‘The present experience is always ghosted by previous experiences and associations processes of recycling and recollection.’

-(Carlson, 2001)

In The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory machine, Marvin Carlson describes plays as ‘ghosts’ (2001, 1). Initially, I found the concept of ghosting quite complex and almost impossible to grasp. How could a play or any theatrical production be a ‘ghost’, because the most common understanding of ghost is a form of living energy that continues to live on our physical plane without a physical home, a body. However, the reading on Carlson explained this idea in terms of the theatrical world.

To put it simply, plays are worlds that are given life through performance. Each world, be it entirely fictional or a reflection of its time, exists in a time and space that can be visited; it becomes an expectation that each time we visit these worlds, the feeling evoked and the representation of the world should be consistent in every production because that is how we have perceived that world to feel and look like. Similarly, this idea of ghosting can be understood through type casting. For example, if an actor plays multiple roles as a villain, it becomes challenging for the audience to watch the same actor playing a hero. Their image and how they have been perceived in the theatrical world is as a villain. Carlson writes:

Everything in the theatre, the bodies, the materials utilized, the language, the space itself, is now and has always been haunted, and that haunting has been an essential part of the theatre’s meaning to and reception by its audience in all times and all places. (15)

Carlson’s argument here is that everything within the theatre realm is haunted; it has a past that influences our understanding of it now. The first production we see of any performance will have an influence on our experience of and reactions to any future productions we see.

‘The image of the dead continuing to work their powers on the living, of the past reappearing unexpectedly and uncannily in the midst of the present, are concerns that clearly struck deeply into the poetic imagination of the most influential dramatist of the modern European theatre.’ (1)

Theatre history and in particular the concept of ghosting, is a pivotal factor in our understanding of the current issues in theatre today; as noted in our workshop today ‘all performances are a historical event’. To better understand this topic our workshop began with a forty-minute pre-recording of a live performance of ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ that was performed at the Sam Wanamaker theatre. In anaylising how this play is ghosted, we used Thomas Postlewait’s model on the mechanics of theatrical historiography.

Focusing on the idea that theatre is a product of its society, Postlewait sought to explain how society has influenced what we see on stage. He highlighted the context that he believes has framed or surrounds an event/ scenario of a play or performance: (demonstrated in the diagram below), these include: world, reception, agents and artistic heritage. He stated that:

‘These four basic aspects of the context for a theatrical event my help us break out of the two-part division of event and context. Even though we are still thinking in dualistic terms by relating each of the four factors to the event, we have created more clarity by breaking the general idea of context into its several component parts. Within each of these four basic conditions, a plurality of factors can be identified. Various aspects of the world may contribute to the identifying traits and meanings of a specific theatrical event. Various agents participate in the making of the event. Many traits of the artistic heritage are in play. And the reception engages many people and conditions. Thus, each of these four factors – world, agents, receptions, and artistic heritage – need to be understood as part of the event as well as part of the context. (Postlewait 2009, p.14-15)

Postlewait’s model suggests that by studying an event and its relationship to its ‘surrounding conditions’ (Postlewait, 2009, 12), we are able to grasp a better understanding of its meaning and depth. Thus, theatre is shaped by its society (world). For example, Caryl Churchill’s ‘Top Girls’ is a play that reflects the woman’s movement in the 1980s, when Margret Thatcher was Britain’s prime minister. Focusing strictly on the relationship between world and event, this play gives us an insight to the achievement and the social flaws of that 1980s. On one hand women were gaining the professional success that they had fought for and were finally able to be executives in large corporations. However on the other hand this opportunity was not available to all women, only to those who were willing to embody masculine characteristics, in other words willing to oppress other women in order achieve their own success. This conflict within the women’s movement itself caused a social unrest within the 1980s society, especially for women, as it introduced an entirely different social issue, individualism; successful women were no longer fighting for the freedom of women, they were fighting for their own success.

The relationship between agency and event is Postlewait’s second context. This is the inspiration that sparked a theatrical event – what the writer wished to convey through the play. In the case of ‘Top Girls’ the agency was perhaps the fear that conflict within a community of people who are already socially oppressed may cause an even bigger social issue that leads to the loss of everything the movement has so far achieved.

The third context is reception. Our world is made up of interpreted signs that we use to communicate with our surroundings; this concept is the same in theatre. Audience reception is perhaps the most important part of theatre. How an audience interprets the signs and signals of a performance will impact their reaction.  This context is closely related to agency as it depends on the writer’s intentions for  a play, for example if the writer’s intention is to cause laughter, they many use slapstick as that is a sign or theatrical signal for laughter.

The final context is artistic heritage. This includes the architecture of a theatre space and the equipment that would have been available to theatres in the time the play/event is set. For example, in the production of ‘The Duchess of Mafi‘, the theatre was built and set as it would have been in the 1620s and candle light was used rather than the flood lights we use in theatres today.

 

Works cited

Carlson, Marvin. (2001) The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine. Ann Arbour: University of Michigan Press.

Postlewait, Thomas. (2009) The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Historiography.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.