The Lines between the Lines: How Stage Directions Affect Embodiment by Bess Rowen (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Lines between the Lines: How Stage Directions Affect Embodiment by Bess Rowen Catherine Heiner The Lines between the Lines: How Stage Directions Affect Embodiment. By Bess Rowen. University of Michigan Press, 2021. Cloth, $80.00, Paper, $34.95. 258 pages. 1 illustration. In an ambitious project that bridges theoretical analysis and practical application, Bess Rowen considers the significance and importance of stage directions within the theatrical text in The Lines between the Lines: How Stage Directions Affect Embodiment. Tracing the evolution of stage directions from the twentieth century on, Rowen argues that stage directions offer a path toward interrogating the cultural processes of theatre to challenge, subvert, and transform how we think about representation. To categorize these lines between the lines, Rowen first defines affective stage directions as lines “where multiple forms of cultural consciousness come into contact as playwright, reader, actor, director, and designers all bring their individual cultural lenses and experiences to a script” (9). Her title plays on the dual nature of “affect,” both as the theory related to the circulation of emotions and feelings, and the ability to influence, impress, or move. By tracing the origins of stage directions through print culture, Rowen identifies these moments as opportunities for readers to imaginatively embody these moments as they imagine and consider the possibilities of performance. Doing so allows Rowen to oscillate between the practical factors of theatre production—including casting, design, and staging—and the theoretical complexities of theatre as embodied semiotics. She suggests this process as an act of translation, in moving a play from written text to bodily experience, thus reiterating the collaborative and flexible nature of theatre production. Within this framework, Rowen argues that drawing attention to the specificity and nuance of [End Page 81] embodiment in relation to theatrical texts can offer more affective possibility in production. Rowan pays particular attention to these moments as sites of generative collaboration for playwrights and readers, or as instances that reflect problematic cultural associations and judgements, depending on how these stage directions are interpreted through and with the bodies of performers. At times it is a little unclear whether Rowen intends her work as a call to action for practitioners to reconsider their approach to these moments, or for theatre scholars to layer affect into textual analysis; however, Rowen demonstrates how these unspoken moments reflect the importance of representation. Rowen shapes this project by organizing the major categories of stage directions in her chapters as spoken, affective, choreographic, multivalent, and impossible. Moving temporally through the history of stage directions, Rowen moves from the small-scale moments of spoken stage directions to the much larger, more nebulous nature of the imaginative and incomprehensible. In her chapter on spoken stage directions, Rowen notes how lines of dialogue in which characters narrate onstage actions aloud illustrate the differences in meaning between what is spoken and what is embodied. Rowan compares these to affective stage directions, which serve to engage an actor and their body affectively within the world of the play to chart an emotional trajectory rather than indicating a specific movement. In the chapters that follow Rowen defines more specific affective categories, beginning with choreographic stage directions, which draw even more deeply on metaphor, often describing moments of dance and motion. Rowen indicates that these stage directions focus on how these moments feel, why they occur, and how they affect those involved to create unspoken communication that operates in tandem with dialogue. The multivalent stage directions that Rowen describes offer the most flexibility, as they not only contain multiple possibilities for staged moments, but actively suggest multiple paths for performance. Finally, Rowen takes stage directions deemed impossible or unstageable as an invitation to read toward affect, arguing that the standardization of theatrical language has excluded playwrights of marginalized identities by deeming them “impossible.” In all cases, Rowen emphasizes the significance of collaboration, noting the ways that these stage directions offer possibilities for directors, actors, and designers to bring their own embodied experience to these moments. Perhaps most usefully, Rowen utilizes her own experiences of reading, witnessing, and imagining these stage directions to inform the possibilities present. She argues that “the concept of affective stage directions...