Jazz musicality in postdramatic theatre and the opacity of auditory signs

Abstract

Lehmann's paradigm of postdramatic theatre has mainly been criticized on two levels: its flexibility and its alleged putting to death of drama. I wish to highlight to what extent flexible paradigms like the postdramatic one are necessary to study the numerous performances that are characterized by their in-between-ness between dramatic and postdramatic codes. The study of postdramatic jazz musicality that we observe in Jaz by Koffi Kwahul or inIsabella's Roomby Jan Lauwers demonstrates the need for such flexibility. Lehmann's notion of independent auditory semiotics could be a relevant tool to study the exploitation of text as music (and not only in music). As Lehmann does not develop this concept but only mentions it in his general postdramatic theory, I wish to propose an introductory model of postdramatic auditory semiotics, based on the opacity of the theatrical sign and on the Peircian notion oficonic thought. The latter makes it possible to study performativity per se via semiotic theories. Consequently, in contrast to the opinion of many researchers, among whom is the semiotician Erika Fischer-Lichte, theatrical semiotics does not only provide tools to study what the signs of the performancemean. It can also deal with autonomous performativity, which is particularly necessary with regard to postdramatic theatre.

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