I

l
i.
1
I
Edited by
Simon Trussler
CLARE VENABLES
LAURENCE SENELICK
BILL MARTIN
JAN KOTT
TONY HOWARD
SUSAN BASSNETT-
McGUIRE
THEATRE QUARTERLY
published in association with the University of East Anglia
Vol. X No. 38 Summer 1980
Managing Editor: Michel Julian
Associate Editor: Clive Barker
Editorial Assistants: Malcolm Hay, Irene Staunton
Advisory Editors: Arthur Ballet, C.W.E. Bigsby, Edward Bond,
Katharine Brisbane, Robert Brustein, Christophe Campos, Martin Esslin,
William Gaskill, John Harrop, Nicholas Hem, Bamet Kellman, Jan Kott,
James W. McFarlane, Erika Munk, Alan Schneider, John Willett
Contents
3 The Woman Director in the Theatre
why have women found directing the least accessible branch of the
profession?
8 Russian Serf Theatre and the Early Years of Mikhail Shchepkin
a unique sort of slavery and a naturalistic epiphany
17 Diary of a Playwriting Bursary
two places, two projects, one writer in residence
27 After Grotowski: the End of the Impossible Theatre
what lessonsfrom 1968for the generation of 1980?
33 Theatre of Urban Renewal: the Uncomfortable Case of Covent Garden
has theatre helped or hindered in the battle against 'redevelopment'?
47 An Introduction to Theatre Semiotics
finding a new language for the 'language' of theatre
I ANTHONY ACKERMAN 55 Sater, and the Rise of Political Theatre in Holland
CECIL W_ DAVIES
the development of a socz"ally-consciow theatre, and the evolution of a
pioneering group
68 Working Class Theatre in the Weimar Republic, 1919-1933: Part I
detalled background to a period of creative ferment
Theatre Quarterly is published in March, june, September, and December by TQ Publzcations, 31 Shelton Street,
London WC2H 9HT, England ISSN 0049-3600
1972).
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susan Bassnett- McGuire
An Introduction to Theatre Semiotics
To many theatre people, the language of semiotics zs merely mystifying, and all too often the
{I w English-speakz'ng workers zn the disczphne appear even to relzsh the inaccessz'bz'lz'ty of their
jargon. Yet the study of how meaning can be through szgns, gesture, and
expression, as well as through words, should he of enormous zmportance to the lwe theatre,
which has so often suffered from the inabz'hty of even z'ts best crz'tics to jz'nd a 'vocabulary' in
which to discuss other than the textual aspects of a production. Susan Bassnett-McGuz're, who
teaches z'n the Graduate School of Comparative Literature in the University of Warwick, here
dz5cusses the use of semiotics as zt effects theatre workers and students, by way of introduction
to a fuller development of the subject zn future zssues - planned to include contrz.butions from
such prominent semioticians as Patrice Pavzs and Kier Elam. Susan Bassnett-McGuire 5 own
study of translation theory wdl be publz5hed next year by Methuen, and she zs also currently
co-ordinating a major feature on translation for the theatre, scheduled for TQ40.
THE INCREASING number of English translations of
European work in theatre semiotics is testimony to the
growing British and American interest in this type of
work. Later this year. the first monograph by a British
scholar. Keir Elam, will be published by Methuen in
the New Accents series under the title Semiotics of
Theatre and Drama. It seems a propitious moment at
which to begin discussion of theatre semiotics in the
pages of Tit eat re Quarterly.
A short time ago it was fashionable. whenever the
term sernlotlo or semiology was used. for sceptics
pointedly to ask what it meant. And in discussing
developments in semiotics. there is still a tendency to
refer nervously back to the pioneering statement of
Ferdinand de Saussure, who proposed the notion of a
'science of signs .
1
Huwnn. it is not within scope
of this article either to give an acount of the historical
development of discipline or to try and defend it
against those who might dismiss new as so
much 'jargon'. The purpose here. and in the snies of
further artides that will be appearing in this journal.
is to try and suggest ways in which the now well
established discipline of theatre semiotics can be
useful to those in the Englishspcaking world who are
engaged in the discussion of theatre.
Play, Text, and Performance
Traditionallv. discussion of theatrP has been polari1t>d
along lines of binary opposition: written text cer.vus
performatHT, Sl holars r,rsus pra< titioncrs. historians
versus rc\iewcrs. :\or ha1e atttrnpts to bind the
divisiom to,<;t'thcr been succt>ssful since the tt'nns on
which the binding proces<> is undenaktn are llften the
same as <hose that ltd to tllf' split In the case
of attnph 1,, littr df\ '<hoi us t<l stud\ tt':\ls in
perlot'tld!lll'. lor 1'.\ampir iris ,,ftcn suted that a pia)
onlv Jr'"'' ''hen _,c:T!l on a stage Yet 1 rtttLs and
reviewers are the first to insist on the purity of the
written text, on the need for directors and actors to
somehow remain faithful to that text: in short, the
written text acquires an authority mer the authority of
those actually performing it. With traditionally
'sacred' texts. such as the plays of Shakespeare. the
purity of the written text assumes an almost
metaphysical value.
Yet. as any historian of theatre knows. those written
texts were by no means absolute in Shakespear-e's own
lifetime. Moreover. as any theatre practitioner knows.
the shape of the play is not predetermined by the
omnipotent author's pen. it emerges from the
combination of such factors as the availability of
actors. the size and shape of the playing space, the
technical apparatus required, the financial exigencies
of the tim<". and so on. Shakespeare like Racine,
another supposedly 'sacred' author - was first and
foremost a theatre practitioner. someone who
understood the practical problems of making a play as
well as the efficacy of patterns of structured
images and metaphors in a literary text.
Yet even if we reject tht> practice of reading a
as if it were a piece of literature, with no
regard for its performance dimension, the next step
does not take us much further. If the critic insists that
!In mid can only b<' fully realized in pt>rformance. isn't
thC' stress still on the predominance of the written text
a pn."-/Jerfonnance structure? critics,
cntainlv. arc convinced that the function of
performance is ro illu:tratc aspnts of <he written tFxt
and would C<li1St><.jUt'ntly argue for tlw advantages of
one inti:"Ipretation o\cr another one, s;;;.y,
tlw Sl)inifit dlllC <Jf Hamlet as a Rom;;ntic nt'fU.
antnhcr the of !he :;equcncl? u!
C\ent' rlcta!kd '"th<n the play another r:nesc11ting the
l'vtl a,; a .kbate hctv.nn tlw ideals of action and
47
contemplation. Each would then be evaluated by
referring back to the written text of Hamlet, and even
the evaluation of the performance would return
ultimately into the domain of literature.
Of course, the final assessment of the performance
would be based on the finished product, on what is
ultimately seen by the public, whereas, through all the
stages of rehearsal and setting up, all kinds of possible
solutions may be explored. The transition from
written text to performance does not happen in a
single uninterrupted process, and the various stages
between the initial decision to stage a playtext and the
opening night involve patterns of selection and
rejection of alternatives in order to arrive at what
seems to be a unified whole. And in that process of
shaping. the words of the original written text
(assuming that there is one at all) are only one
language among many.
It could be argued that the moment the written
word is read aloud, it is translated into another
language. Pitch, intonation, inflection, loudness, all
such paralz'nguzstic systems, substantially alter the
written text. Roman Jacobson quotes the famous
example of the actor from the Moscow Art Theatre
who was asked by Stanislavski to produce some forty
variations on the single phrase Segodnja veceron (this
evening) by modifying the expressive tone.
2
Equally, gesture can be read as a language in its
own right, and Anaud in fact saw the gestural or
kz'nesic as the fundamental code of theatre, a view that
has been widely shared. Closely related to the gestural
is also the proxemzc code, the system of interaction
between groups of figures, and the actor's use of space.
Both kinesics and proxemics can be related to the
written text but are in no way subordinate to it, and
one of the early Czech semioticians, Jirl Veltrusky.
considered the linguistic system to both combine and
conflict with the physical systems that comprise
acting.
3
Looking for a New Methodology
None of the issues raised in these preliminary remarks
is in any way new or surprising, and all derive from the
central questions facing anyone who is involved in any
way with theatre: how can theatre be defined and how
can it be discussed? What theatre semiotics has to offer
in any attempt to tackle those questions is a new
methodology. that has its roots neither in literary
criticism nor in social history, and starts from the
assumption that theatre is made up of a set of codes
(linguistic, spatial. gestural. scenographic.
illurninational, etc.) coexisting 1n a dialectical
relationship with nontheatre.
1
The earliest work in establishing discussion of
theatre in semiotic terms can be traced to central
Europe. In the 1930s and 1940s there were various
attempts by C1.ech writers and theatre practitioners to
anaiYl.e the components of theatre. Otakar Zich, Jan
Mukarovsky, Jzri Veltrusky, Jz'ndrzch flonzi, and Petr
Bogatyrev raised the discussion of the theory and
practice of theatre and established the basis for ib
48
analysis in terms of structures and systems of signs. But
their work remained obscure - indeed, much of it has
yet to be translated into western languages, an
indication perhaps of the complexity of their
undenaking.
However, in 1970 the first edition of Lillerature et
spectacle, the work of a Polish semiotician, Tadeusz
Kow1.an, was published,' and although this study does
not appear to derive from the earlier Czech work,
there are strong common links. Kow1.an 's book is a
useful point from which to begin an investigation of
the current state of theatre semiotics, since it attempts
to codify theatre in very straightforward. clear terms.
Kowzan distinguishes eight organi1.ational
groupings hased on just three central criteria:
l'affabulatz'on (story-line), l'homme (man). and Ia 1
parole (words):
l) Performances
present (dramatic
service).
2) Performances
without words
processions).
in which all three elements are
theatre, opera. recitation. religious
with both storyline and man, but
(ballet, mime, silent unema,
3J Performances with storyline and words, but
without actors (animations. projections of nonhuman
figures, 'son et lumiere').
4) Performances with storyline only (shadow theatre,
silent animation of projection without
anthropomorphic figures, nonanthropomorphic
robots).
S) Performances with man and words, without story
line (certain rituals. recitation of texts without story
line).
6) Performances with man. without the other two
elements (gymnastics. certain kinds of performance
involving specific skills, some dance, some concerts).
7) Performances with words, without story-line or mao
(certain abstract projections using words but without a
story).
8) Performances where there is no storyline, words, or
actors (most mobile projections. kinesic construction,
water play, firework display. etc.).
In addition to this first attempt to categori1.e and
define theatre. Kow1.an also lays down a model for
determining the constituent parts of theatre. His
system consists in establishing which signs pertain to
the actor and which are outside the actor, which are
auditory and which are visual, which t>xtst in space
and which exist in time and space, etc. The result
is shown diagrammatically on the page opposite. ,
Kow1.an then establishes thirteen sign systems as f
basic components of theatre. In a later attempt to apply
this codification to practical work. he organi1.ed group .
projects at dw University of Lyons ll. in which
students analyzed performances by each focusing
00
two or thrt>e separate sign systems. The results of thiS
experiment as applied to four plays.
Tartuffe. Planchon's Le Cochon NoiT, and Borchert
Draussen vor da Tiir were published in 1976
6
ms of signs. But
. much of it hi.!
languages, an
of their
' Litt irat ure et
ician, Tadeusl
this study d0es
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z rone
3Mifl'lll
4
GeSture
5 Movement
6
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7

8 eostume
Spoken
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Expression
of the
body Actor
Actor's
external
appearance
Czech work
1
m's book is
9
Accessory
Appearance
10 [)eeor
of the
11
Lighting
stage Outside the
vestigation of I'
1te it attempts
. clear terrns.

.raJ criteria: t
1an), and Ia I
-: .
12 MuSIC
13 sound effects
Inarticulate
actor
sounds
'lements are
on, religious
d man, but
It
cinema,
words, but
non-human
JW theatre,
without
>Omorphic
wut story-
'lOut story
Jther two
formance
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e or man
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ords, or
ruction,
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fhe Nature of the Sign
In Litterature et Jpectacle Kowzan declares that,
'Among all the arts and perhaps among all the areas of
human activity, the art of theatre is the one wherein
the sign appears with the greatest richness, variety,
and density'. But he also distinguishes two kinds of
sign - the natural, which includes phenomena
unprovoked by man (e.g., thunder and lightning as
the sign of a storm, skin colour as the sign ofrace, etc.)
and the artificial, which is created by living creatures
in order to signify or communicate something. And
theatre, he declares, is made up entirely of artificial
signs.
This concept takes us back to Otakar Zich, who saw
all signs in theatre as serving two ends: to characterize,
and to advance dramatic action.
7
Andjindrich Honzl,
in his article 'Dynamics of the Sign in the Theatre',
sums up Zich's view neatly when he says:
Everything that makeJ up reality on the stage - the
playwright 'J text, the actor'J acting, the Jtage lighting
-all theJe things in every CaJe stand for other thingJ.
In other wordJ, dramatic performance IS a Jet of


I The stress laid by the Czech semioticians on analyzing
1
the nature of the Jign in theatre is very clearly
expressed in an article by Petr Bogatyrev, 'Les signes
du theatre'.
9
Bogatyrev discusses the jlex1bllity of the
theatrical sign. the way in which the sign can shift
both in its own right and in the way in which it is
, perceived. He gives the now famous examples of the
multiplicity of meaning of costume and props - an
ermine cape is a sign of royalty in the theatre,
regardless of whether the cape is actually made of
rabbit fur, just as red liquid poured from a decanter is
a sign of wine even though it may be red cordial. On
the other hand, in the case of a starving man on stage
eating a loaf of bread, that loaf may have no separate
sign value in its own right and exist merely as a
functional object to be utilized by another actor. for
the sign here is not the loaf but the act of eating it.
In addition, an article may have a multiple sign
function, and Bogatyrev argues that a costume might
simultaneously stand as a sign both of a character's
nationality, for example, and of his economic
situation. Signs in the theatre. then, assume a set of
Auditive Auditive
signs signs (actorl
Space
and
time Visual signs
Visual
(actor I
signs Space
Space Visual signs
and (outside the
time actor I
Auditive Auditive signs
signs (outside the actorl
values and functions in their own right, and are
infinitely changeable and complex. Moreover, as
Honzl points out, since theatrical conventions also
change and the theatre of a given time and place will
highlight certain components and rank them above
others in hierarchical scale, the changeability of this
scale will correspond to the changeability of the
theatrical sign.
The audience's ability to read signs adds an extra
dimension of complexity. Honzl notes how there are
times when one or more of the components 'submerges
below the surface of the spectator's conscious
attention'. This would be the case when what is seen
nullifies acoustical perceptions, or when the
audience's focus on dialogue pushes visual components
into the background.
The early Czech work stresses the need for
discussion of theatre in terms of the relationship of
component signs to the whole, and it would not be an
injustice to that group to cite Honzl once again when
he suggests the way in which the discussion should go:
It 1s my belief that with our analysz:S of the
changeability of the theatrical sign we have
undertaken a taJk that can teJt the trUJtworthineJJ of
many definitiom of theatrical art and decide whether
those definitionJ make provision for the old and new
typeJ of theatre that have orig1'nated in different
poetic or dramatic personalitieJ, aJ the reJult of many
technical inventionJ, and Jo on. I am also of the
opinion that we Jhould reJtore reJpect for the old
theory of theatrical art which sees its esJence in acting,
in action.
10
What Are the Basic Units?
The line of approach to theatre begun by the Czech
theoreticians emphasizes the need for a special
language with which to discuss the flexibility of theatre
art, and, ideally. for a language that can be utilized
both by those who create the performance and those
who see it. Those involved with the process of creating
the performance will inevitably perceive it through a
different time continuum, since for them each
rehearsal and each performance is a variation not of a
constant but of an ideal, whilst for a spectator-critic
the time sequence is different, since the performance
exists for them in a single circumscribed moment.
49
Indeed, one of the complaints so often made about
the impossibility either of performance analysis or of
an all-encompassing critical methodology is precisely
this question of multiplicity, since the performance at
any given time will never be identical to any other But
such a complaint can only be upheld if analysis of
theatre is treated exclusively as analysis of the final
product offered at a given moment. instead of
considering all the stages of the theatrical process as
coexistent in a symbiotic relationship with each other.
Steen Jansen, the Danish semiotician, notes that it is
through the process of rehearsal that the breakdown of
a play into szgnifying units is determined.
11
In
rehearsals, solutions are tried, rejected. modified,
shifted. and realigned in a series of tests that will show
whether or not a given situation rematns
comprehensible. The variations that take place
throughout the rehearsing of a play are not deviations
from any single posited ideal, they are merely elements
of the total process, and one of the most important
aspects of that process is the establishing of those
distinct units that makr up the play as a whole.
Jansen defines the fundamental characteristic of the
playtext as dramatic structure in the following way: 'It
is a coherent succession of distinct units. called
dramatic situations; a dramatic situation is a
compound of a successive-simultaneous nature of
dramatic elements'_tz \-Vhat he is trying to pin down
here is one of the central problems not only for
theoreticians but also for practitioners: how to
establish what the basic units are. over and above the
formal division of a piece into acts, scenes. etc.
Attempts to establish basic units from a written text
alone, or from a single reading of a performance, are
bound to be overly restrictive. Yet, as every actor and
director knows, units are established during the
rehearsal process -- units that may not correspond to a
litnary breakdown of the text in terms of plot
;tructures at all. The problem of defining basic
dramatic units raises several key questions:
1) Is it p'ossible to determine such ur11ts on a
universally applicable basis) (In formulating this
question, it should be borne in mind that a potential
danger of the semiotic approach is to try and base
analysis of theatre on strictly linguistic models. For
although linguistics offers a more scientifically
structured way of approaching both literary study and
theatre, the pluridirnensionality of theatre leads away
from, not towards a systematization following
linguistic models.)
~ If the units cannot be established from the writtrn
text alone, does this imply the presence of a text-
within-a text. rather on the lines of Mallarme's
concept of a text of silence and space between the lines
of a poem? Can a case be made for the existence of an
Inner text, that is read intuitively by actors and
directors as thev begin to build the performance i
3) If such an inner tt"xt exists, is it a constant? If. for
example. we have five translations of the same
playtext, will there also be five distinct inner texts? In
the case of the plavtext from a totally different
cultural context, will there be any relation between
the inner text perceived in the receiving culture and
that pnceived in th<" original context?
A group of Italian semioricians (there is a f1ounshing
school of theatrr semiotics in Italy. involving
practitioners and critics) has attempted to tackle the
problem by trying to identify the special
characteristics of language for the stagr. Using the
classification of the American philosopher and
semiotician C S. Peirce ( 18391914),
13
who devised a
complex system of types of sign. the Rizzoli giOup
posited that the Indexical level prevails in the dramatic
text. According to Peirce. the zndex describrs the
concrete, actual relation between sign and object. j
usually of a sequential kind (e.g .. smoke as an zndex of I
fire, a pointing finger as an Index of a relationship
between the pointn and what is being pointed at).
Since theatre always takes place in situation, the
basic level is always the indication of a series of factors
- the time and place of the discourse, the speaker(s)
involved, etc. The Rizzoli group sought to identify '
delctlc orientations (from dez'xis. referring to the form
of language that points to something) as basic units,
whereby each change of deictic direction could mark a
new unit. So units could be marked by a change in
deictic direction, such as a shift from 'this' to 'you';
and these units would not necessarily correspond to
changes of speaker. With this kind of work the Italian
group have continued the lin<' of approach that sees
the task of semiotic criticism as jz'ndmg content units (
of a work rather than defining their matrices.
Is Text an 'Invariable' Element?
Whilst this is an interesting line, it does still focus on
analysis of the written text in its relation to a possible
staging. Alessandro Serpieri,
14
one of the leading Italian
theatre semioticians, sees the written text as bearing
within it an insuibed range of theatrical signs (an
approach close to that of J L. Sty an
1
"). whilst another
member of the Rizzoli group, Paola Guill Pugliatti,
16
perceives the written text as a network of latent
theatrical signs that are only realized in perfonnance.
Others see the relation between the written text and
the performance text in different terms: Pagnini
defines it as the deep structure of the pnfonnance,
using terminology from C:homskian linguistics,
11
whilst Knwzan, perhaps more controversially than any
of the other theorists, sees the written text as the
lm'llrwble of the final staging All these suggestiof\5
have their source in the common problem of the
defining uf dramatic units and the positing of such a
concept in terms of an overall view of theatre, not a cf: -._
view rt'stricted either to a purely literary or practical _
line.
Patrice Pavis, a leading conternporat y st'miotician,
commenting that theatre semiotics has arisen in
reaction against 'textual imperialism. de< lares that
the text 'has been restored to its place of one syste!11"
among the systrms of the whole of the performance'.
The issue for hi
should be oppo
'whether a text
(without) the pe
enunciated'_ He t
a 'deep struct u
performance, an<
What sem1ology
interaction betu.e
they can impose
made of a text, m
z't. t8
What Pavis shows
of deep structure;
the written text ir
the performance.
must consider the
written text, rehe;
enorrnous variety.
A more fruitful
the theoretical cor
translation theory
of a text is t h ~ t
comparison of all
the invariant in t
example, would I
written text, in all
text (including b
performances sue\
media productior
updating) and m <
Only such a
anywhere near to t
and the concept h;
in dispelling notior
distinctions betwet'
it cannot be claim<
the form are invari
claimed that the w
invariant either_
The Problem c
Broadly speaking,
far has been conu
and delmeating the
it down into comp<
tenns of attempting
text, as the Italians
differing approach<
to be perceived as
inadequacy of exis
not only whether
'language' in its o"
~ o i n t that the law g
11
rs 'articulated lik
arrive at a common
With the questio
area of semiotic stu
describing the lingo
theatre text is base
'X
trices.
t?
issue fm him is not whether 'textual semiotics
be opposed to performance semiotics' but
a text can be analyzed semiotically before
the performance during which the text is
enunciated'. He rejects the notion of the text as either
deep structure' or an 'invariable' of a given
and suggests that:
semiology has to explain, therefore, is the
.o ...... ,,r,nn between the two systems, the 'construction'
can impose on each other; that which can be
of a text, and what the stage situation can say to
What Pavis shows very clearly is that the notions both
of deep structure and of the invariable are still keeping
the written text in a position of special status vis-a-vis
t}le performance. And any search for an invariable
IJIUSt consider the question of the relationship between
written text, rehearsals, and performances in all their
enormous variety.
A more fruitful line of approach might be to apply
the theoretical concept of in variance as posited in the
rranslation theory of A. Popovic that the invariant
of a text is that which can be discerned from a
comparison of all the versions of the original. Hence
the invariant in theatre terms of The Tempest, for
example, would be that which is constant in the
written text, in all performances based on that written
text (including ballet, puppet plays, experimental
performances such as Pip Simmons's short multi
media production, or Michael Fleck's Hawaiian
updating) and in all rehearsals.
Only such a comparative method can come
anywhere near to tackling the problem of in variance,
and the concept has been useful in translation theory
in dispelling notions of invariance based on formalist
distinctions between form and content. Indeed, just as
it cannot be claimed that either the subject matter or
the form are invariants in translation, so it cannot be
claimed that the written text or the performance are
invariant either.
The Problem of Theatre 'Language'
Broadly speaking. then, work in theatre semiotics so
far has been concerned with problems of codifying
and delineating theatre, whether in terms of breaking
it down into component parts, as Kowzan does, or in
terms of attempting to establish basic units of a written
text, as the Italians have been doing. What binds these
differing approaches together is a concern fqr theatre
to be perceived as a totality and an awareness of the
inadequacy of existing terminology. The problem is
not only whether theatre can be considered as a
'language' in its own right (following Julia Kristeva's
point that the law governing any social practice is that
it is 'articulated like a language'
19
). but also how to
arrive at a common language for discussing it.
With the question of language at the centre, one
area of semiotic study has focused on the problem of
describing the linguistic text as a starting point. The
theatre text is based on dialogue, on the dialectical
relationship between /-you in the present, whereas the
prose text is. based on a removed he. Even where there
is narrative dialogue, this can be considered as distinct
from dramatic dialogue, as Veltrusky shows when he
says, 'Narrative dialogue differs from the dramatic
chiefly in that it emphasizes the succession of speeches
rather than the simultaneous unfolding and interplay
of the contents from which they spring'.
20
Having made this distinction, Veltrusky goes on to
raise a question that has since been the focus of
attention of several semioticians: the problem of the
author's notes and comments within the body of the
written text, known in English (and Veltrusky feels
that this description is misleading) as the stage
directions. Veltrusky points out that these notes are
eliminated in performance, 'and the resulting gaps in
the unity of the text are filled in by other than
linguistic signs'. He feels that this process is not
arbitrary, but is 'essentially a matter of transposing
linguistic meanings into other semiotic systems'.
However, he also shows that the extent of the
transposition depends on the weight those notes carry
within the text i.e., on the importance of the gaps
created by their deletion.
Analyzing the stage directions of Pirandello's
Tonight We Improvise, Steenjansen
21
shows that they
constitute the presence in the text of the dramatist as a
structural element. The same might be said for some
of Arnold Wesker's works. Thus, if we consider the
following stage direction, it is unclear as to what it
actually is:
Dobson returns at this point and sits down, waiting for
the next move. Remember, he has already caught
them embracing. Dave and Ada glance at each other,
Dave shrugs his shoulders. Ada proceeds to lay out a
clean shirt for Dave, he is drying himself The rest of
this scene happens while Ada prepares a salad. They
never get round to eating it.
22
How far can this be taken as minutely detailed
instructions to the actors (which raise, as Veltrusky has
also shown, important issues of the author's attempts
to exercise control over the performers), and how far is
it essentially literary, denoting the presence of the
author inside the playtext, making himself accessible
not to the audience but to the reader? For, as
semioticians have pointed out, the existence of a
written text implies a reader. and it may indeed be
that certain playwrights have constructed texts that
question assumptions about reading those texts, in
much the same way as novelists this century have
questioned assumptions about reading prose.
Leaving aside for a moment the question of the
playtext in its dialectical relationship with
performance, and remaining with the question of
reading written words, it is possible to distinguish
several broad types of reading:
1) The purely literary reading (e.g., a play read as
part of an academic drama or literature course, or a
volume of 'complete plays' read consecutively).
51
2) The directorial reading (which may involve a
process of decision-taking. to assess whether or not to
stage the play).
3) The actor's reading (which will focus on the
performability of certain roles).
4) reading (which will involve the inclusion
of paralinguistic signs - pitch, tone, inflexion, etc. -
and may also involve gesture).
5) The post-performance reading (a text read for the
first time after seeing a performance, when the
reading will contain within it the memory of the
staging as a component).
In all these different types of reading, the relationship
between the stage directions and the dramatic
dialogue will inevitably vary. There is, therefore, a
notion of multiplidty in the act of reading a playtext
that corresponds to the notion of multiplicity in
performances of that text. From what appeared to be
an essentially literary semiotic approach. we have
come round full circle back to the inadequacy of
perceiving the written text as either the primary or the
invariant component of theatre.
Anne Ubersfeld points out that the written text is
incomplete (troue).
23
She cites as an example the
opening moments of Moliere's The Misanthropist and
points out that the reader knows nothing about the
contextual situation from the text alone: 'Are the two
already there, on stage. or do they arrive?
How do they arrive? Do they run on, or not? Which
one follows the other, and how?' Ubersfeld feels that
the answers to these questions, which must be
determined by the time the performance takes place,
derive from close textual work. However. she makes a
distinction between T, the written text, P. the
performance text, and T
1
a text that is interposed
between the two but is a necessary component of the
final product. Set out as an equation, she proposes:
T + T
1
= P, where T
1
is the text that provides the
answers to the questions posed by the gaps left in T.
Approaching the issues from a completely different
angle. she too posits the question of the boundaries of
the written text and the possible existence of an inner
text to be read between the lines.
The Performer and the Audience
In addition to the work outlined so far. from which it
can be seen that theatre semiotics is proceeding along
many fronts, there is also the vast question of the
relationship between performers and audiences.
There is a whole science of audience-reader response.
rezeptszoniisthetik. that utilizes work in sociology and
semiotics, and with theatre the issue is made more
complex by the consideration of the audience as a
component of the theatre and not only as a receiver.
Bogatyrev, for example, pointed out the complexity
of the audience response to a folk play or medieval
pageant, where simultaneous layers of perception were
involved, as the audience acceptt'd I) the play as
thing, 2) the functlon of the play as ritual. 3) their
familiarity with friends and neighbours as actors, and
so on. Moreover. just as the signs of theatre change
according to different epochs and conventions, so the
expectations and role of the audience also change. In
addition, although every spectator is individually a
receiver, the way he is actually affected will vary
according to the collective response of the audience as
a whole (e.g .. different reactions of the individual
spectator in a full house as against an almost-empty
one).
Veltrusky. together with the Czech group in I
general, was much concerned with the question of the
relationship between performers and the audience,
and suggests that within this unit there are two distinct
relationships: the actor-spectator relationship between
the actors. and the actor-spectator relationship within
the audience:
Just as there is an actor-spectator relationship between
the actors, so there is another actor-spectator
relatz'onshzp within the audience. Both are grafted on
the basic relatz'onshzp between the actual actor and the
actual spectator, which they complement and help to
buz'ld up but with which they can also clash, even to
the extent of disrupting the performance. An
interesting example of such disruptzon is mentioned by
Antoine. Dunng the performance of a comedy, a well-
known critic, rather hostz'le to the Theatre Libre, was
at one poz'nt so overcome by laughter that the whole
audz'ence looked at him and laughed with him and
they laughed so long, says Antoine, 'that we could no
longer regain our self-possession on stage'. By
overreacting to the conative function of acting, this
spectator unwittingly 'stole the show' from the
actors.
24
On the other hand, Jan Mukarovsky, one of the
leading Czech theoreticians of the 1930s and early
1940s (though not primarily a theatre semiotician),
considers the audience to be 'omnipresent in the
structure of a stage production,
25
and at the same
time questions the whole notion of the 'audience' in
general as being too abstract a concept.
Theatre semiotics, then, is vast in its own right as a
discipline seeking to treat theatre as theatre
'scientifically', and it draws on many other related
fields: history. sociology. linguistics. philosophy.
aesthetics. architecture. physics, mathematics.
translation studies - the list continues indefinitely.
With such a wide range, it follows that certain
approaches will favour the utilization of certain
methods of terminology in preference to others, and it
is this that has presented a stumbling block to the
advancement of work in theatre semiotics in Britain in
the past.
The use of what seems to some to br a highly
specialized language can be off-putting. and there
have been occasions when valuable ideas have been
encased m a language that has been seen as
obscurantist and over-academic. But although thi5
kind of work cannot be excused, it should be noted
that many of tht> complex neologisms stem from an
att<"mpt to create a new kind of language in which tD
talk
in ad
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com
liter:
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en co
lang
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speei
tWO
impr
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hand
the f
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equa
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will 1


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Hawko
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6 Tao
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13
cit. n
'Peirctl
Sight,f,,

.re grafted
actor and
t and help
lash, even
about theatre, since the existing one has proven
,,,.nn:n... The gap between practitioners and
is further widened by the absence of a
language and by the scholars' tendency to use
literary terminology in the discussion of theatre.
. In future issues of Quarterly it is hoped to
encourage discussion in semiotic terms, but in a
language that will be accessible and utilizable to a
wide spectrum. Where necessary, glossaries of
specialized terms will be provided, and ids hoped that
two positive shifts will be made in the direction of
iJPproving communication between people engaged in
t}teatre: firstly, that those who reject semiotics out of
hand will come to consider its potential usefulness in
;_ the furtherance of a universally acceptable discussion
of theatre; and secondly, that those semioticians who
equate accessibility with dilution will come to realize
that isolationism is both elitist and ultimately self-
defeating. The early work in Czechoslovakia involved
both scholars and theatre practitioners, and valuable
work in France and Italy is following similar lines. It
will perhaps not be too long before we begin such
projects here.
Notes and References
I For a readable introduction to semiotics, see Terence
Hawkes, Structuralism and Semiotics (London: Methuen,
New Accents, 1977).
2 Roman Jacobson, 'Closing Statement: Linguistics and
Poetics', in T. Sebeok, ed., Style in Language (Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press. 1960), pp. 350-77.
Jiri Veltrusky. 'Dramatic Text as a Component of
Theatre' (1941), reprinted in L. Matejka and I. Titunik,
eds., Semiotics of Art: Prague School Contributions
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1976), pp. 94-118.
4 The term 'non-theatre' follows Yuri Lotman's distinction
between culture and non-culture, as outlined in Y. Lotman
and B. Uspensky, 'On the Semiotic Mechanism of Culture',
New Literary History, IX, 2 (1978).
5 Tadeusz Kowzan, Litterature et spectacle (The Hague;
Paris: Mouton, 1975). Quotations from Kowzan are taken
from this text.
6 Tadeusz Kowzan, Analyse semiologique du spectacle
thetitrale (Universite Lyon 11: Centre d'etudes et de
recherches theatrales, 1976).
7 The work of Otakar Zich has not been translated into
English. His study of theatre, Estetika dramatickeho umeni
(Aesthetics of Dramatic Art, Prague, 1931) is extensively
quoted by other members of the Prague group and is
discussed at some length by Irena Slawinska in an article
entitled 'La semiologia del teatro in statu nascendz': Praga
1931-1941', Biblioteca teatrale, 28 (1978), pp. ll5-35.
8 Jindrich Honzl, 'Dynamics of Sign in the Theatre' (1940),
reprinted in Matejka and Titunik, op. cit., pp. 74-94.
9 Petr Bogatyrev, 'Les signes du theatre', Poetique, V111
(1971), pp. 517-30.
10 Jindrich Honzl, op. cit., pp. 90-l.
11 Steen Jansen, 'Problemi dell'analisi dei testi dramatici',
Biblioteca teatrale, 28 (1978), pp. 14-44.
12 Steen Jan5en, op. cit., p. 29.
13 C. S. Peirce's work is discussed by Terence Hawkes, op.
cit. There is also a helpful chapter by Max Fisch, entitled
'Peirce's General Theory of Signs', in Thomas Sebeok, ed.,
Sight, Sound, and Sense (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1978), pp. 31-7:t
14 Alessandro Serpieri, 'lpotesi teorica di segmentazione
del testo teatrale', Strumentz- crz'tzcz, 32/33 (1977), pp.
90-135.
15 J. L. Styan, The Elements of Drama (Cambridge
University Press, 1969).
16 Paola Guill Pugliatti, I segni latenti. Scrittura come
virtualita scenica in King Lear (Mesina-Firenze: D'Anna,
1976).
17 M. Pagnini, 'Per una 5emiologia del teatro classico',
Critici, IV, 2 (1970).
18 Patrice Pavis, in a reply to five questions on theatre
semiotics circulated to eight people, published in 1/S,
September-December 1978. Pavis' full-length study in
French on theatre semiotics is Probliimes de semiologie
t hetitrale (Presses de I'Universite de Quebec, 197 6). More
recently Pavis has been engaged in producing a glossary of
theatre terminology.
19 Julia Kristeva, 'The System and the Speaking Object',
Tz'mes Literary Supplement, 12 October 1973.
20 JiTi Veltrusky, op. cit., p. 96.
21 Steen Jansen, 'Struttura narrativa e struttura
drammatica', in Questa sera si recita a soggetto. Rivista
italiana di drammaturgia, 6 (Roma, 1977).
22 Arnold Wesker, I'm Talking About jerusalem, Act II.
23 Anne Ubersfeld, Lire le theatre (Paris: Editions sociales,
1978), p. 24.
24 Jiri Veltrusky, 'Contribution to the Semiotics of Acting',
in L. Matejka, ed., Sign, Sound, and Meanzng (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1976), p. 589.
25 Jan Mukarovsky, 'On the Current State of the Theory of
Theatre', reproduced in a collection of his essays, entitled
Structure, Sign, and Function (New Haven; London: Yale
University Press, 1978), pp. 201-20.
Theatre Studies
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53