Drama on the FringesDrama on the Fringes

drama 226drama 226May 21/08May 21/08

Exit ‘Shaky’ / Enter the ‘Fringe’

Exit ‘Shaky’ / Enter the ‘Fringe’

1st Fringe Festival?

1st. Canadian Fringe Festival?

The significant difference between Edinburgh and Edmonton Fringe is?

The growth of the Fringe circuit

What makes the Fringe so popular?

1st Fringe Festival?

1st. Canadian Fringe Festival?

The significant difference between Edinburgh and Edmonton Fringe is?

The growth of the Fringe circuit

What makes the Fringe so popular?

Introducing !!The Monster ....

We have to go into the subjunctive world of monsters, demons, and clowns, of cruelty and poetry, in order to make sense of our daily lives, earning our daily bread. And when we enter whatever theatre our lives allow us, we have already learned how strange and multi-layered everyday life is, how extraordinary the ordinary. Victor Turner.

Congratulations, you have created a monster! A warm, vibrant, bizarre, theatre-hungry monster who eats up the elitism smothering the art form and instead serves up a theatre at bare-bones, street level style that invites one and all to plunge into an eclectic smorgasbord of ideas and talents ... . Judy Lawrence, Edmonton Fringe Producer, 1992.

With Shakespeare's theatre we see the emergence of the author and the concurrent authority of the text

Beside this theatrical activity, Beginning in the 17th century, festivals and popular gatherings and celebrations throughout Europe were also undergoing radical changes -- under 1000’s of acts of legislation which attempted to eliminate popular carnival and festivals.

It is interesting that as the authority of the text emerges along with the concurrent ‘silencing’ of the audiences, we also see the beginnings of the ‘production’ of cultural ‘commodities.’

With Shakespeare's theatre we see the emergence of the author and the concurrent authority of the text

Beside this theatrical activity, Beginning in the 17th century, festivals and popular gatherings and celebrations throughout Europe were also undergoing radical changes -- under 1000’s of acts of legislation which attempted to eliminate popular carnival and festivals.

It is interesting that as the authority of the text emerges along with the concurrent ‘silencing’ of the audiences, we also see the beginnings of the ‘production’ of cultural ‘commodities.’

• As Turner tells us, theatre in its festive form is an intensified collective social experience.

• As M. Bristol tells us, in festivity, people behave differently; bitter enemies may become loyal friends, disputes may be solved and old debits settled.

• Now, here is the paradox: festive behavior is ‘unruly’ and ‘excessive’ and essentially subversive: the world is turned tipsy turvy / the fool wears the crown. Yet, it is in this state of being that festive behavior stimulates collective solutions to social problems.

• The problem for ‘authority’ is that when collective costumes are effective in settling disputes, the symbolic authority of ‘laws’ and ‘social norms’ is ‘exposed’ as arbitrary, and perhaps not in the interest of the collective.

Why outlaw popular festivities?

patrons : audience• In Shaky’s theatre the ‘crowd/audience’

is the patron -- and this is a problem for the authorities of the day

• The authority of the author works to silence this new ‘audience patron.’

• Increasingly theatrical conventions work to frame the audience/patron as the silent consumer of the text on stage. Naturalism is perhaps the ultimate dramatic genre of disempowerment for the audience

• What happens when the audience again becomes a crowd -- on the Fringe the crowd is the patron ... and more ...

First come first served: The Fringe and arts funding

A rejection of arts funding policies

The criteria of excellence and universal expressions of humanity

Theatre as art

Theatre as social experience

First come first served: The Fringe and arts funding

A rejection of arts funding policies

The criteria of excellence and universal expressions of humanity

Theatre as art

Theatre as social experience

The Festival Production StructureThe Festival Production Structure

•Canadian theatre production in a nutshell:

•colonial / american / canadian / fringe

•canadian/ colonial: regional theatre 1950’s

•canadian/nationalistic: alternative theatre 1970’s

•‘ex-centric’ /the other: 1980’s

Dramatic conventions & the politics of identity

the first move toward a popular audience -- rather than elite

the actor is once again as important as the text and the audience is again involved, in some measure, with the performance

theatrical process is stressed over product (collaborations)

unique production opportunities for new playwrights and plays.

the first move toward a popular audience -- rather than elite

the actor is once again as important as the text and the audience is again involved, in some measure, with the performance

theatrical process is stressed over product (collaborations)

unique production opportunities for new playwrights and plays.

Alternative theatre conventionsAlternative theatre conventions

Enter the ‘ex-centric,’ sometimes known as ‘the other’

• The story of universal values and Svetlana Zylin’s production of The House of Bernardo Alba

• the personal IS the political : ‘performance art’

• a rising sense of connection between artists & audience

• the festival movement begins

• festivals transform spaces and behavior

• Actors become writers, writers become directors, directors become lighting designers .... audience members become critics...

• The audience plays a central role in the production of meaningfulness

Performance as culture in

process ...Performance as culture in

process ...

how does a low budget experimental theatre event become a celebration of performance become a truly popular festival?

the sense of festivity began with the artists celebrating the freedom to create whatever they choose ..

self-production - self promotion - One Yellow Rabbit in the streets

Beer tents open in 1985 --> traffic re-routed

The clowns and jugglers and street performers arrived in 1986 ...

how does a low budget experimental theatre event become a celebration of performance become a truly popular festival?

the sense of festivity began with the artists celebrating the freedom to create whatever they choose ..

self-production - self promotion - One Yellow Rabbit in the streets

Beer tents open in 1985 --> traffic re-routed

The clowns and jugglers and street performers arrived in 1986 ...

critics decry frivolity on the Fringe!

critics decry frivolity on the Fringe!

In festivity, ‘people unmake their world in order to see how they make sense of their world” (Frank Manning).

While frivolity and unruliness are integral parts of festive behavior, participants are nonetheless engaging in a serious pursuit of cultural knowledge.

“We try to create chaos, and then we try to control it” (Randy Smith).

Smith invites the Flaming Idiots to juggle fire at a busy downtown crossroads right outside of the ‘regional’ theatre during intermission -- three things happened simultaneously

• The Idiots began juggling, a large crowd of ‘fringers’ gathered in the streets, a group of ‘dressed up regular theatre goers’ crowed out into the street, and the police arrived.

In festivity, ‘people unmake their world in order to see how they make sense of their world” (Frank Manning).

While frivolity and unruliness are integral parts of festive behavior, participants are nonetheless engaging in a serious pursuit of cultural knowledge.

“We try to create chaos, and then we try to control it” (Randy Smith).

Smith invites the Flaming Idiots to juggle fire at a busy downtown crossroads right outside of the ‘regional’ theatre during intermission -- three things happened simultaneously

• The Idiots began juggling, a large crowd of ‘fringers’ gathered in the streets, a group of ‘dressed up regular theatre goers’ crowed out into the street, and the police arrived.

The theatre patrons were watching the Fringe goers watch the Flaming Idiots with the police controlling the surrounding traffic -- ‘what meant what’ was definitely open to possibility!

Performative reflexivity

Turner stresses that for a cultural performance to be truly ‘reflexive, “violence has to be done to to commonsense ways of classifying the world and society.”

Clowns & FestivityClowns & Festivity

The Shaman is the prototype of the poet, the priest, and the actor. The poet’s function is to give utterance to that which others cannot say. The priest’s function is to mediate with the supernatural between man and not man. The actor’s function is to express, through body, a second virtual reality and to make that imagined reality manifest. The vatic utterances give birth to poetry, the spirit medium function of the shaman develops into the craft of the clown. He is the sacred actor, the holy fool. Anthony Frost.

The Shaman is the prototype of the poet, the priest, and the actor. The poet’s function is to give utterance to that which others cannot say. The priest’s function is to mediate with the supernatural between man and not man. The actor’s function is to express, through body, a second virtual reality and to make that imagined reality manifest. The vatic utterances give birth to poetry, the spirit medium function of the shaman develops into the craft of the clown. He is the sacred actor, the holy fool. Anthony Frost.

Clowns combine contradictory features in their composition; the playful and the serious, temptation and danger, frivolity and gravity, jest and earnestness. They are terrified when there is nothing o be afraid of, and foolishly content when there is everything to fear.Everyone has a clown, the individual clown is the repressed self, repressed because its expression would entail socially unacceptable behavior

The play of forces between the clown and society, and within the internal composition of the clown. parallel the social forces that are at play in festivity

Mump & SmootMump & SmootCLOWNS OF HORRORCLOWNS OF HORROR