Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
6-2016
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Program
Theatre
Advisor
Marvin Carlson
Committee Members
Jean Graham-Jones
David Savran
Subject Categories
Cultural History | Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory | European History | German Literature | Performance Studies | Scandinavian Studies | Theatre and Performance Studies | Theatre History
Keywords
Henrik Ibsen; Richard Wagner; Historical Avant-Gardes; Modernism; Experimental Theatre; Modern Drama
Abstract
This dissertation examines the influence of modernist aesthetics and ideologies on contemporary, European and U.S. experimental theatre. I argue that modernist and contemporary experimental theatres offer competing notions of reality, fiction, and temporality, which I interrogate through Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller’s Ibsen-Saga. I illuminate this tension by reading current modes of performance against the Saga’s productions and work practices, as well as their aesthetic and ideological foundation in three modernist sources: the artificiality of Ibsen’s realism, the utopianism and totality of Richard Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk, and the temporal provocations of the historical avant-gardes. I contend that the Saga reanimates Ibsen, Wagner, and the avant-gardes’ modernist forms and ideas to reject the conventions of twenty-first century practice.
Recommended Citation
Friedman, Andrew L., "Theatres of Reality, Fiction, and Temporality: Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller’s Ibsen-Saga (2006 - 2015)" (2016). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1247
Included in
Cultural History Commons, Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons, European History Commons, German Literature Commons, Performance Studies Commons, Scandinavian Studies Commons, Theatre History Commons