The Role of Ensemble Theatre in Redefining 'Playwriting' and 'Writing for Performance' in the 21st Century

英国戏剧和剧作家对其他文化及其对戏剧和戏剧的理解产生了深远的影响。尽管莎士比亚、王尔德和萧伯纳继续为世界各地剧院的剧目增色不少，但爱德华·邦德和萨拉·凯恩更具争议的作品在20世纪下半叶也在国际上产生了重大影响。有趣的是，与英语世界相比，凯恩丰富的图像文本更容易被中欧导演接受，并被给予了更冒险的处理。在20世纪下半叶，一种被称为“设计”的做法出现在英美语境中。这个术语指的是没有指定的剧作家或剧本作为核心的戏剧制作实践，而是将文本作为制作表演的众多成分之一。混合戏剧和舞蹈的合奏团，如DV8或戏剧和多媒体，如伍斯特集团，就以这种方法而闻名，还有受过勒科培训的剧院和英国表演公司强迫娱乐。作为一种以工作室为基础而不是以学习为基础的活动，导演马克斯·斯塔福德-克拉克（Max Stafford-Clark）对剧本创作的发展做出了重大贡献，他在20世纪70年代开始与作家们一起排练，这是他的合剧团Joint Stock的一部分。还有一些剧作家不仅作为编剧，而且作为演员、导演和设计师（史蒂文·伯克夫、霍华德·巴克、克里斯·索普、阿德里亚诺·沙普林）与剧团合作。因此，本研究项目旨在调查在20世纪和21世纪，合奏的工作方式在改变剧本创作的性质——以及潜在地改变我们对剧本创作的理解——方面所起的作用。调查的部分内容还包括戏剧创作的本质，以及“剧本写作”和“表演写作”这两种以前分离的做法之间日益增加的交叉。尽管一些英国剧作家曾与合奏团合作过（大卫·黑尔、卡里尔·丘吉尔、霍华德·巴克），许多演员也写过剧本（哈罗德·品特、卡尔·格罗斯、蒂姆·克劳奇）；在包括英国在内的许多文化中，作为戏剧创作活动的不同领域，剧本创作和表演制作之间的二分法一直存在。这个研究项目希望认识到国际上新兴的写作实践，完全是戏剧和表演为导向的（如英国的克尼海剧院或蒂姆·克劳奇的作品，美国的阿德里亚诺·沙普林和来自比利时的表演诗人的集体，Ontroerend Goed）。这种写作的动机不符合任何文学标准，也不遵循古典诗人的脚步。这种写作也不一定是设计过程的一部分；它是一种从作家/表演者的动觉感性中产生的戏剧艺术（这种品质也可以重新归因于演员/剧作家莎士比亚本人）。通过收集和分析来自欧洲和美国的当代合奏戏剧制作人的证词，该项目最终寻求纠正对戏剧写作作为19世纪末出现的文学的理解，并促进对当代戏剧中文本和表演新发展功能的更广泛理解。在经验层面上，该项目试图调查剧作家和文本在需要上演的戏剧创作者群体中的潜在地位。在分析和论述的层面上，该项目将关注当代戏剧中书面文本和现场表演之间相互作用的各种模式，并着眼于20世纪英美背景下出现的一些不同的谱系。这将导致三种类型的输出：关于戏剧制作的专著（Palgrave），访谈集（Routledge）和从业者研讨会包。

British plays and playwrights have had a profound influence on other cultures and their understanding of drama and theatre. Although Shakespeare, Wilde and Shaw continue to grace the repertoires of theatres around the world, Edward Bond and Sarah Kane's more controversial works have also caused a significant impact internationally in the second half of the 20th century. Interestingly, Kane's imagery-rich texts were more readily received and given a more adventurous treatment by Central European directors than they were in the English-speaking world.In the second half of the 20th century a practice known as 'devising' emerged in the Anglo-American context. The term refers to theatre-making practices which do not have an allocated playwright or a playtext at the centre of the process, but which use text as one of many ingredients in making a performance. Ensembles mixing theatre and dance such as DV8 or theatre and multimedia such as the Wooster Group are known for this method, as are Lecoq-trained Theatre de Complicite and the British performance company Forced Entertainment.A significant contribution to the development of playwriting as a studio-based rather than study-based activity could be seen to have been made by the director Max Stafford-Clark and his rehearsal-based work with writers which began as part of his ensemble Joint Stock in the 1970s. This is complemented by examples of playwrights who work with ensembles not just as writers but as actors, directors and designers (Steven Berkoff, Howard Barker, Chris Thorpe, Adriano Shaplin). This research project therefore aims to investigate the role of the ensemble way of working in changing the nature - and potentially changing our understanding - of playwriting in the 20th and 21st century. Part of the investigation is also the nature of authorship in theatre and the increasing cross-over between the previously segregated practices of 'playwriting' and 'writing for performance'.Although some British playwrights have worked with ensembles (David Hare, Caryl Churchill, Howard Barker), and many performers have written plays (Harold Pinter, Carl Grose, Tim Crouch); a perceived dichotomy between playwriting and performance-making as distinct areas of theatre-making activity has persisted in many cultures including the UK.This research project wishes to recognise the internationally emerging practice of writing which is entirely theatre and performance-oriented (such as the work of Kneehigh Theatre or Tim Crouch in the UK, Adriano Shaplin in the US and the collective of performance poets from Belgium, Ontroerend Goed). This writing is not motivated by meeting any literary standards and does not follow in the footsteps of classical poets. This writing is also not necessarily part of a devising process; it is a kind of dramaturgy which emerges from a kinaesthetic sensibility of a writer/performer (a quality which could also be re-ascribed to the actor/playwright Shakespeare himself). By collecting and analysing testimonies from contemporary ensemble theatre-makers in Europe and the US, this project ultimately seeks to redress the understanding of playwriting as literature which emerged at the end of the 19th century, and to facilitate a wider understanding of the newly evolving functions of text and performance within contemporary theatre. On an empirical level, the project seeks to investigate the potential place of the playwright and text within an ensemble of theatre makers required to stage it. On an analytical and discursive level, the project will be concerned with various modes of the interplay between written text and live performance in contemporary theatre, with a view to a number of different genealogies which emerged in the 20th century in the Anglo-American context. This will lead to three types of output: a monograph about Theatre-Making (Palgrave), a collection of interviews (Routledge) and a workshop package for practitioners.