Bruce A. McConachie

Falsifiable Theories for Theatre and Performance Studies

This essay argues that theatre and performance scholars should use theories that can be scientifically validated whenever possible. Scientists cannot arrive at objective knowledge, but through the process of falsification they can narrow their range of possible interpretations to provide explanations that best suit the evidence and counter the arguments of others. The cognitive sciences are now providing falsifiable explanations for many theatre and performance phenomena, such as attention, empathy, and conceptualization. In contrast, many of the theories current in our discipline, including those reliant on psychoanalysis and poststructuralism, are not open to the protocols of good science. On the basis of falsifiablity, the essay demonstrates the superiority of two theories from cognitive science over approaches current in our discipline with regard to the problem of how spectators understand theatrical doubleness and action on the stage. It also suggests that a-scientific theories can be useful for scholarship when they are in accord with good science and allow us to extend the range of our discussions and conclusions.

Towards a Postpositivist Theatre History

While most contemporary theatre historians would probably agree with the thrust of Styans comment, few of them pursue questions and work within methods which allow them to investigate the many ways in which theatrical performances function as social events. Aside from a handful of Marxists interested in issues of theatre history, most historians of the theatre are content to sketch in the social-cultural background of a theatrical period or event before using fine lines of narrative to detail the who, what, when, and how of a theatrical production, career, or style. But it does not take a materialist to point out that such social-historical roles, actions and perceptions constitute the fundamental stuff out of which theatrical events emerge.

Doing Things with Image Schemas: The Cognitive Turn in Theatre Studies and the Problem of Experience for Historians

Can historians know and explain the experiences of people from the distant past? As performance historians, can we understand what Moli?re may have experienced during his wrangling with the bureaucrats of Louis XIV over the production of Tartuffe? Can we comprehend what working-class spectators in New York may have enjoyed while experiencing the performance of an apocalyptic melodrama in the 1840s? What Janet Achurch experienced while rehearsing for the London premiere of A Dolls House in 1889? Or, to frame these questions as a historiographical problem, is there enough common ground linking the present experience of the historian to the probable experience of people from the past (as understood from the available evidence) to arrive at some truths about these past experiences sparked by perform ance events?

The "Oriental" Musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein and the U.S. War in Southeast Asia

Early in the action of The King and I, Anna gives the Kings children a lesson in geopolitics. Seeing an old map of Asia on the wall in which Siam occupies an area roughly the size of China, she rolls out her own visual aid to cover it. Annas new map is a Mercator projection of the world with Siam reduced to dimensions drawn in London and surrounded by land masses colored to denote the encroachments of European imperial power. The children object to the shrunken size of their kingdom, but their father, the King, commands them to recognize that Annas version of the world is the correct one. Within the world of the musical, the British map is just as real as snow, which the children also deny; both define natural realities in an external world.

Theatre for Working-Class Audiences in the United States, 1830-1980

This collection of essays defines and explores American theatres that consciously appealed primarily to workers. The scope of the book extends from the 1830s to the 1980s. Different authors focus on how various plays related to the audience as a class, the historically dynamic interaction between spectators and actors, and why certain plays gained popularity. The collection encompasses essays concerning New York theatre in the 1830s and 1840s, Pittsburgh theatre in the 1870s, various immigrant productions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the politically radical theatre of the 1930s, a concluding section on recent and contemporary theatre for workers, and an overview of the history, politics, and aesthetics of theatres doing shows for working-class audiences today. An original and comprehensive bibliographical essay regarding the history of theatres for workers in the United States completes the volume.

Using cognitive science to understand spatiality and community in the theater

The author deploys the spatial relations concepts of Lakoff and Johnsons cognitive psychology to understand the spatiality of community‐based theater. Two recent productions directed by Richard Geer, Pieced Together and Swamp Gravy, provide the primary examples. The author demonstrates that the spatial relations concept of “containment” was fundamental to both productions. “Verticality” and “near‐far” were also significant. “Center‐periphery,” on the other hand ‐ the primary concept that orients spectators in experiencing proscenium‐positioned voyeurism ‐ played a minor role in the two examples of community‐based theater.

The Bio-Cultural Evolution of Language and Prosocial Emotions

The first part of the chapter provides a definition of prosocial emotions based on an enactivist understanding of cognition and behavior and underlines the importance of mimesis for evolutionary social bonding. Then, relying upon Jordan Zlatev’s synthesis of the evolution of language and the framework of bio-cultural evolution, I trace the evolution of intersubjectivity and social norms among hominins during the Pleistocene Epoch. With the emergence of Homo sapiens about 200,000 years ago, symbolic languages gradually took the place of the proto-languages of our hominin ancestors. Language allowed early humans to imagine and communicate non-present worlds. A brief discussion of the mimetically based ritual culture of the BaYaka Pygmy tribes of Africa demonstrates how the proto-language modes of the Pleistocene Epoch continue to serve the socio-psychological needs of modern people.