Theory for Theatre Studies - Sound

Addressing sound across history and through progressive developments in relevant technologies, the volume opens up the study of theatrical production and live performance to understand conceptual and pragmatic concerns about the sonic

By way of developed case studies (including Aristophanes's The Frogs, Shakespeare's The Tempest, Cocteau's The Human Voice, and Rimini Protokoll's Situation Rooms), readers can explore new methodologies and approaches for their own work on sound as a performance component

In an engagement with the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of sound studies, this book samples exciting new thinking relevant to theatre and performance studies

Sound provides a balance of essential background information and new scholarship, and is grounded in detailed examples that illuminate and equip readers for their own sonic explorations

Volumes follow a consistent three-part structure ...

Online resources are available to accompany the book

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SOUND: An Introduction

SECTION ONE: Classical Sound

Theatres in Ancient Greece and Aristotle's Poetics

The vocal map of ancient Greek drama
Case study: Aristophanes's The Frogs

Vitruvius on acoustics: De Architectura

Shakespeare's Globe and Francis Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum

Acoustic world-making on the early modern stage
Case study: Shakespeare's The Tempest

A sonic imagination of early modern London

SECTION TWO: Avant-garde Sound

New technologies for sound performance
Case study: Luigi Russolo's intonamuri and 'The Art of Noise'

Hanging on the telephone: Sigmund Freud and Roland Barthes
Case study: Jean Cocteau's The Human Voice

The sounds of silence: John Cage's future of music

Acousmatics and radiophonics: Pierre Schaffer and the BBC

Aura and archive: making sound memories
Case study: Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape

SECTION THREE: Experiential Sound

Prosthetic performance and deterritorialised listening
Case study: Janet Cardiff's sound walks

Listening to women: Andrea Hornick and Luce Irigaray

Affective theatres of embodied sound

Case study: Shannon Yee's Reassembled, Slightly Askew

Case study: Rimini Protokoll's Situation Rooms

Coda: Sound across the world

References

Further Reading

Index