Whilst a Dramaturg’s influence on a performance may not be entirely obvious to the audience and they may not even be credited for the role; the Dramaturg remains a vital part of the development and creation of a performance.
The Dramaturg provides a fresh set of eyes for a company. As someone who is not constantly involved in the everyday development and rehearsal of a performance but may periodically visit the company and aid the director, performers and production team in developing the piece, addressing any problems and providing a port of communication between the individual areas of the team.
The Oxford Dictionaries Online defines Dramaturgy as “theory and practice of dramatic composition” and a Dramaturg as “dramatist” or “literary editor on the staff of a theatre who liaises with authors and edits texts.” (both from http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0243580#m_en_gb0243580)
Throughout this module my group and I set out to create a piece of theatre, with consideration to the role of the Dramaturg in the theatre and attempted to recreate said role within our own creation process. We decided against the appointment of a singular Dramaturg, as this was a new role that none of us had yet experienced and therefore we decided it was something we wished to learn and explore together. We also chose not to use an individual director as it was clear from the beginning we were a group very much on the same wavelength in terms of style, content and the overall vision of the piece.
The first place in which a Dramaturg may have been involved is the choosing of the play/idea for the performance. This choice is made by a Dramaturg variation often known as the Literary Manager. They are responsible for the finding and choosing of the next play for a company to perform. This decision, might be based on a number of factors, such as; the strengths of the company, the demand/popularity of certain plays or styles and of course, the quality of the play itself. Mary Luckhurst, in her book Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre, defines the Literary Manager and Dramaturgs role as such:
“Any public performance of a play by a company necessitates the accomplishment of these functions: the play must have been read and selected; unless perfectly crafted (rare indeed), it must also have been made stage worthy by cutting and/or rewriting; been cast; and in some measure, rehearsed. Furthermore, if performed more than once, or subsequently revived, judgement about it’s artistic, ideological, popular and/or commercial appeals must have been exercised.”(Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre: Luckhurst, M. CUP, Cambridge, 2006. P.11)
We were given the option of Büchner’s plays Leonce and Lena, Woyzeck, and Danton’s Death. Whilst a large group quickly formed from some of the other students, all wanting to tackle the more serious plays, there was a number of us left pondering the humour and endless possibilities that could be found within Leonce and Lena. At this point the group was a muddle of students, most of whom had not worked together before, however by the end of this first session we had not only chosen a play but we had also formed the basis for our idea and started to find our enthusiasm for the text.
We knew straight away that we wanted to contemporise the play text, as we believed it to be genuinely funny and farcical piece of theatre. However we felt that the language of the script would possible prevent a modern audience from seeing this and that it would be interesting to find a way in which the events of the play could occur in a contemporary context.
It was decided that the play would be set in Las Vegas for two reasons, one; Vegas is renowned for it’s abundance of wedding chapels and notoriety for “shot-gun” weddings and two; we believed the innocent and genuine love of Leonce and Lena was a entertaining contrast to Las Vegas, a city of vice, ill repute and as is the case with casinos and gambling – deceit.
A Dramaturg, on occasions, will take part in the casting phase of production. However for our piece we resorted to the “names-out-of-a-hat” method to choose our parts, but it actually resulted in a rather successful casting and I honestly feel that the each member of the group was definitely playing the character that was best suited to them. In terms of characterisation for my character, I took inspiration from the character of Joy from television programme My Name is Earl and Dolly Parton. Both these women have a southern twang to their accents and I whilst I used Joy as inspiration for my mannerisms, as she is “bolshy” and unashamed, the inspiration found in Dolly Parton was her appearance; she is often fabulously quoted as saying “You’d be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap”.
In terms of staging we produced countless ideas of how we wanted the stage to look. Ideally we would have created as close a replica as could be achieved, to a Las Vegas casino. Fortunately the section of script chosen did not include any outdoor scenes, only those within the casino, bedrooms of the lovers and a bar. This meant that we were able to use a number of staple items of furniture that could be adjusted to suit each scene, for example we used a fold out bed that could have the bedding and cushions changed to show a move from Leonce’s bedroom to Lena’s. This desire to keep things simple and easily interchangeable was partially due to the need to keep scene changes simple and quick, but largely down to the fact that we wanted this module to focus on our characterisation and setting up the story. We used this opportunity to showcase our intentions for the play, our understanding of the characters and their relationships with one another. The same can be said for the use of lighting. Whilst ultimately we would like to use lighting in more elaborate forms, for the purposes of this module they were kept to a minimum, so as not to distract from the performances.
Mary Luckhurst, says:
“Any public performance of a play by a company necessitates the accomplishment of these functions: the play must have been read and selected; unless perfectly crafted (rare indeed), it must also have been made stage worthy by cutting and/or rewriting; been cast; and in some measure, rehearsed. Furthermore, if performed more than once, or subsequently revived, judgement about it’s artistic, ideological, popular and/or commercial appeals must have been exercised.” (Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre
Written By: Luckhurst, Mary. CUP, Cambridge, 2006. Page 11)
We tried to achieve this to our best ability within a short space of time and in many of these areas I believe we were successful. The text was re-written to make it suitable for a contemporary audience, cast appropriately, rehearsed and we went on to consider the ability to perform this piece again next module and it still remain artistic and engaging. I therefore believe my group and I have been successful in our first venture into Dramaturgy and will hopefully continue this same vein of work into the next module.
To finish I quote Dramaturgy and Performance by Cathy Turner and Synne.K.Behrndt:
“At it’s simplest, the live encounter of contemporary theatre may be represented by the relationship between the story-teller and the listener, a relationship the presupposes some level of interaction and critique, as well as a shared imaginative engagement.”( 2008, p.203)
Works cited:
http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0243580#m_en_gb0243580
Luckhurst, M. Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006.
Tuner. C and Behrndt.S.K. Dramaturgy and Performance, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. 2008