Language in the Theater

Abstract

The question with which I will be broadly preoccupied in the following pages may be posed in brief: does in theatrical performance fulfil peculiar functions, distinguishing it from literary language and the of other modes of discourse, notably in social intercourse? This fundamental question immediately generates a whole family of problematic issues, whose intimate relationship with each other and with the broad problem of the status of theatrical demands that they be confronted. Does the linguistic signifier in the drama have a primary signified (such as the speech or thought of a character) which it can never escape? How does in the theatre take its place in relation to other, non-linguistic processes operative in the performance? What constraints do the invariables of performance place upon language? Is there a range of roles that can adopt within those necessary constraints? What are the relations between as it appears in the written text of the play and as it emerges from the mouth of actors? These may appear to be-as indeed they are-ambitious aesthetic problems to attempt to wrestle with, and I certainly make no pretence to answering the questions in any authoritative or ex catbedra way. It is my hope simply to ask them in an intelligent and useful way, and to explore certain (sometimes contradictory) means by which the problematic of theatrical discourse may be tackled. The questions, especially as posed above, may be considered semiological in nature. What I am crucially concerned with is the manner in which signifies in the performance, and the kinds and levels of signification that it may offer. In saying this I am making various-not incontestable-assumptions both about and about the nature of theatrical performance, the principal being that each is a signifying system (albeit of a different kind), one of which (langauge) may be contributory to the other. I make these assumptions without rehearsing the semiological tradition as it has developed since Saussure-it is familiar enough after recent years of intense debate. Suffice it to say that not only the methodological framework of my analysis is inherited, but also most of the terminology I will employ. I borrow extensively from early European formalism, especially the Prague School of linguists, from the Danish linguist Louis Hjelmslev, as well as from later semiologists such as Roland Barthes and Christian Metz. The discussion that follows, therefore, will fall largely within wellestablished formalistic limits.

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