Acts and Apparitions: Discourses of the Real in Performance Practice and Theory 1990-2010

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The influence of post-structuralist theories on experimental performance produced over the last four decades is a well-covered field of research. Through readings and applications of Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan and Jean Baudrillard, among others, performance theorists such as Peggy Phelan, Philip Auslander and Elinor Fuchs have helped to lay the theoretical foundations for a long-standing tradition of performance practice which rejects the conventions of dramatic theatre to adopt the premise that all meanings are contingent and relative, and that reality itself is necessarily multiple and subjective.This study will draw on such existing scholarship to evidence the overwhelming consensus that overtly post-structuralist performance offers a radical alternative to dramatic realism in its capacity to challenge the grand narratives of Modernity, most specifically, through its contention that reality must be understood as subjective and contingent, rather than objective and absolute.The aim of my research is not to dismiss or deny the premises of this consensus, but to question the widespread totality of their application. I will argue that they are too commonly employed to support claims to political radicalism on behalf of all productions which draw on poststructuralist performance motifs, and to dismiss, as politically reactionary, all productions which maintain the conventions of dramatic theatre. Through my own analysis of post-structuralist theory and a wide range of models of contemporary practice, I will seek to demonstrate that ideological consequences cannot necessarily be predicted purely by an adherence to, or rejection of, dramatic conventions. I will also aim to show how an over-simplification of ideological analysis on the basis of form has penetrated the market for new work, and impacted on the type of new work which gets made, funded and supported by the international performance networks.My conclusions will be disseminated to the academic community through publication of a monograph by Manchester University Press in 2011. I will also seek to publish articles and features drawn from the research in periodicals which are accessed by the wider readership of industry makers, funders and promoters.