A question that started the module that never really ended in the first week.
After working through the readings on the matter to find a clear definition of the work and what the remit might be of someone within this role, it was soon decided there was no fixed definition, as many writers and practitioners had different views. This appeared to be a running theme through the module, words without a true meaning.
Andrea Bozic, when describing the role of a dramaturg, talks about “someone who is alien” (Bozic, 2009) and has “otherness and distance from the process in order to be able to ask questions” (Bozic, 2009). She then goes on to talk about the importunate of “dramaturgical structures” (Bozic, 2009) and that in her experience a good dramaturg is “someone who manages never to lose sight of the red thread” (Bozic, 2009), this red thread being the connecting line for everything within a performance, to keep everything connected. Overall from her writing I gathered a dramaturg was someone there to keep focus of the aims and connections through a piece and to ask questions about potentially unnoticed elements of performance, seemed simple enough.
Then onto David Copelin, who takes a different approach in telling us what a dramaturg is by telling us what one isn’t, or at least shouldn’t be. Yes, he also states the role of a dramaturg is to ask questions but he puts it more to the reason of to “point out the consequences of the choices” (Copelin, 2009, 18) made. So for instance, the possible outcomes of character A walking off stage left instead of right, what it might mean for character B if they don’t go to their mother’s funeral and how it will affect them in act two, or even what it may come across to the audience to mean if the curtains are red instead of blue.
He states that, as a dramaturg
We care about themes, resonances, a play’s context. We may suggest alternative structure, the rearrangement of scenes, the dramatic (not economic) need for more or fewer characters.
(Copelin, 2009, 18)
And that once it is agreed between the dramaturg and the writer that this can happen, that only then can things run smoothly. Dramaturgs “do not control” (Copelin, 2009, 18).
In his experience, a production would seem to work best with a “partnership” of four roles but ideally only if it has worked this way for some time and not just on the one event, these include “a playwright, a director, a dramaturg, and a designer” (Copelin, 2009, 21).
Finally, Copelin describes the role of a dramaturg as that of a “process critic” (Copelin, 2009, 22) and that they are the “ideal audience” due to them being “connoisseurs of text, staging, production values, acting choices, a play’s philosophy and its place in its artistic context” (Copelin, 2009, 22).
So, overall, Copelin was more a believe that the dramaturg is in fact present through the process of a production to give constant feedback and enlightenment on decisions being made, doesn’t sound to me like someone who would be seen as “alien” or “distant” as Bozic suggests?
The third insight into dramaturgy was from Lehmann and Primavesi, they talked more about the media side of things, a subject the previous two barely touched on. They describe a dramaturg as an “experimentalist” (Lehmann and Primavesi, 2009, 4) who should work with technology, not to be an expert of it or to work against, but to play with it and learn more about what can be done with it within a performance.
They then move onto politics of theatre and within theatre and believe that it’s the dramaturgs role to “educate the people and to build up the cultural identity” (Lehmann and Primavesi, 2009, 5) not only for the audience but for those within the production. A dramaturg isn’t there to simply assist the narrative but to make people think about what they are seeing and what they are doing.
Also Lehmann and Primavesi discuss the belief that dramaturg “should no longer be defined as the controlling power” (Lehmann and Primavesi, 2009, 4). They suggest that they should be seen as a type of “police” or simply as a “literary adviser” or even as an “outside eye”, they are “a negotiator for the freedom of theatrical experimentation and risk” (Lehmann and Primavesi, 2009, 4). Again this seems to go against Bozic’s description of distancing.
So… the one thing they all seem to be able to agree on is that a dramaturg doesn’t have the final say, it always comes down to the playwright or director or whoever may be within that role, a dramaturg is merely there to make suggestions. However, Bozic seems to believe there should be a distance between the dramaturg and the production, to help keep a view the piece as a whole to help with the “red thread” (Bozic, 2009) connected; where as Copelin and Lehmann and Primavesi seem to see a dramaturg as someone fairly hands on throughout the process. Copelin suggests the role is there for someone to add a constant critique through the rehearsal process, which to me sounds a little overbearing and also in my experience something that is generally done by most writers, directors and sometimes actors. Finally, Lehmann and Primavesi talk more about how it’s the role of a dramaturg to experiment and to educate people more than have quite as much control as the previous mentioned writers imply.
From these three readings then, have I ever worked with a dramaturg? Well, between the three of them it begs more the question have I ever worked with anything else? Through college, university, student production, amateur productions, it always comes down to a collaborative process. From this I gather more that I have never really worked with a production that has had a writer, a director, a designer, an actor. Every production has just been filled with many dramaturgs, but doesn’t that then defeat the object of having one, if we are taught that everyone should have their own input? Who will dramaturg the dramaturgs? Who will see the red thread, the connections between everything?
If dramatic writing loses its dominating influence on many kinds of theatrical practice, dramaturgy still remains indispensable for the whole field of the performing arts
(Lehmann and Primavesi, 2009, 6)
So I guess if all else fails, there’s always the dramaturgs.
Work Cited
Bozic, A. (2009) On Dramaturgy-Statement. Performance Research, 14(3), 12.
Copelin, D. (2009) Ten Dramaturgical Myths. In: Bert Cardullo (eds.) What is Dramaturgy?. 5th edition. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 17-23.
Lehmann, H. and Primavesi, P. (2009) Dramaturgy on Shifting Grounds. Performance Research, 14(3), 3-6.