Hi all

So I’m a bit late with posting this blog up my apologies, better late than never I suppose. But I present to you my second blog post on the contemporary historical context of the theatre. Looking closely at the form that is called Ghosting.

When I first read Thomas Postlewait’s chapter on ghosting I was rather confused by this term. My first initial thoughts was the haunting of an ‘actual’ ghostly presences on stage or within a piece of text ie: the reference to a person who is never actually seen on stage. Oh how I was completely wrong on this idea.

I felt the reading by  Marvin Carlson “The Haunted Stage: The theatre as a memory machine”, Helped a little bit on what ghosting was about. For an example; An actor who is well known for playing a certain type of character, the paying audience will see a show with said actor in the show and will expect the actor to play that character they are known for. This is seen as one way ghosting will haunt a person. 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 audiences in all times and all places’ (Carlson 2001, p.15)

In my opinion, what Carlson touches upon is that everything related to theatre is haunted by one form or another. So why is it important to know and how is it related to current issues if we are looking at the past?

In the seminar lesson taught by no other than Kelly Jones, she explained that actually this idea does matter and also connects in with current issues. As she mentioned in her class “All performances are a historical event”. How?

When you see a performance live on stage you get a different atmosphere feeling to a performance you see live on a screen. Okay let’s make this simple; basically if you see two performances of the same production. Neither performance will be the same – Once you have seen one performance it will impact you own reactions for the following performance on sections of the show to pay more attention to.

Going back on what I mentioned earlier on in this post about the “type casting” of an actor being compared to a particular character they are well known for. It could also be similar to people comparing others like for example: A rock band who get a new singer and their fans say that the new singer doesn’t sound the same or looks completely different to the old singer. I feel as humans we all are guilty of making these comments, however we are creating historical context memories for the future audience members who haven’t even been born yet. Huh who would of thought it…

To get a sense of what ghosting and memory in a theatre, we watched about 40 minutes of pre-recorded live performance of “The Duchess of Malfi” at the Sam Wanamaker theatre. Having the leading Lady,  Gemma Arterton play The Duchess, it brought a new group of theatre goers to see this production. It is more likely that people wouldn’t of gone if there was no one who wasn’t well known in the production. Surely does that not bring a new level of haunting to this production?

When watching a performance live at the cinema is doesn’t really give you the same feeling as watching a live performance on stage. The issue with a performance being shown in a cinema restricts you from seeing the full stage as the camera person will focus on what they think the audience wants/ should see. Very much like the performance recording of the The Duchess of Malfi.

Not only did I learn about ghosting and memories in current issues but we touched upon historiography. I can just about say this word, let alone understand its true meaning. Postlewait has a theory to how historiography works;

Everything links to an Event – these are the following connections linked to an event. Possible Worlds, Reception, Artistic Heritage, Agents.

‘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 trairs 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, pp.14-15)

Postlewait also connects these four words into triangles as they link together making slightly bigger groups or relationships.

It would seem that all historical context is biased opinions by people without proving hardcore evidence that theatre is how it was then as it it is now.

What Shakespeare’s Swan Theatre may of looked like.

So could it change history if we found out we have been performing theatre wrongly? I’m now starting to hurt my own brain here.

Right to basically recap and explain what I learnt from this week’s lesson;

So the art that is ghosting is created in every single performance whether it is performed on stage or not. It is what our own memory creates that stays not only with us but with the particular performance you have seen as an audience member.

For now my dears i’m off to learn more about ghosting.

Bye x

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.