Monday, March 07, 2011
A Bad Word
American Theatre Wing: "It goes without saying that, as a literature based-discipline, theatre must be very sensitive in its word usage. Certainly playwrights choose their words with care, to insure that we understand not only story, but character, by faithfully following their script. In contrast to what we hear about the movie business, playwrights’ words are sacrosanct in the theatre; they are not altered, production by production, by actors or directors to make either party – or the audience – more comfortable. Words are the road map from which all theatre springs.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
This was an interesting article. When I was younger (probably in sixth grade or so), I was looking up articles about World War II, and I stumbled across a page that had links to "African Theater," "European Theater," and "Asian Theater." Of course, I know now that it's a reference to the areas in which the war was taking place, but it's another example of how the word is used to mean so many other things. And I certainly agree with the descrepencies over "new". But I think that's what makes language so powerful and wonderful. It's a case of semiotics - words just cannot mean exactly one thing. Everyone brings their own experience. When I think of theatre, I think of productions I have worked on, the spaces that I've spent so many hours in, the smell I associate with the craft, and stacks of plays. There is meaning behind a single word that would take hundreds of words to attempt to define. And I think, particularly for an artform, that's not dangerous, that's one thing that makes it so alive.
i agree with Emily. We can interpret words a thousand different ways, jut like we can a show a thousand different ways. The author talked about how people said shows they already know when theater companies asked them to take a survey asking them what shows they want to see. If you read the comments on the page itself, someone said they was asking the wrong questions. i agree. you ask what they liked, what kind of things do they want to see, etc.
Post a Comment