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Of Borders and Thresholds Theatre History, Practice, and Theory Michal A. Kobialka, editor |
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A group of scholars applies border theory to theatre studies. The theatre is full of borders and boundaries: between the "real" and "illusionary" conditions of the stage, between the way one acts onstage and in "real" life, between stage and audience, performance and reception. As such, theatre offers a unique opportunity to examine the construction, representation, and functioning of borders. This is the task undertaken by the authors of this volume, the first to apply the lexicon and concepts of border theory to theatre history and performance theory. Ultimately, the book seeks to answer the question: What can border theory tell us about theatre, a world in which the border is an immanent threshold? The contributors, highly regarded theatre historians, theorists, and practitioners, address a wide range of border-related themes, such as the role of performance in the construction and maintenance of national divisions; border-crossing performance genres informed by colonialism and anticolonialism; and ways in which notions of location, border, and performance are being revised by new communication technologies. Their topics include the construction of "America" in the sixteenth century, theatre practices in eighteenth-century England, American Latino playwrights, performances of gender and sexuality, cyborg technologies, and fashion. Throughout, the authors reflect on the ways in which theatre—the practice and the institution--has been defined by the concepts of borders and border crossing. Altogether, their work helps to reveal how the materiality of borders is produced, fragmented, and multiplied in theatre history, practice, and theory—and, conversely, to show what is revealed by the process of producing, fragmenting, and multiplying the borders. "Of Borders and Thresholds is an unusually audacious and ambitious foray into this terrain in that it stands directly at the crossroads of these two trends: a cross-disciplinary collection whose subject is, in effect, cross-disciplinarity itself. It represents brave and outstanding scholarship. A vitalizing challenge to the way theatre studies is conducted." —Theatre Journal Contributors: Rosemarie K. Bank, Herbert Blau, Mita Choudhury, Spencer Golub, Jorge Huerta, Alice Rayner, Janelle Reinelt, Joseph Roach, David Roman. Michal A. Kobialka is an associate professor in the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance at the University of Minnesota. 248 pages | 18 black-and-white photos | 5 7/8 x 9 | 1999 |
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$26.00 paper