Cover not available
Part of
A Comparative History of the Literary Draft in Europe
Edited by Olga Beloborodova and Dirk Van Hulle
[Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages XXXV] 2024
► pp. 288–304

1.4.2
Drama

How the page becomes a stage

Theatre is often defined by its ephemerality, its fundamental presence in the here and now. Can we circumvent performance’s immediacy and study theatre through the genetic documents of its creative process? How are drama drafts related to other literary drafts? Can we use the same methodological techniques to study drama and literary drafts? In this chapter, I will first suggest a new definition for drama drafts and discuss the theoretical domain of genetic criticism as an analytical tool. In the second part, I will explain the differences between dramatic and other literary drafts, and connect them to the challenges of genetic criticism as research methodology. In the third and final part, I will propose an alternative genetic research model on the basis of the directing book as drama draft.
Keywords: drama drafts, genetic criticism, director’s theatre, directing book, Regiebuch, postdramatic theatre, performance documentation, theatre notation
Article outline
  • Defining and studying drama drafts
  • Differences between dramatic and literary drafts, and challenges for theatre genetic criticism
  • The directing book as thinking model
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
References (67)
References
Auslander, Philip. 2006. “The Performativity of Performance Documentation.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 28: 1–10.Google Scholar
Bernard, Julia. 2005. “‘Un drame est ce que je nomme un drame’. Heiner Müller: quelques brouillons de Bildbeschreibung.” Théâtre 26: 141–143.Google Scholar
Brooks, Pauline. 2014. “Performance Creators and Audience: Co-Participants in an Interconnected Model of Performance and Creative Process.” Research in Dance Education 15 (2): 120–137.Google Scholar
Bury, Stephen. 1995. Artist’s Books. Menston, England: Scolar Press.Google Scholar
Cassiers, Edith. 2020. “(Re)defining the Directing book: How (Genetic Research of) Regiebücher Constructed the Regisseur.” European Journal of Theatre and Performance 2: 156–207.Google Scholar
Chinoy, Helen Krich, and Toby Cole. 1976. Directors on Directing: A Source Book of the Modern Theatre. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc.Google Scholar
Contat, Michel. 2005. “La genèse sociale des Séquestrés d’Altona de Jean-Paul Sartre.” Théâtre 26: 91–100.Google Scholar
Cook, Nicholas. 2001. “Between Process and Product: Music and/as Performance.” Music Theory Online 7 (2): 1–31.Google Scholar
Crombez, Thomas, and Edith Cassiers. 2017. “Postdramatic Methods of Adaptation in the Age of Digital Collaborative Writing.” Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 32 (1): 17–35.Google Scholar
De Biasi, Pierre-Marc. 1996. “What is a Literary Draft? Toward a Functional Typology of Genetic Documentation.” Yale French Studies 89: 26–58.Google Scholar
De Laet, Timmy, and Edith Cassiers. 2015. “The Regenerative Ruination of Romeo Castellucci.” Performance Research: A Journal of Performing Arts 20 (3): 18–28.Google Scholar
Dort, Bernard. 1987. Lecture de Galilée: etude comparée de trois états d’un texte dramatique de Bertolt Brecht. PhD thesis. Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3.
Etchells, Tim. 2014. “(Two Minutes) Very Peaceful: A Note on Drawings for Performance.” PAJ A Journal of Performance and Art 36 (2): 78–81.Google Scholar
Féral, Josette. 2008. “Towards a Genetic Study of Performance Take 2.” Theatre Research International 33 (3): 223–233.Google Scholar
Giannachi, Gabriella, and Mary Luckhurst (eds). 1999. On Directing: Interviews with Directors. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin.Google Scholar
Gielen, Pascal. 2009. The Murmuring of the Artistic Mulitude: Global Art, Memory and Post–Fordism. Amsterdam: Valiz.Google Scholar
Goebbels, Heiner. 2015. “Aesthetics of Absence. How it all Began.” Aesthetics of Absence. Texts on Theatre, 1–7. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Govan, Emma, Helen J. Nicholson, and Katie Normington. 2007. Making a Performance: Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Grésillon, Almuth. 1996. “De lʼécriture du texte de théâtre à la mise en scène.” Cahiers de Praxématique 26: 71–93.Google Scholar
Grésillon, Almuth, and Jean-Marie Thomasseau. 2005. “Scènes de Genèses Théâtrales.” Genesis 26: 19–34.Google Scholar
Grésillon, Almuth, Marie-Madeleine Mervant-Roux, and Dominique Budor (eds). 2010. Genèses théâtrales. Paris: CNRS éditions.Google Scholar
. 2010. “Pour une génétique théâtrale : prémisses et enjeux.” In Genèses théâtrales, 5–23. Paris: CNRS éditions.Google Scholar
Hart, Beverley. 2014. “Contradicting Prospero: The Prompt Book Collection in the V&A Department of Theatre & Performance.” V&A Online Journal 6 (Summer): [URL]
Harvie, Jen, and Andy Lavender, eds. 2010. Making Contemporary Theatre: International Rehearsal Processes. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Hodgdon, Barbara. 1988. “Rehearsal Process as Critical Practice: John Barton’s 1978 ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’.” Theatre History Studies 8: 11–34.Google Scholar
. 2012. “Material Remains at Play.” Theatre Journal 64: 373–388.Google Scholar
Hrvatin, Emil. 1994. Herhaling, waanzin, discipline. Het theaterwerk van Jan Fabre. Amsterdam: International Theatre & Film Books.Google Scholar
Jannarone, Kimberly. 2010. “Chapter 6: The Artist of the Theatre.” In Artaud and His Doubles, 133–158. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Amelia. 1997. “‘Presence’ in Absentia: Experiencing Performance as Documentation.” Art Journal 56 (4): 11–18.Google Scholar
Kosstrin, Hannah. 2012. “Notation Score as Embodied Documentary Presence: A Response to Amelia Jones’s ’Presence’ in Absentia.” Journal of Screendance 2: 44–47.Google Scholar
Kraut, Anthea. 2007. “Whose Choreography? Josephine Baker and the Question of (Dance) Authorship.” Scholar and Feminist 6 (1–2): n.p.Google Scholar
Kunst, Bojana. 2015. Artist at Work: Proximity of Art and Capitalism. New Alresford: Zero Books.Google Scholar
Lehmann, Hans-Thies. [1999] 2006. Postdramatic Theatre, trans. By Karen Jübs-Munby. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Letzler Cole, Susan. 1992. Directors in Rehearsal: A Hidden World. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Manfull, Helen. 1999. Taking the Stage: Women Directors on Directing. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Marker, Lise-Lone. 1974. “The Promptbook as a Tool in Theatrical Research. Principles, Problems, Limitations.” Regie in Dokumentation, Forschung und Lehre, ed. by Margret Dietrich, 79–88. Salzburg: Müller.Google Scholar
Marker, Lise-Lone, and Frederick J. Marker. 1976. “Edwin Booth’s ‘Julius Caesar’: A Promptbook Study.” Nineteenth Century Theatre 4 (1): n.p.Google Scholar
Matzke, Annemarie. 2015. “Das Theater auf die Probe stellen. Kollektivität und Selbstreflexivität in den Arbeitsweisen des Gegenwartstheaters.” In Arbeitsweise im Gegenwartstheatre, itw: im dialog, Forschungen zum Gegenwartstheater 1, ed. by B. Hochholdinger-Reiterer, M. Bremgartner, C. Kleiser, and G. Boesch, 15–34. Berlin: Alexander Verlag.Google Scholar
Maxwell, Ian. 2001. “Learning in/through Crisis.” Australasian Drama Studies 39: 43–57.Google Scholar
McAuley, Gay. 1998. “Towards an Ethnography of Rehearsal.” New Theatre Quarterly 14 (53): 75–85.Google Scholar
. 1999. Space in Performance: Making Meaning in the Theatre. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
. 2012. Not Magic but Work: An Ethnographic Account of a Rehearsal Process. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Katie. 2009. The Director’s Craft: A Handbook for the Theatre. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pavis, Patrice. 1982. “Reflections on the Notation of the Theatrical Performance.” In Languages of the Stage: Essays in the Semiology of the Theatre, trans. by Susan Melrose, 109–130. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications.Google Scholar
. 2014. Dictionnaire de la performance et du théâtre contemporain. Paris: Armand Colin.Google Scholar
Pearson, Mike, and Michael Shanks. 2001. Theater/archaeology. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Phelan, Peggy. 1993. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Proust, Sophie. 2008. “Written Documents of the Assistant Director: A Record of Remaking.” Theatre Research International 33 (3): 289–306.Google Scholar
Rabkin, Gerald. 1985. “Is there a Text on this Stage? Theatre/authorship/interpretation.” Performing Arts Journal 9: 142–159.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, Cindy. 2000. “Antigone’s Example: A View of the Living Theatre’s Production, Process, and Praxis.” Theatre Survey 41 (1): 69–88.Google Scholar
Salles, Cecilia Almeida. 1992. Crítica Genética: fundamentos dos estudos genéticos sobre o processo de criação artística. São Paulo: Educ.Google Scholar
. 2002. “Les Cahiers de Daniel Senise: ‘Un grenier d’objets personnels’.” Genesis 18 (1): 11–27.Google Scholar
Sels, Geert. 2005. Accidenten van een zaalwachter: Luk Perceval. Leuven: Van Halewyck.Google Scholar
Shepherd, Simon. 2012. Direction: Readings in Theatre Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Sidiropoulou, Avra. 2011. Authoring Performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Stern, Tiffany. 2000. Rehearsal from Shakespeare to Sheridan. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Syssoyeva, Kathryn Mederos, and Scott Proudfit (eds). 2013. Collective Creation in Contemporary Performance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Taylor, Diana. 2007. “The Archive and the Repertoire.” In The Archive and the Repertoire. Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas, 16–33. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Thomasseau, Jean-Marie. 2001. “Les manuscrits de la mise en scène.” L’Annuaire théâtral: Revue québécoise d’études théâtrales 29: 101–122.Google Scholar
. 2005. “Les manuscrits de théâtre. Essai de typologie.” Théâtre: le retour du texte? 138: 97–118.Google Scholar
Van Gorp, Hendrik, Dirk Delabastita, and Rita Ghesquiere. 2007. Lexicon van literaire termen. Mechelen: Wolters Plantyn.Google Scholar
Van Hulle, Dirk. 2007. De Kladbewaarders. Nijmegen: Vantilt.Google Scholar
Valero, Julie. 2013. Le théâtre au jour le jour: journaux personnels et carnets de création de Didier-Georges Gabily, Jean-Luc Lagarce et Jean-François Peyret. Paris: l’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Van der Sijs, Nicoline (ed). 2010. Etymologiebank. [URL]
Van Imschoot, Myriam. 2005. “Rests in Pieces. Scores, Notation Systems and the Trace in Dance.” Multitudes 21: [URL]
Van Kerkhoven, Marianne. 1994. “Kijken zonder potlood in de hand.” Theaterschrift 5: 140–149.Google Scholar
Whatley, Sarah. 2015. “Motion Capture and The Dancer: Visuality, Temporality and the Dancing Image.” In Attending to Movement: Somatic Perspectives on Living in this World, ed. by Sarah Whatley, Natalie Garrett Brown, and Kirsty Alexander, 193–204. Dorset: Triarchy.Google Scholar