Real Theatre

Essays in Experience

Paul Rae (University of Melbourne)

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Hardback

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English

Cambridge University Press
27 December 2018

Performance art; Theatre Studies; Film theory & criticism; Musicals; Literary theory

Series: Theatre and Performance Theory

Theatre is often said to offer unique insights into the nature of reality, but this obscures the reality of theatre itself. In Real Theatre, Paul Rae takes a joined-up approach to the realities of theatre to explain why performances take the forms they do, and what effects they have. Drawing on examples ranging from Phantom of the Opera and Danny Boyle's Frankenstein, to the performances of the Wooster Group and arthouse director Tsai Ming-liang, he shows how apparently discrete theatrical events emerge from dynamic and often unpredictable social, technical and institutional assemblages. These events then enter a process of cultural circulation that, as Rae explains, takes many forms: fleeting conversations, the mercurial careers of theatrical characters and the composite personae of actors, and high-profile products like the Hollywood movie Birdman. The result is a real theatre that speaks of, and to, the idiosyncratic and cumulative experience of every theatre participant.

By: Paul Rae (University of Melbourne)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 158mm, Spine: 15mm
Weight: 540g
ISBN: 9781107186590
ISBN 10: 1107186595
Series: Theatre and Performance Theory
Pages: 246
Publication Date: 27 December 2018
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction: the reality of theatre; Part I: 1. Realtheatrick: material theatres and ordinary magic; 2. That's entertainment: theatre and experience; Part II: 3. Theatre talk: the poetics of theatre at a distance; 4. Peak performance and the construction of theatrical truths; 5. Infratheatre: what theatre is when it's not quite theatre; 6. The theatre assembled: technical theatre in performance; 7. Theatre people: the actor and the unaccommodated man; Conclusion: real theatre studies?

Paul Rae is Associate Professor in Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne. He is the author of Theatre and Human Rights (2009). He has published widely on contemporary theatre and on Asia-Pacific performance cultures, and from 2015–18 was Senior Editor of the journal Theatre Research International.

Reviews for Real Theatre: Essays in Experience

'Real Theatre is an elegant and entertaining read that makes a major contribution to debates around the realities of making - and watching - theatre. This is a book characterized by its willingness to engage seriously with the mass cultural forms of theatre that are so often overlooked by scholars, offering an analysis of the sophisticated ways in which audiences consume performance. A genuinely original and energetic approach to how we might conceptualise the theatre event, this book is a humane and richly insightful account of the peculiar realities that comprise theatrical performance.' Aoife Monks, Queen Mary University of London 'It is the great strength and joy of Real Theatre that it recognizes that, whenever it comes to the matter of theatre, and sometimes most illuminatingly when it doesn't, that thing is forever and everywhere decidedly 'only theatre' and, as such, absolutely essential.' Alan Read, Modern Drama