This dissertation examines performance and textual techniques used by American and British artists to provoke discussion about the politics of viewing. I theorize a model of spectatorship which exposes the race and gender symbolism of actors' and spectators' bodies and its effects on meaning-making in the performer-spectator encounter. In contrast to other models of feminist and radical spectatorship influenced by Brecht, which analyze race and gender as material economic and social relations, this model also considers their affective dimensions and alerts spectators to the cultural beliefs and prejudices that influence viewing. My analysis brings together two theoretically disparate concepts, commonly regarded as incompatible: the Brechtian gestus, a distancing device which calls attention to the economic motivation of representation; and the psychoanalytic concept of abjection, an emotionally-charged instance in which established paradigms of knowledge fail, revealing the cultural contingency of meaning. By accounting for the symbolic, non-material aspects of race and gender, my case studies contest the premise on which Brechtian theatre and social realism predicate critical intervention: the assumption that a spectator can observe the stage objectively from a position external to representation. Countering this assumption, the performances I analyze show how spectators are positioned as socially-situated participants, which initiates dialogue on the ethics of viewing. I draw on political theories of democratic contestation and feminist standpoint theories which account for the effects of imagination and affect on social interactions. The case studies include works by Suzan-Lori Parks, Sarah Kane, and Forced Entertainment, and the Upstream Theatre.

Last modified

• 09/06/2018

Creator

• Stefka Georgieva Mihaylova

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N23T60

Subject

• Theatre and Drama

Keyword

• Theatre and Drama

Date created

• 2008-05-06

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright