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  • From Script Analysis to Script Interpretation:Valorizing the Intuitive
  • Anne Fliotsos (bio)

The starting point for the vast majority of theatre productions is the study of the script, but what should such study entail? Identifying the exposition, rising action, crisis, climax, and resolution? Finding the central idea or spine of the play? Labeling the dramatic action with beats and units? Is there, in fact, an ideal answer, or are there a variety of utilitarian and artistic approaches?

For much of the last century the pedagogy of textual analysis has been the "nuts and bolts" approach: teaching analytical terminology, and then applying these terms and concepts to the scripts that are studied in class, thus privileging a neo-positivist approach to the text.1 Although textual analysis has traditionally favored the Western approach to scripts—compliments of Aristotle, Kon-stantin Stanislavski, and a few others—it cannot and should not be the only lens. In "Reading the Dramatic Text for Production," Julian Olf observes that his students become trapped in an intellectual approach to the text:

The same students who could offer articulate, critical exegeses on the most subtle aspects of the dramatic text were often those who suffered from an antiseptic, nonvisceral orientation to the work; their approaches to production—whether as actors, directors, dramaturgs, or designers—were lackluster if not outright boring.

(153)

Dramaturg Tori Haring-Smith echoes this sentiment from another perspective. In "Dramaturging Non-Realism: Creating a New Vocabulary," she writes that meaning is "conventionalized" when directors analyze nonrealistic works as if they were linear and realistic. Haring-Smith argues that we must "open up meaning rather than secure it," finding more questions than solutions (50). She explains: "Non-realist scripts . . . operate more associatively, often sidestepping cause and effect as irrelevant or inexplicable. . . . Those working on non-realist scripts are more likely to construct associative webs of meaning or cover the walls of a rehearsal with collages of visual images to explore a play's structure" (48). While nonrealistic scripts must include intuitive and associate approaches to the text, all scripts can benefit from a variety of contemplative lenses. As professors, how can we open up the realm of examining scripts by incorporating perspectives that complement formalist analysis? How might a focus on intuitive response to the script transform students who are normally taught to categorize and analyze?

This essay explores alternative lenses through which to view the script, arguing that intuitive, subjective interpretation is not only valid, but a necessary complement to traditional analysis. The first step in removing bias from the class is to substitute the term script interpretation for the more traditional script analysis; the first term connotes a much broader perspective of the script, liberating it from a single, analytical lens. Script interpretation places equal emphasis on the personal reflections of the reader as perceiver. The word interpret connotes several interrelated definitions: 1) "to explain or tell the meaning of "; 2) "to conceive in the light of individual belief, judgment, or circumstance"; and 3) "to represent by means of art: bring to realization by performance or direction."2 Through interpretation, the onus of meaning is placed on the perception of the script, including the reader's emotional responses, visceral responses, metaphorical interpretation, and an individual sense of [End Page 153] meaning rooted in personal experience. In essence, the question to the student interpreting a script shifts from "How do you work on the play" (i.e., the analysis of a text) to "How does the play work on you? " Ultimately, the act of dramaturgical investigation incorporates both.

To students looking for the "right" answers in class, and especially to students unaccustomed to exploring a play through rehearsal and production, a subjective approach may seem baffling at first. Personal experience with graduate and undergraduate students has taught me that the class must confront this issue, examining the very nature of perception and how it informs our understanding of art. Asking the class to reflect on a piece of visual art or music is an intriguing way to initiate this conversation. For example, as we begin to study modernism in Theatre Appreciation class, a course of some two hundred students with a wide variety of...

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