Overview

Theory for Theatre Studies: Emotion explores how emotion is communicated in drama, theatre, and contemporary performance and therefore in society. From Aristotle and Shakespeare to Stanislavski, Brecht and Caryl Churchill, theatre reveals and, informs but also warns about the emotions. The term ‘emotion’ encompasses the emotions, emotional feelings, affect and mood, and the book explores how these concepts are embodied and experienced within theatrical practice and explained in theory. Since emotion is artistically staged, its composition and impact can be described and analysed in relation to interdisciplinary approaches. Readers are encouraged to consider how emotion is dramatically, aurally, and visually developed to create innovative performance. Case studies include: Medea, Twelfth Night, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, and performances by Mabou Mines, Robert Lepage, Rimini Protokoll, Anna Deavere Smith, Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, Marina Abramovic, and The Wooster Group. By way of these detailed case studies, readers will appreciate new methodologies and approaches for their own exploration of ‘emotion’ as a performance component. Online resources to accompany this book are available at https://www.bloomsbury.com/theory-for-theatre-studies-emotion-9781350030848/.

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9781350030855

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Reviews

Emotions are the staple ingredient of Theatre and Performance, but our understanding of them has been notably elastic, if not contradictory, over the years. Peta Tait’s deeply scholarly survey of this complex field does all of us wanting to practice and teach the art of emotion a huge favour. Deftly chosen and lively case studies, from Aristotle to Abramovic, bring clarity and definition to emotion studies and paint a vivid picture of how the shifting sands of mood, feeling and affect have settled on the world stage in such different, eye-catching patterns. -- Jonathan Pitches, Head of School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds, UK Tait leads us through a history of emotions in performance, introducing the key ideas and figures in classical, modern and contemporary theatre and showing how the emotions work in a stunning array of case studies spanning the classics, modern drama, commercial musicals and contemporary performance. Erudite and informative, the focus on emotion, feeling, affect and mood in this book is timely and precisely detailed in the many references to scholarly and artistic perspectives. The concluding observations on the nature of intensity are highly relevant and helpful to understanding theatre in our time. Tait’s deep knowledge of theories of emotion in western theatre and performance is unmatched among scholars in the field. * Peter Eckersall, Professor of Theatre and Performance, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA *

Emotions are the staple ingredient of Theatre and Performance, but our understanding of them has been notably elastic, if not contradictory, over the years. Peta Tait's deeply scholarly survey of this complex field does all of us wanting to practice and teach the art of emotion a huge favour. Deftly chosen and lively case studies, from Aristotle to Abramovic, bring clarity and definition to emotion studies and paint a vivid picture of how the shifting sands of mood, feeling and affect have settled on the world stage in such different, eye-catching patterns. -- Jonathan Pitches, Head of School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds, UK

Author Information

Peta Tait is professor of Theatre and Drama at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. She is an academic scholar and playwright with an extensive background in theatre, dramatic literature, performance theory and creative arts practice. She researches in the interdisciplinary humanities fields of emotions, body theory and gender identity. Professor Tait has authored four scholarly books, and edited and co-edited three further books, with sixty other publications including articles in Theatre Journal, Modern Drama and Performance Research.

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