Theses and Dissertations (Theatre and Performance)
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Item "Don't Put Words in My Mouth!" To what extent does socio-institutional accessibility create a divide amongst black, female practitioners within the South African Theatre industry?(2021) Van Tonder, HannahThe research seeks to critically engage with the power structures that have a circular flow within the South African Theatre Industry. The work seeks to highlight the dualism of age and accessibility and how this has created unequal power relations amongst black, female theatre practitioners. This research draws on two South African National Theatre Award Shows hosted annually in South Africa: the Naledi Theatre Awards hosted in Johannesburg and the Fleur Du Cap Awards hosted in Cape Town. The research interrogates how award-winning and award nominations bring societal validation and credibility that allows for personal reflection and socio-institutional accessibility to manifest.The aim is to find out whether black, female, theatre practitioners 'feel' the need to excavate these power relations for a different construct to be built; that asks for a shift in the subject to be at the forefront. The research seeks to reveal if the responsibility for change sits in the power and agency of the systemic structures that mediate theatre award spaces as well as the individuals that micro-manage these theatre spaces. This work focuses on Cape Town and Johannesburg based practitioners as these are the only two cities in which theatre awards, on a national level, currently take place. However, every province within South Africa has their own theatres and awards, including Durban, where the voices of Durban based practitioners are still a crucial part of the study. Who gets access to credibility within these socio-institutional spaces will help uncover who gets to speak and how they get to express themselves through such platforms. This work refuses to keep black women separate from the rest of the industry, but instead requests the platform for black women to stand on an even playing field alongside their counterparts when looking at systematic credibilityItem (Un-)Writing masculinity : narrative, representations of masculinity, and (un-)writing the Aristotelian dramatic form(2018) Lotter, MatthewDominant theatre narrative structures are inherently gendered. Feminist theatre theory maintains that the traditional ‘three-act’ structure centralises masculine subject arcs and marginalises the feminine. This single climax structure progresses the plot in a manner which validates masculine qualities, and concludes in a resolution which reifies masculine hegemony, and validates patriarchal gender division of labour, and structural misogyny. Feminist theatrical studies have examined the extent to which the female character is ‘objectified’ through this ‘three-act’ structure to conclude in the image of the patriarchal feminine ideal. Feminist theatre has evolved to counter the patriarchal gender ideology of dominant theatrical practice, the ‘male dramatic form,’ by ‘moving toward’ a feminist poetics which explores the female subject and femininity outside patriarchal binary gender stereotyping. This research aims then to rethink the representation of masculinities and its impact on and through dominant ‘three-act’ structure poetics. Using Athol Fugard’s Sorrows and Rejoicings (2002) as case study, this research seeks to utilise men’s studies and theories of masculinity to interrogate the structural influence of patriarchal ‘masculine’ gender ideology on the ‘male dramatic form’ and its ‘male’ subject. Specifically this research aims to interrogate the extent to which the ‘male’ subject is characterised as an exemplar of hegemonic masculinity: an agent of force and conflict; and its impact on and through the progression of a ‘three-act’ structure. This research will then induce a practical deconstruction of these theoretical interrogations, through a scripted reinterpretation of Sorrows and Rejoicings, to reshape thinkings on theatrical writings of masculinities in ways which don’t reinsert patriarchal gender binaries. By deploying a nuanced reading of the relation between narrative-structure and masculinities, this research will attempt to reinterpret theatrical staging and narrative interventions interceded on behalf of gender by feminist theatre to gauge the extent to which narrative can be manipulated to render the male subject and masculinities outside patriarchal binary gender stereotyping. I hope to question how dominant theatrical narratives ‘write’ masculinity, to incite tractable narrative explorations of the complexities of masculine gender performance. I hope to contribute to an understanding of critical and subversive interventions in existing studies, seeking to (un-)write and re-stage masculinities, and make inroads towards a gendered ‘poetics’ inclusive of non-patriarchal defined masculine characters.Item 'Giving birth to my breath': an an exploration of self-revelatory performance in facilitating a process of confronting and transforming a negative self-concept of afrikaner identity = 'Ek gee geboorte aan my asem': die gebruik van self-onthullingsteater om die negatiewe self-begrip van afrikaneridentiteit te konfronteer en transformeer(2017) Meiring, LeanéThis multi-lingual autobiographical performance-as-research (PAR) project critically analyses self-revelatory performance as a drama therapy method that can be used to effectively mitigate the lingering effects of a negative self-concept of Afrikaner identity brought on by the collective trauma of our past in South Africa. The research enquires and demonstrates; in what ways the method of self-revelatory performance is effective in mitigating the effects of collective trauma both on intra-psychic and interpersonal levels through the lived experience of the researcher, training drama therapist and client-performer who underwent a process of devising, scripting, rehearsing, and performing a piece of autobiographical theatre in front of an invited audience. The methodology is firmly located within, and founded on the core principles of art-based research and more specifically, PAR; this choice of method of enquiry is as a result of the performative and embodied nature of the method of self-revelatory performance. The findings of the research are a collaborative process of practice (performance), self-reflexivity and theory working together to answer the research question. The research demonstrates the need for performative methods of drama therapy, such as self-revelatory performance, to be explored within our South African context. The research illuminated the need to adapt the methodology when working with collective trauma in our South African context and the need to clearly define the role of the audience, and the conditions of collective witnessing that determine psychological safety and containment, in the method of self-revelatory performance within our socio-cultural context.Item "Bakwena Arts": a case study of arts and culture policy and implementation in the Limpopo Province(2009-10-13T12:08:16Z) Franks, Daniel ZachariahAbstract: In this research I examine the legacy of Arts and Culture Administration in the Limpopo Province, specifically with the intention of bringing to light the ways in which the evolution of this administrative structure has been largely framed by a history of domination by manifold colonial states. This fact of history has been shown to have given life to unique phenomena that are the seeming birth right of the new dispensation: corruption, inequality, apologism, blamelessness and rural contempt. The research makes special reference to the difficulties encountered by the emergent Northern Transvaal / Northern Province / Limpopo Province in establishing arts infrastructure and basic delivery. These difficulties are shown to be due to the former Transvaal’s policy of centralized cultural structures, and further compounded by the implications of the transformation of Pretoria’s State Theatre. This specific instance will inform an examination of the disparities between rural and urban realities in postcolony SA. My own practical work is discussed in relation to the above as far as it deals with the everyday production of culture, represented by the intrusion of global modern media into highly disparate social contexts.Item "Director of audiences": a study of Alfred Hitchcock's manipulation of his audiences.(2008-06-30T08:56:30Z) Webber, RebeccaAbstract This Master’s thesis identifies and elucidates upon the motifs/themes/images, which Hitchcock utilized in his films to ultimately manipulate and thereby direct his audience’s perception and understanding of his films’ narratives. The devices that are described and investigated in detail in this thesis are found to be recurrent in most of Alfred Hitchcock’s films. That highlights the question: why are they recurrent? What purpose do they serve? I believe that the answer to these questions is that these devices were used by Hitchcock to serve the end of manipulating the audience. The efficacy of these devices as used by Alfred Hitchcock is elaborated on in each chapter that addresses each motif in turn. Each chapter which deals with one of the motifs Alfred Hitchcock used in his manipulation of his audience contains examples from films and investigates how the motifs are used within each film to manipulate audience comprehension. These examples are strengthened with theory from academics, theorists and critics who have made a life-long study of Hitchcock. My theoretical framework includes audience research and Metz’s theory of ‘suturing’ which addresses the meaning of camera position and the different point of view that the audience take up. By means of this research I aim to explain the way in which Hitchcock consummately manages to manipulate the audience to follow ‘red herrings’ and ultimately surprise the audience. This thesis acknowledges the premise that all film directors manipulate the audience and does not attempt to persuade the reader that Hitchcock was unique in this. It does aim to explore and explain how Hitchcock’s unique use of specific motifs was utilized in order to manipulate audiences. This thesis resulted in my understanding Hitchcock’s method of directing his audiences as much as his films and I think that in a broader context explains the use and need (both Hitchcock’s and the films narrative’s) for the repetitive devices for which Hitchcock is renowned, rather than merely investigating them as isolated pieces in Hitchcock’s films. I would suggest that there is evidence in these films of a repetition compulsion, as if the films are attempting to solve a conundrum very much in the way that academics have attempted to solve the conundrum that is the work of Alfred Hitchcock. Search words: Hitchcock, director, film, thriller, manipulation, audience, double, Psycho, scatology, voyeurism, auteur, spectator theory, Truffaut, narrative, scopohilia. Abstract This Master’s thesis identifies and elucidates upon the motifs/themes/images, which Hitchcock utilized in his films to ultimately manipulate and thereby direct his audience’s perception and understanding of his films’ narratives. The devices that are described and investigated in detail in this thesis are found to be recurrent in most of Alfred Hitchcock’s films. That highlights the question: why are they recurrent? What purpose do they serve? I believe that the answer to these questions is that these devices were used by Hitchcock to serve the end of manipulating the audience. The efficacy of these devices as used by Alfred Hitchcock is elaborated on in each chapter that addresses each motif in turn. Each chapter which deals with one of the motifs Alfred Hitchcock used in his manipulation of his audience contains examples from films and investigates how the motifs are used within each film to manipulate audience comprehension. These examples are strengthened with theory from academics, theorists and critics who have made a life-long study of Hitchcock. My theoretical framework includes audience research and Metz’s theory of ‘suturing’ which addresses the meaning of camera position and the different point of view that the audience take up. By means of this research I aim to explain the way in which Hitchcock consummately manages to manipulate the audience to follow ‘red herrings’ and ultimately surprise the audience. This thesis acknowledges the premise that all film directors manipulate the audience and does not attempt to persuade the reader that Hitchcock was unique in this. It does aim to explore and explain how Hitchcock’s unique use of specific motifs was utilized in order to manipulate audiences. This thesis resulted in my understanding Hitchcock’s method of directing his audiences as much as his films and I think that in a broader context explains the use and need (both Hitchcock’s and the films narrative’s) for the repetitive devices for which Hitchcock is renowned, rather than merely investigating them as isolated pieces in Hitchcock’s films. I would suggest that there is evidence in these films of a repetition compulsion, as if the films are attempting to solve a conundrum very much in the way that academics have attempted to solve the conundrum that is the work of Alfred Hitchcock. Search words: Hitchcock, director, film, thriller, manipulation, audience, double, Psycho, scatology, voyeurism, auteur, spectator theory, Truffaut, narrative, scopohilia.Item "Troll": dissertation on sexual identity comprising three components(2008-03-07T09:20:14Z) Lotriet, BrettABSTRACT This dissertation explores identity as its central theme. There are three components to the dissertation. The first is the academic essay which explores identity through the perspective of queer theory and proposes a three-dimensional conception of an “identity cloud”. The second component is the creative essay which consists of ten chapters towards a final novella entitled “troll”. The creative component’s central theme is the lead protagonist’s struggle in assimilating the identities of “gay” and “addict” after receiving a liver transplant. The third and final component is an essay detailing the manner in which the creative and academic created and informed one another.