple one-to-one correspondence modes of cognition. A wary stance toward subjectivity of language, postmodern productions then manifested in repeated disruptions sa its audience's cognitive processes. John Orr sees it as intentional dis-recognition/mis-recognition and he notes that they are often used as dramatic-shock effect. The audience was provoked to find out what the 'menacing' and 'strange "the familiar objects onstage and they were prodded to" translate back the strangeness, as a deception that the metonymic, something that they really know, I know no complete translation "(John Orr, p.32).

The poor take nature of Postmodernism as a theory, DiGaetani sees the importance of having a terminology that could serve as a handle. He stated that "it is wonderful to have a Postmodernism as a term to describe art "(John DiGaetani, p. XV). to Fuchs, the theater was in fact what we can now call postmodern and he asserts that the sooner we grasp this method we "immediately to a better vantage point from which to see what used to be called 'avant-garde' theater "(Elinor Fuchs, p.171).

Works cited:

Boireau, Nicole. Drama drama. Macmillan Press: London, c.1997. John DiGaetani. Search for Postmodernism: Lecture in contemporary Playwrights. Greenwood Press: New York, 1991. Elinor Fuchs. Death of Character. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, c.1996 John Orr. Tragicomedy and contemporary culture. Hong Kong: Macmillan and academic Professional, Ltd., 1991 Raymond Williams. Brecht Drama from Ibsen. Oxford University Press: New York, c. 1969 1968.

About the Author

meLê is a theatre director, web/graphic/video artist, a music composer and an intercultural art studies scholar from the Philippines. His interdisciplinary practice and scholarship in the media and fine arts, has built him a reputation as one of the most active postmodern/postcolonial artist in Southeast Asia. Visit his website: www.meleyamomo.com.