What makes a dramaturg: A creative exploration/ compilation of perspectives

March 14, 2024

In an allegorical world –

between fiction

and non-fiction

planet Earth

and the space

familiarity

and estrangement –

the American theatre critic

Elinor Fuchs

will inspire you to envision yourself

taking on the role of the dramaturg

by observing

a medium-sized planet

before our eyes.

Stepping on the key assumption that

there can be

no

random accidents

on this planet

Fuchs’ essay “EF’s Visit to a Small Planet: Some Questions to Ask a Play” will prompt you to

shut your eyes, and

pay close attention

to the transpiring world.

To ask questions

prior to making any grant statement,

she will provoke you:

about the space

the time

the climate

on this planet

the mood

the tone

sound

the social dimension of existence

there.

The way figures appear

or interact

the way they feel and self-express.

To be aware of change

you’ll be guided:

of the elements that change

and the things that they change on their way.

Of the elements that remain

unchanged.

Of what changes within

you.

Only after you have investigated all these parameters

are you allowed to examine the figures

who inhabit this world.

And develop their characters.

But, for Fuchs’ instigation to be successful

each assumption you make

must reflect the conditions of the world you envisioned.

Because “characters mean only

as they inhabit

enact

fulfill

engage

a succession of sites

actions

and objects

under a specific set of conditions.

They are constituents of a complex artistic pattern.

Find the pattern first” (9).

But, don’t forget.

That is

only

what Fuchs says.

In “Dramaturgy as a Mode of Looking”

the Dutch performance studies scholar,

Maaike Bleeker,

will abstain

from manipulating the imperative form

in her word.

By echoing various voices

and perspectives

Bleeker will embrace

the inherent characteristics of

openness

and fluidity

that

define

dramaturgy.

She, too,

will recognize

the relational nature of dramaturgy.

She, too,

will be absorbed in the ways

meaning takes place

and the reason it takes place the way it does.

But, unlike Fuchs,

Bleeker will also open up the possibility

of exploring these questions

on the way.

For, it is a ‘landscape architecture’

that allows this possibility to move away from

a logocentric way of structuring performances

and guiding audiences in a certain way

towards

leaving them free

to wander around.

Because, “if dramaturgy is about rules and conventions at all

it is not about applying

or following them

but about becoming aware of them

as they guide making performances

as well looking at them.

It is about

allowing all of these activities

to operate

self-reflexively” (166).

About showing elasticity.

And openness.

And receptivity.

By viewing dramaturgy

primarily

as a conversation,

the Fleming writer and director,

Joachim Robbrecht,

will activate it

with the Shakespearean question

‘Who’s there?’

as he specifies in his text

“Contagious Conversations.”

This simplistic inquiry will address the involved members

as individuals

with backgrounds

(hi)stories

traumas

ghosts

agendas

etc.

rather than

as tabulae rasae.

This question will also

address the various

systems

(social, political, economic, cultural)

within which

these subjects

operate

either as individuals

or collectively.

Yet, by opposing to the White capitalistic need/desire/thought/urge of

‘arriving somewhere,’

Robbrecht will opt for

a dramaturgy of ‘queering’

that will resist solidifying the process into a product

(rehearsals into a performance,

improvisation into a role,

artworks into programs, etc.)

and will rather aim at

“weaving around the desire to create another world

while keeping the material at hand

flexible” (144).

Concentrating on the social and political dimension of dramaturgy

the Belgian performance studies scholar

Christel Stalpaert

in “The Dramaturgy of the Body” -

quoting the artist Myriam van Imschoot -

will emphasize the position of the contemporary dramaturg;

a position befined by encounters

and meetings

by ‘transgressive reversals’:

moments when “one leaves one’s

particular skill

or field of competence

to ‘meet halfway between disciplines’” (122).

And

this in-between-ness

will transcend the cognitive, mental or psychological

moving onto

the physical:

“to a corporeal ‘try-out’ of the spectator’s bodily capacity

to read

and make sense

of an aesthetic of intensities” (123).

To invoke

one’s cognitive, mental, psychological, physical

machineries.

In the process of ‘devising’

weaving

assemblaging.

To intertwine

heterogenous elements within a live event

will be

as the performance studies scholar

David Williams highlights in "Geographies of Requiredness"

what makes a dramaturg.

With a constant observation of

what arises in the space

time

situatedness

by focusing on what

is

happening

instead of

what

should

be happening

the dramaturg

equals

the “juggler of paradoxes

in an uncertain

unpredictable

and ultimately

unmasterable

terrain” (202).

Where the ‘we’ and the ‘I’ blur.

Where time and temporality are different than we know them.

When form fails.

And words alike.

When you don’t know

what meaning means

anymore.

What makes up your identity.

While

having no doubt

that you are where you are

and not necessarily

where you should be.

Then

you are

a

dramaturg.

I think

_________

Bleeker, Maaike. “Dramaturgy As a Mode of Looking.” Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, pp. 163–172. doi:10.1080/07407700308571432.

Fuchs, Elinor. “EF’s Visit to a Small Planet: Some Questions to Ask a Play.” Theater, 2004, pp. 5–9. doi: 10.1215/01610775-34-2-5.

Robbrecht, Joachim. “Contagious Conversations.” The Practice of Dramaturgy: Working on Actions in Performance, edited by Konstantina Georgelou et al. Valiz, 2017, pp. 137-146.

Stalpaert, Christel. “A Dramaturgy of the Body.” Performance Research, vol. 14, no. 3, Routledge, 2009, pp. 121-125. Taylor & Francis Online, doi: 10.1080/13528160903519583.

Williams, David. “Geographies of Requiredness: Notes on the Dramaturg in Collaborative Devising*.” Contemporary Theatre Review, vol. 20, no. 2, Routledge, 2010, pp. 197–202. Taylor & Francis Online, doi: 10.1080/10486801003682401.