Problems With Defining Physical Theatre
The definition of physical theatre is not easy to describe. This is partly due to multiple origins, and partly due to the discomfort that most practitioners have with the definition. In the book Through the Body, author Dymphna Callery suggests that the phrase originated more as a marketing term to describe anything that does not fit within commercial literary theatre. Indeed, this view has considerable support; the so called Phyl theatre based on "Staged Literature."
Many practitioners, such as Lloyd Newson, express a resistance to this term because they feel that physical theatre is used as a "misc." category, which is classified for anything that does not fall neatly into a category of literary dramatic theatre or contemporary dance. For this reason, contemporary theatre including post-modern performance, devised performance, visual performance, and post-dramatic performance, while having their own distinct definitions, are often simply labelled "physical theatre" without any reason other than because they are unusual in some way.
It is also problematic that dance is of a theatrical nature. A dance piece will be called "physical theatre" because it includes elements of spoken word, character, or narrative; it is theatrical and physical but does not necessarily share anything in common with a potential (and nascent) physical theatre tradition.
Read more about this topic: Physical Theatre
Famous quotes containing the words problems, defining, physical and/or theatre:
“Those great ideas which come to you in your sleep just before you awake in morning, those solutions to the world’s problems which, in the light of day, turn out to be duds of the puniest order, couldn’t they be put to some use, after all?”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“The industrial world would be a more peaceful place if workers were called in as collaborators in the process of establishing standards and defining shop practices, matters which surely affect their interests and well-being fully as much as they affect those of employers and consumers.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“I was always a feminist, for I liked intellectual revolt as much as I disliked physical violence. On the whole, I think women have lost something precious, but have gained, immeasurably, by the passing of the old order.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945)
“Glorious bouquets and storms of applause ... are the trimmings which every artist naturally enjoys. But to move an audience in such a role, to hear in the applause that unmistakable note which breaks through good theatre manners and comes from the heart, is to feel that you have won through to life itself. Such pleasure does not vanish with the fall of the curtain, but becomes part of one’s own life.”
—Dame Alice Markova (b. 1910)