Towards a Spectatorial Approach to Drama Analysis

Abstract

In recent years, the concept of dramaturgy has been expanded to include a wide range of new fields that rarely concern the analysis of the drama text itself, but rather the facilitation of creative processes. This article investigates dramaturgy as an analytical practice. The article provides an analytical, historical investigation of methodological approaches to drama analysis. The aim is to examine how drama analysis came to be regarded as a literary discipline that rarely considers aspects of performance and the material, scenic context for which the play was written. The study of drama thus became regarded as being distinct from theatre and performance studies. This approach, which has its roots in nineteenth century dramaturgy, effectively eliminated the spectator from its perspective in favour of a character and plot centred dramaturgy. It is the authors’ assertion that the drama text and theatrical performance should, nevertheless, be regarded as intrinsically interconnected and that the spectator must be “re-inserted” in the analysis of the written drama. The authors explore how we might re-think the field of dramaturgy as drama analysis by emphasizing the corporeal, spatial, performative, and cognitive aspects of the drama text together with an emphasis on the historical and scenic context.