What is a "dramaturg"?
grndp...@aol.com
Judging by lectures I heard yesterday, it would appear to apply to
stage directors having decidedly turgid points of view.
Their flights of fancy (abetted by bungee cords and trampolines)
apparently must be taken with a Gräne of salt.
Who will ever rescue us from those "enhancers" of Wagner's visualation
of DER RING?
==G/P Dave
La Donna Mobile
grndp...@aol.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.opera
From: La Donna Mobile <ladonnamob...@REMOVEbrixton.fsworld.co.uk> -
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Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 16:40:04 +0000 (UTC)
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A friend of mine did a Masters in Dramaturgy a couple of years back and
this is how she described it
<http://www.littleredboat.co.uk/010145.php>. Although she subsequently
discovered that people who study Dramaturgy end up working in an
office...
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--
http://www.madmusingsof.me.uk/weblog/
http://www.geraldine-curtis.me.uk/photoblog/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If I ever leave this burg
I may become a dramaturg.
That is if I get the urge
to indulge in dramaturg.
Of course, dramatizing clergy
Prefer apoocalyptic dramaturgy.
Thank you, La Donna e Mobile, for providing the *quella* to my
*questa*.
==G/P Dramaturg
alci...@aol.com
Your question was a good one. Your barely witty self-reply was not
worthy of the question.
The term "dramaturg" was coined by Bertolt Brecht. The position is
loosely defined as a one employed by a particular production company
whose job it is to study and interpret a theatrical work, paying
special attention to the difficulties the particular work may hold for
the particular company and its audience. This can involve solving
issues of period performing style to make them more comprehendable by a
modern audience. But in the case of new works, it can also involve
intensive work with the author(s). A dramaturg can provide an
objective point of view and/or advice, or depending upon the amount of
trust established between the 'turg and the author, a 'turg can even
act as a sort of Muse to the author, inspiring her or him to explore
alternate and potentially more successful ways of creating the piece.
This has been the traditional position of the dramaturg, but in recent
decades theatre (and opera and even dance) companies have employed
dramaturgs to assist in planning seasons, evaluating and selecting
works, production design styles, acting approaches. The definition of
dramaturg is now rather open. I suppose the general public, which has
not been privvy to the way a company operates, would be prone to see
the dramaturg as an editor -- someone who checks facts, spelling, etc.
This can be part of a dramaturg's function but it in no way is the
definition. Playwrights and directors of the past often looked to
others for advice on their work, but those persons rarely received
offical recognition for their services. One of the main differences
now is that dramaturgs receive official credit in addition to financial
remuneration for their input.
Opera companies often employ a dramaturg to advise on new productions
(or even revivals) of old works.
I stress that this is a highly complicated issue which no one who has
not been actively involved in the production of a theatrical endeavor
could ever fully appeciate. However, the position of dramaturg is an
entirely legitimate one and the best examples of it deserve respect.
Valfer
"Dramaturgia" is the art of writing for the theater. Give it to
Brecht to borrow a foreign word and give it a new meaning. Thanks for
the information. In my ignorance, I had assumed that "Dramaturg" was a
latinism meaning playwright.
Valfer
capa0...@aol.com
objective point of view and/or advice, or depending upon the amount of
trust established between the 'turg and the author, a 'turg can even
act as a sort of Muse to the author, inspiring her or him to explore
alternate and potentially more successful ways of creating the piece.
==============================
I take it that a person entrusted with performing this function for the
famous play "A Month in the Country" would be described as a
Dramaturgenev?
Pat
alci...@aol.com
>Give it to Brecht to borrow a foreign word and give it a new meaning.<
I knew the second after I posted that I should have waited until I
could dig up my old theatre sourcebooks, so hopefully someone may do so
before I can. The term dramaturge (with an "e") and dramaturg
(without) are now used interchangeably. I don't know the root of the
word (it looks more Greek than Latin to me, but whaddueyeno?) but
Merriem Webster gives the date of coinage as 1870/ I believe Brecht had
something to do with the popularization of the more "Germanic"
spelling. He also had a lot to do with defining the actual position as
we now know it. There had, in fact,
been dramaturges, or "directors of dramaturgy", working with theatre
companies before he came along. In fact, in the early 20s he worked as
the dramaturge for the Deutches Theatre Berlin. It was this training
that caused him to formulate a view that the author, director,
designers and dramaturg all had equal importance in a production. Not
everyone agrees, of course. Brecht came to trust and rely heavily upon
dramaturgs, most notably Elisabeth Hauptmann.
alci...@aol.com
Ha! Good one!
grndp...@aol.com
~~~~~~~~~~~
Bravo, Pat!!
I guess one good Turgenev deserves another.
==G/P Dave
REG
we get to that, I think that the point that professional dramaturgs make
about their work with writers creating new work is that they don't "direct"
the development of the work at all....they ask questions, and are not
"directing" the work in any direction. So there is no real authorial
contribution. The dramaturg, the good one, is essentially an enabler, and
also one who may have enough experience that they can help a work have more
of a shape and form.
Sometimes they are paid by their theatre, sometimes they are paid by the
writer, and sometimes when they don't get paid, because the writer doesn't
feel it's merited, they then claim that they were the "writer" of the works
themselve.....hmmm hmmm hmmm.
<alci...@aol.com> wrote in message
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alci...@aol.com
Could this be some sort of spectral-cyber-manifestation of Vicky
singing Villa Lobos?
REG
REG, looking for a Villa in Cabo San Lobos
<alci...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1112333387.8...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
papageno
Chicago Lyric Opera.
jeff...@msn.com
dramaturge
[a. F. dramaturge (1787), ad. Gr. dqalasotqc¾| composer of drama, f.
dq8la, dq0laso- drama + "qceim to work, -eqco| working, worker.]
= dramaturgist.
[1859 Times 17 Nov. 8/2 Schiller was starving on a salary of 200
dollars per annum, which he received+for his services as
'dramaturg' or literary manager.] 1870 Athenæum 12 Mar. 366 M.
Sardou+that indefatigable dramaturge. 1882 Symonds Animi Figura 118
Fate is the dramaturge; necessity Allots the parts
dramaturgist
[f. as prec. + -ist.]
A composer of a drama; a play-wright.
1825 Carlyle Schiller ii. (1845) 63 Notwithstanding+all the vaunting
of dramaturgists. 1843 I Past & Pr. ii. ii, The World Dramaturgist has
written, Exeunt.
Stephen Jay-Taylor
exhuming and commissioning stuff ( he ran into trouble with the then-extant
Lord Chamberlain's Office - theatrical censorship - when proposing a play
that blamed Churchill for the death of General Sikorski ( Hochhuth's "Die
Soldaten", I seem to remember ) and then celebrated the LCO's subsequent
abolition by organising and producing "Oh, Calcutta", which put penises on
the legitimate London stage for the first time. Well, visible ones, anyway.
By the time Lolly's National Theatre staged Wedekind's "Frühlings Erwachen",
there were more dicks to inspect onstage than there was audience to do the
inspecting. Ah, culture ! Or rather, Kultur
SJT, who had a season ticket...
PS. The ROH used to have a dramaturg. Jill Gomez' husband. They got rid of
both him and the post in the mid-90s, reasoning presumably that the
Eurotrash now on habitual view was beyond, and largely incapable of,
rational explanation.