Theatre as Alter/"Native" in Derek Walcott

Theatre as Alter/ Author: Nirjhar Sarkar
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN: 1648895816
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
'Theatre as Alter/“Native” in Derek Walcott' attempts a close and detailed politico-aesthetic analysis of his major plays. At the core of this book lies the attempt to answer the question of how postcolonial artists and intellectuals have dared to imagine radically different ways of living in the face of oppositional, binary choices. And as the title suggests, Walcott’s plays carve out critical spaces for new narratives of “becoming” and alternative priorities, entangled in contesting identities inscribed by race, language and ethnicity. Theatre, as Walcott knew, would be instrumental in demystifying Caribbean “Absence” and “Void” and generating an alternative version of dominant reality. By a deliberate unseating of the Western texts, filled with banal stereotypes and their representational biases, and by triggering “re-action” to the scripts of the colonizers in profoundly paradoxical ways, Walcott’s plays affirm the Caribbean identity. This study seeks to demonstrate how his plays open an alter/“native” universe in terms of aesthetics, dramaturgy and the performative, and reclaims ‘New World’ identity in terms of negotiation rather than negation—undermining the claim of “solid”, “authentic” culture. Placing the arts at the forefront of nation-building, Walcott situated his plays at a crucial juncture between the passing of the Empire and the newly-born Federation in his archipelago.

Theatre as Alter/"Native" in Derek Walcott

Theatre as Alter/ Author: Nirjhar Sarkar
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN: 1648895816
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 179

Get Book Here

Book Description
'Theatre as Alter/“Native” in Derek Walcott' attempts a close and detailed politico-aesthetic analysis of his major plays. At the core of this book lies the attempt to answer the question of how postcolonial artists and intellectuals have dared to imagine radically different ways of living in the face of oppositional, binary choices. And as the title suggests, Walcott’s plays carve out critical spaces for new narratives of “becoming” and alternative priorities, entangled in contesting identities inscribed by race, language and ethnicity. Theatre, as Walcott knew, would be instrumental in demystifying Caribbean “Absence” and “Void” and generating an alternative version of dominant reality. By a deliberate unseating of the Western texts, filled with banal stereotypes and their representational biases, and by triggering “re-action” to the scripts of the colonizers in profoundly paradoxical ways, Walcott’s plays affirm the Caribbean identity. This study seeks to demonstrate how his plays open an alter/“native” universe in terms of aesthetics, dramaturgy and the performative, and reclaims ‘New World’ identity in terms of negotiation rather than negation—undermining the claim of “solid”, “authentic” culture. Placing the arts at the forefront of nation-building, Walcott situated his plays at a crucial juncture between the passing of the Empire and the newly-born Federation in his archipelago.

Critical Perspectives on Derek Walcott

Critical Perspectives on Derek Walcott PDF Author: Robert D. Hamner
Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers
ISBN: 9780894101427
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description
The articles in this collection are representative of the criticism that has followed Walcott's career from the 1940s into the 1990s. Ten entries by Walcott himself (including one not previously published and two vital interviews) are complemented by some 40 incisive essays and reviews, ranging from professional assessments to the rare, personal observations of Walcott's earliest mentors.

Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays

Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays PDF Author: Derek Walcott
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466880333
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
On a Caribbean island, the morning after a full moon, Felix Hobain tears through the market in a drunken rage. Taken away to sober up in jail, all that night he is gripped by hallucinations: the impoverished hermit believes he has become a healer, walking from village to village, tending to the sick, waiting for a sign from God. In this dream, his one companion, Moustique, wants to exploit his power. Moustique decides to impersonate a prophet himself, ignoring a coffin-maker who warns him he will die and enraging the people of the island. Hobain, half-awake in his desolate jail cell, terrorized by the specter of his friend's corruption, clings to his visionary quest. He will try to transform himself; to heal Moustique, his jailer, and his jail-mates; and to be a leader for his people. Dream on Monkey Mountain was awarded the 1971 Obie Award for a Distinguished Foreign Play when it was first presented in New York, and Edith Oliver, writing in The New Yorker, called it "a masterpiece." Three of Derek's Walcott's most popular short plays are also included in this volume: Ti-Jean and His Brothers; Malcochon, or The Six in the Rain; and The Sea at Dauphin. In an expansive introductory essay, "What the Twilight Says," the playwright explains his founding of the seminal dramatic company where these works were first performed, the Trinidad Theatre Workshop. First published in 1970, Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays is an essential part of Walcott's vast and important body of work.

The Politics of Alternative Theatre in Britain, 1968-1990

The Politics of Alternative Theatre in Britain, 1968-1990 PDF Author: Maria DiCenzo
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521554565
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
This book examines one of the most influential modern theatre companies, 7:84 (Scotland), under the directorship of John McGrath. 7:84 (Scotland) has been a vital contributor to the place and importance of alternative theatre on the modern British stage. DiCenzo explores the development of this company, the growth of popular theatre in general within the last twenty years and offers a methodology for analysing records and materials found in theatre company archives and illustrates the many issues inherent in running a theatre company, including venues, practitioners and the politics of funding. The book includes valuable primary source material and informative production photographs and company posters.

Chinese Theatre and the Actor in Performance

Chinese Theatre and the Actor in Performance PDF Author: Jo Riley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521570909
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
This work gives an 'inside' view of Chinese theatre and the actor in performance for the first time. It challenges western theatre artists such as Brecht, Grotowski, Barba and Schechner, who have extracted from Chinese theatre elements which might enrich their own theatres. It is based on personal observations of and dialogue with Chinese actors, experiences which were impossible before 1980. Riley's study is well illustrated with photographs and diagrams and is accessible to anyone interested in theatre, even those with no knowledge of Chinese or Chinese theatre.

Derek Walcott, The Journeyman Years, Volume 1: Culture, Society, Literature, and Art

Derek Walcott, The Journeyman Years, Volume 1: Culture, Society, Literature, and Art PDF Author: Gordon Collier
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9401210063
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 607

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Book Description
During the same period in which Derek Walcott was pouring immense physical, emotional, and logistical resources into the foundation of a viable first-rate West Indian theatre company and continuing to write his inimitable poetry, he was also busy writing newspaper reviews, chiefly for the Trinidad Guardian. His prodigious reviewing activity extended far beyond those areas with which one might most readily associate his interests and convic¬tions. As Gordon Rohlehr once prescient¬ly observed, “If one wants to see a quoti¬dian workaday Walcott, one should go back to [his] well over five hundred arti¬cles, essays and reviews on painting, cinema, calypso, carnival, drama and lite¬rature,” articles which “reveal a rich, vari¬ous, witty and scrupulous intelligence in which generous humour counterpoints acerbity.” These articles capture the vital¬ity of Caribbean culture and shed addi-tional light on the aesthetic preoccupa¬tions expressed in Walcott’s essays pub¬lished in journals. The editors have exam¬ined the corpus of Walcott’s journalistic activity from its beginnings in 1950 to its peak in the early 1970s, and have made a generous selection of material from the Guardian, along with occasional pieces from such sources as Public Opinion (Kingston) and The Voice of St. Lucia (Castries). The articles in Volume 1 are organized as follows: Caribbean society, culture, and the arts generally; literature and society; periodicals; anglophone poe¬try, prose fiction, and non-fiction; African and other literatures; and the visual arts (Caribbean and beyond). The volume closes with a selection of Walcott’s mis¬cellaneous satirical essays. The volume editor Gordon Collier has written a search¬ing introductory essay on a central theme – here, a critical, comparative analysis of Walcott’s development as journalist against the historical background of press activity in the Caribbean, coupled with an illustrative discussion (drawing on Wal¬cott’s newspaper articles) of his attitudes towards prose fiction and poetry.

The Theater of Heiner Müller

The Theater of Heiner Müller PDF Author: Jonathan Kalb
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521550048
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
The first general study in English of, arguably, the most important German dramatist after Brecht.

Narrative Rewritings and Artistic Praxis in Derek Walcott's Works

Narrative Rewritings and Artistic Praxis in Derek Walcott's Works PDF Author: Mattia Mantellato
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527588076
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
This book focuses on Derek Walcott’s literary and artistic wor(l)d. Western postcolonial critique has depicted the Nobel Prize laureate as one of the greatest poets of the 20th century world. This, however, devalues his fundamental contribution to the realm of Caribbean theatre and art. The text examines Walcott’s multimodal production, a combination of West Indian folkloric forms and Western-oriented structures and themes, by discussing three of his works—two plays, The Joker of Seville and Pantomime, and a long poem, Tiepolo’s Hound. These epitomise respectively a response to Spanish, English, and French cultural legacies in the New World as postcolonial re-writings of Don Juan, Robinson Crusoe, and Camille Pissarro’s stories. Following Quijano and Mignolo’s decolonial approaches and Riane Eisler’s partnership perspective, the book uncovers the strategies used by Walcott to respond to the colonial matrix of power.

Derek Walcott

Derek Walcott PDF Author: John Thieme
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719042065
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
John Thieme here provides a comprehensive study of Derek Walcott's writing from its beginnings in the 1940s to his most recent work. Walcott's poetry and drama are set against the background of various contexts and intertexts--Caribbean, European and other--that have shaped him as a writer. The book contains a broad overview of Walcott's career for students and readers coming to the work of the 1992 Nobel Laureate for the first time.

Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English

Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English PDF Author: Eugene Benson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134468482
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1950

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Book Description
" ... Documents the history and development of [Post-colonial literatures in English, together with English and American literature] and includes original research relating to the literatures of some 50 countries and territories. In more than 1,600 entries written by more than 600 internationally recognized scholars, it explores the effect of the colonial and post-colonial experience on literatures in English worldwide.