The Use of Play and Things within Forced Entertainment Theatre’s Shows, Bloody Mess and The World in Pictures
Forced Entertainment Theatre Company presents a theatre that defies all attempts at categorization and that can be defined by fragmentary narration, deconstruction of character, as well as voluntary misusage of traditional scenic tools. Entertaining chaos and playful performance function as landmark...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée
2009-03-01
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| Series: | Études Britanniques Contemporaines |
| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/ebc/6038 |
| _version_ | 1811281406998872064 |
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| author | Chloé Déchery |
| author_facet | Chloé Déchery |
| author_sort | Chloé Déchery |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Forced Entertainment Theatre Company presents a theatre that defies all attempts at categorization and that can be defined by fragmentary narration, deconstruction of character, as well as voluntary misusage of traditional scenic tools. Entertaining chaos and playful performance function as landmarks for an essentially visual and physical theatre where the situation prevails upon the text. And indeed, things pile up very quickly on stage. Accumulation and saturation are images that are derived from the discovery and acquisition of the things gradually amassed during rehearsals. Here, the proliferation is an indication of theatricality pushed to its utmost limits; things are the indicators of failure or at least of the undermining of traditional drama where pure play prevails over the making of a narrative. But, once it has been manipulated, a thing becomes an object—conceived in relation to the subject/performer perceiving it—it becomes the focus of actions and relations. In this context of playful creation, objects, first submitted to strange manipulation, are also opportunities for new events and conflicts. Objects facilitate play: they create a new domain and develop relationships as well as disorder. However, with Forced Entertainment, a thing never stays an object for long: quickly abandoned, it reverts back to a thing, becoming once again a possibility, signifying not only what it once was at a certain moment, but also what it could have been and still might become. Thus, when becoming a thing again, an object is in fact no longer quite the same thing; from this moment on, it has a past. Forced Entertainment’s playful and daring theatre deals with this issue: the successive transformation of things into objects and back into different things. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T01:33:19Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-732d5644ea6647969a76179683f4a882 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1168-4917 2271-5444 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T01:33:19Z |
| publishDate | 2009-03-01 |
| publisher | Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Études Britanniques Contemporaines |
| spelling | doaj.art-732d5644ea6647969a76179683f4a8822022-12-22T03:08:28ZengPresses Universitaires de la MéditerranéeÉtudes Britanniques Contemporaines1168-49172271-54442009-03-013510.4000/ebc.6038The Use of Play and Things within Forced Entertainment Theatre’s Shows, Bloody Mess and The World in PicturesChloé DécheryForced Entertainment Theatre Company presents a theatre that defies all attempts at categorization and that can be defined by fragmentary narration, deconstruction of character, as well as voluntary misusage of traditional scenic tools. Entertaining chaos and playful performance function as landmarks for an essentially visual and physical theatre where the situation prevails upon the text. And indeed, things pile up very quickly on stage. Accumulation and saturation are images that are derived from the discovery and acquisition of the things gradually amassed during rehearsals. Here, the proliferation is an indication of theatricality pushed to its utmost limits; things are the indicators of failure or at least of the undermining of traditional drama where pure play prevails over the making of a narrative. But, once it has been manipulated, a thing becomes an object—conceived in relation to the subject/performer perceiving it—it becomes the focus of actions and relations. In this context of playful creation, objects, first submitted to strange manipulation, are also opportunities for new events and conflicts. Objects facilitate play: they create a new domain and develop relationships as well as disorder. However, with Forced Entertainment, a thing never stays an object for long: quickly abandoned, it reverts back to a thing, becoming once again a possibility, signifying not only what it once was at a certain moment, but also what it could have been and still might become. Thus, when becoming a thing again, an object is in fact no longer quite the same thing; from this moment on, it has a past. Forced Entertainment’s playful and daring theatre deals with this issue: the successive transformation of things into objects and back into different things.http://journals.openedition.org/ebc/6038 |
| spellingShingle | Chloé Déchery The Use of Play and Things within Forced Entertainment Theatre’s Shows, Bloody Mess and The World in Pictures Études Britanniques Contemporaines |
| title | The Use of Play and Things within Forced Entertainment Theatre’s Shows, Bloody Mess and The World in Pictures |
| title_full | The Use of Play and Things within Forced Entertainment Theatre’s Shows, Bloody Mess and The World in Pictures |
| title_fullStr | The Use of Play and Things within Forced Entertainment Theatre’s Shows, Bloody Mess and The World in Pictures |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Use of Play and Things within Forced Entertainment Theatre’s Shows, Bloody Mess and The World in Pictures |
| title_short | The Use of Play and Things within Forced Entertainment Theatre’s Shows, Bloody Mess and The World in Pictures |
| title_sort | use of play and things within forced entertainment theatre s shows bloody mess and the world in pictures |
| url | http://journals.openedition.org/ebc/6038 |
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