DTS Seminar Series, 2009
Drama and Theatre Studies presents a program of seminars. For further information or to offer a paper for future seminars, contact Felix Nobis.
- Semester 1 fortnightly
- Mondays 6pm to 7:30pm
- Room 226 in Building 68, Monash Clayton campus - see map at bottom of page
Recordings of some of the presentations in this series will be available from our podcast by clicking the individual links below.
Semester 1
- 23rd March
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Dr Julian Meyrick
The Ontology of Dramaturgy/Dramaturgy as Ontology
Drawing on the recent work of Alain Badiou in reviving discussions of the subject and of objective truth, this paper makes some remarks about the ontological parameters of dramaturgy, arguing that while the precise nature of a play text is hard to define, nevertheless dramaturgy is predicated on the notion that plays do have essential natures. On this ontological supposition resides the sense of a play’s structural elements, as well as its relationship to the real world ie. its relationship with truth. Dramaturgy is a way of intervening in processes of representation but it is anchored on issues of being. Questions of style, content, characterization, cultural context (both source and target) come second to the question of a play’s essential nature – its alethia.
The paper further argues that while dramaturgy is both a function and a method of work it is, at present times, also a metaphor. Dramaturgy as a ‘truth-procedure’ provides a language – limited, flawed but extant – to speak of the ‘whole’ of the theatre experience rather than a specialised part of it. As theatre becomes more technological, capitalised and rationalised – its identity as a totality is eclipsed. ‘Theatrical vision’ – whether that of the director’s, the designer’s, or the playwright’s – detaches from philosophical understanding and becomes the deployment of technique only.
- 6th April
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Ed Creely
Doing Phenomenology. Which Phenomenology? The trials and tribulations of phenomenological analysis in performance studies
Dominic Holding
Is Adoptee Art Post-Colonial?
- 27th April
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Professor Peter Fitzpatrick
Biofiction: trying to find the Two Frank Thrings
A discussion of the challenges in writing a biography of notorious Australian actor Frank Thring, and dealing with the subjectivity of the subject matter in a form of writing that is considered historical and objective.
Dr Barry Laing
A Horse Throwing its Rider: Practice-led Research in Performance Studies
A Horse Throwing its Rider: Practice-led Research in Performance Studies discusses Barry Laing’s PhD, Victoria University 2002. The PhD - an enquiry into subjectivity by means of performance - involved the writing, devising and performing of three solo performance works as well as a 60,000 word written document incorporating 18,000 words of the ‘performance texts’. This presentation engages with the strategies and methodologies employed as well as questions and complexities concerning theory, practice, praxis, method and knowledge as they might figure in postgraduate research by means of performance.
- 11th May
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Noel Maloney
“Season at Sarsparilla”: The Animated House
In Season At Sarsaparilla, Patrick White satirises locality while at the same time explores emotional connection to place. The play pillories cultural and economic values on the one hand and invests heavily in the emotions of desire, pleasure and loss on the other. The tension that sits between the tragedy of personal dislocation and the dark humour used to unhinge social constructions of place, permeates the whole narrative.
In his recent production of this play for the Sydney Theatre Company, Benedict Andrews found new ways to explore this tension. When place becomes an element in either the creation or the interpretation of dramatic text, new possibilities open up in the narrative. Character development, characterization and conflict find a new relative and a new set of relationships between these concepts begins to grow. The play becomes not simply action, but the world in which these actions play out. New questions come begging. What is the place of the story? How is the terrain shaping it? What time resides here? What, who, how and why does this place include and exclude? How do the characters territorialize, relate, adapt and proceed within a locality?
Dr Stuart Grant
A Performative Phenomenology of Fine Nerve Meters and Ephemeral Atmospheres
- 25th May
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Felix Nobis
Poetics and the Narrative: A play reading from “The Boy out of the Country”
How to Get There
The venue is room 226, on the 2nd floor of the The Performing Arts Complex, building 68 on Monash University's Clayton campus.
View Larger Map
Navigate using the above Google map, or download Clayton campus map (PDF).