Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture

Patrice Pavis

Western culture has a long history of cultural appropriation, a history that has particular resonance within performance practice. In this new study, Patrice Pavis asks what is at stake--politically and aesthetically--when cultures meet at the crossroads of theatre. Pavis analyzes a series of major recent productions, including Brook's "Mahabharata," Cixous/Mnouchkine's "Indiande," and Barba's "Faust." These provide a starting point for discussions of translation, appropriation, adaptation, cultural misunderstanding, and theatrical exploration. Never losing sight of the theatrical experience, Pavis confronts problems of colonialism, anthropology, and ethnography. This signals a radical movement away from the director and the word, toward the complex relationship between performance, performer, and spectator. Despite the problematic politics of cultural exchange in the theater, interculturalism is not a one-sided process. Using the metaphor of the hourglass to discuss the transfer between source and target culture, Pavis explores what happens when the hourglass is turned upside down and the "foreign" culture speaks for itself.

Preface, 1 TOWARD A THEORY OF CULTURE AND MISE EN SCÈNE, 2 FROM PAGE TO STAGE: A DIFFICULT BIRTH, 3 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE OF MODERN DRAMA: THE CASE OF POSTMODERN THEATRE, 4 ON THEORY AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS AND ITS LIMITED INFLUENCE ON CONTEMPORARY DRAMA WHETHER MAJORITY OR MINORITY, 5 THEATRE AND THE MEDIA: SPECIFICITY AND INTERFERENCE, 6 TOWARD SPECIFYING THEATRE TRANSLATION, 7 DANCING WITH FAUST: REFLECTIONS ON AN INTERCULTURAL MISE EN SCÈNE BY EUGENIO BARBA, 8 INTERCULTURALISM IN CONTEMPORARY MISE EN SCÈ NE: THE IMAGE OF INDIA IN THE MAHABHARATA, THE INDIADE, TWELFTH NIGHT AND FAUST, Index