In Search of the Theatrical Unit of Meaning: Exploring Mnemonic by Simon McBurney

Authors

  • Ana BOARIU Université de Lorraine, Metz, France; Faculty of Theatre and Television, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. ana.boariu@gmail.com

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24193/subbdrama.2017.2.12

Keywords:

Simon McBurney, Mnemonic, Complicite, theatre semiotics, morpheme

Abstract

The author is searching for the theatrical unit of meaning exploring the way Simon McBurney builds up the performance in Mnemonic, a Complicite Theatre production created for the 1999 Salzburg Festival. Inspired by head-driven phrase structure grammar and Chinese pictograms, the paper looks for verbs and actions that define a matrix, where each element determines the complex theatrical sign. Any change of one single sign-element causes the meaning of the whole to change.

Author Biography

Ana BOARIU, Université de Lorraine, Metz, France; Faculty of Theatre and Television, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. ana.boariu@gmail.com

Ana Boariu (Aka Anca Berlogea) is a theatre and film director born 1968. She is currently a PhD student at the Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj. After graduating theatre directing in Bucharest in 1994, and theology in 1997, she finished her master degree at the Catholic Institute in Paris in 2002, with a paper on "Memory and testimony in the Gospel of John as starting point for a theatrical representation". Theatre and Bible remains her main research area, both at a theoretical level, and in practice. But her practice is far larger, including journalism as well as television, documentary and film production.

References

Andersen, Kurt. “Actor Simon McBurney on Memory.” Studio 360, 2001. http://www.wnyc.org/story/150603-actor-simon-mcburney-memory/.

Dickson, Andrew. “Simon McBurney on His Theatre Group, Complicite.” The Guardian, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnbPAGeA6Ec .

Jakobson, Roman. “Linguistics and Poetics.” In Style in Language., edited by Sebeok Thomas. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1960.

Matt, Trueman. “Interview: The Founders of Complicité.” Financial Times, May 24, 2013.

McBurney, Simon. Mnemonic. London-New York-Sydney: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.

Pollard, Carl, and Ivan Sag, eds. Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1994.

Reinelt, Jannette G. “Performing Europe: Identity Formation for a ‘New’ Europe.” Theatre Journal 53, no. 3 (2001).

Rocamora, Carol. “McBurney Meets Miller: The Acclaimed British Experimentalist Stretches an American Classic to New Dimensions.” American Theatre 25, no. 10 (2008).

Runcan, Miruna. Pentru O Semiotică a Spectacolului Teatral. Cluj-Napoca: Editura Dacia, 2005.

Ubersfeld, Anne. Lire Le Théâtre. Paris: Editions Sociales, 1978.

STUDIA UBB DRAMATICA, Volume 62 (LXII), No. 2, October 2017

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Published

2017-10-31

How to Cite

BOARIU, A. (2017). In Search of the Theatrical Unit of Meaning: Exploring Mnemonic by Simon McBurney. Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Dramatica, 62(2), 221–239. https://doi.org/10.24193/subbdrama.2017.2.12

Issue

Volume 62, No. 2, October 2017

Section

Articles

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Copyright (c) 2017 Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Dramatica

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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