The field of literary studies has long recognised the centrality of psychoanalysis as a method for looking at texts in a new way. But rarely has the relationship between psychoanalysis and performance been mapped out, either in terms of analysing the nature of performance itself, or in terms of making sense of specific performance-related activities. In this volume some of the most distinguished thinkers in the field make this exciting new connection and offer original perspectives on a wide variety of topics, including: · hypnotism and hysteria · ventriloquism and the body · dance and sublimation · the unconscious and the rehearsal process · melancholia and the uncanny · cloning and theatrical mimesis · censorship and activist performance · theatre and social memory. The arguments advanced here are based on the dual principle that psychoanalysis can provide a productive framework for understanding the work of performance, and that performance itself can help to investigate the problematic of identity.
Author(s): Patrick Campbell, Adrian Kear
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2001
Language: English
Pages: 256
Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Contents......Page 5
List of illustrations......Page 8
List of contributors......Page 9
Acknowledgements......Page 12
Preface: The returns of psychoanalysis, and performance......Page 13
Introduction......Page 16
Thinking through theatre......Page 34
Rehearsing the impossible: the insane root......Page 36
As if: blocking the Cartesian stage......Page 49
Scanning sublimation: the digital Ples of performance and psychoanalysis......Page 62
Now and then: psychotherapy and the rehearsal process......Page 75
Parallel performances......Page 88
Violence, ventriloquism and the vocalic body......Page 90
Hello Dolly Well Hello Dolly: the double and its theatre......Page 109
Writing home: post-modern melancholia and the uncanny space of living-room theatre......Page 130
The writer's block: performance, play and the responsibilities of analysis......Page 147
The placebo of performance: psychoanalysis in its place......Page 162
History, memory, trauma......Page 182
Freud, Futurism, and Polly Dick......Page 184
(Laughter)......Page 192
Speak whiteness: staging 'race', performing responsibility......Page 207
The Upsilon Project: a post-tragic testimonial......Page 218
Staging social memory: Yuyachkani......Page 233
Index......Page 252
