Sokyokuchi: Toward a Theory, History, and Practice of Systemic Dramaturgy

novice:

Why did they applaud?

know ledge able companion:

It’s hard to explain, but basically, he did that exactly as if he were a puppet.

—exchange overheard by michael chemers during a 1996 performance of kyoden’s edo umare uwaki no kabayaki, lilly library, indiana university.

Despite a century of warnings from well-meaning (if perhaps overweening) theatrical traditionalists about the dangers of technology in the theatre, theatre has not perished but has instead evolved into new, exciting, and culturally and politically pertinent forms. This is due, in large measure, to the emergence of new technologies and their application in the theatre. This raises a number of questions for the contemporary dramaturg, the first of which is, exactly what questions should dramaturgs be asking about technology, about the digital, the cyber, and the virtual, in relation to theatre? What are the questions that can help us define the theoretical foundations for a renewed dramaturgical practice that takes into account political, social, technological, historical, and psychological discourses and puts them in dynamic relationship with each other? How can we define theoretical and practical principles for dramaturgs that will help them embrace a broader historical and global perspective on the question of technology and theatre? How can dramaturgs better serve directors, designers, and audiences so that they can think about technologies both old and new, technologies that can not only create memorable experiences in the theatre but facilitate creation and collaboration by those who want to make those kinds of experiences? Although many excellent scholarly works on technology and performance have emerged in the last few decades,¹ we argue that the ability of theatre artists to rise to the challenges and opportunities of computers, digital media, social media, and other so-called “new media” is hampered by both conventional understandings of dramaturgy and Eurocentric and inadequately historicized understandings of technology, and so we hope to demonstrate that some very old approaches to theatre articulate a new and useful way of thinking about and working with technology on and off the stage. This essay, which is part of a larger book project, explains the historiographic and theoretical foundations of this idea.

We call this approach “systemic dramaturgy,” which we consider part of a wave of scholarship and creative practice that has dramatically expanded the very notion of dramaturgy, particularly how we understand the dramaturg in relationship to the dramatic text and theatrical production. The premise of systemic dramaturgy is that theatre is best understood as a concatenation of people, places, things (scripts, props, structures, tools, specialized personnel, and so on), and processes (writing, casting, rehearsal, direction, design, publicity, and so on) that work together (hopefully!) in an organized fashion (hopefully!) to accomplish the goal of (particularly hopefully!) entertaining and edifying an audience. Theatre is also an interlocking set of conceptual systems: interpretive systems, production systems, teaching systems, and research systems. The systemic dramaturg understands not only how these systems work but also how they work together and how they work in concert with larger ongoing systems including aesthetic, political, and economic ones.

The exchange between the novice and the knowledgeable companion quoted above was overheard at a 1996 performance of Kyoden’s Playboy, Grilled Edo Style (Edo umare uwaki no kabayaki) at Indiana University’s Lilly Library, at the moment when the hero of the play first entered the stage, crossed to the center, and, in one smooth movement shifted his stance, bringing his parasol from his left shoulder to his right, earning thunderous applause from the members of the audience who understood and appreciated what they had just seen. The challenge faced by a novice spectator of Kabuki to fully understand why a human actor would intentionally wish to mimic the movements of a puppet—even one of the immensely sophisticated puppets that populate the modern Bunraku theatre—provides an excellent starting point for a case study of systemic dramaturgy. The conventions of Kabuki are challenging because they reflect a different way of thinking about and making with technology. To engage that difference, we need to understand...