Drama, Performativity, and Performance
Abstract
There is a crisis in drama studies that is reflected in the ways different disciplines understand dramatic texts and performance. Literary studies, absorbed with the functioning of language, often betrays a desire to locate the meanings of the stage in the dramatic text. Performance studies has developed a vivid account of nondramatic performance, which appears to depart from textual authority. Both disciplines, however, view drama as a species of performance driven by its text; as a result, drama appears as an unduly authorized mode of performance. Here, I read a range of critics (Andrew Parker. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Judith Butler on J. L. Austin; Dwight Conquergood on ethnography; Joseph Roach on surrogation) to suggest ways of rethinking the relations of authority that inform texts and performances. I conclude with a glance at the representation of the text in Baz Luhrmann's recent filmWilliam Shakespeare'sRomeo and Juliet.
Cite this
William B. Worthen (1998). Drama, Performativity, and Performance. PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America. https://doi.org/10.2307/463244
@article{b1998drama,
title = {Drama, Performativity, and Performance},
author = {Worthen, William B.},
year = {1998},
journal = {PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America},
doi = {10.2307/463244}
}Citations in this library
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