Imaginary Audition and Character Formations of A Midsummer Night''s Dream in the Twentieth Century

• Main Authors: Shelly Hsin-yi Hsieh, 謝心怡
• Other Authors: Alan Yi-nan Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/06211080117861761213

碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 英語研究所 === 91 === This thesis aims at reconsidering character formations of A Midsummer Night''s Dream in the twentieth century. In order to reinforce the title and critical aspects of my thesis, I will evaluate the productions on stage and on screen in the twentieth century, but since now is already the twenty-first century, the interpretations I adopt include the critiques delivered at the turn of the century. By the approaches of Harry Berger, Jr.’s theory of “imaginary audition” and Bert O. States’s view in analyzing actor-audience-character relationship, I situate the issue of character formations in the modern period’s interpretations to estimate the critics’ opinions and productions of the play, both on stage and on screen. Introduction and Conclusion apart, I divide this thesis into two parts and four chapters in total. The first part also Chapter One is about the theory rethinking. Applying discussion in the first chapter to the second part, three chapters about the analyses of character formations in the play are organized according to the dramatic persona’s classifications: aristocrats and lovers, fairies, and mechanicals. Introduction reconsiders the shifts of modern commentary and character formations of the play. By reevaluating interpretations shuttling between page and stage, literary models and theatrical models not only question each other, but are questioned in this introductory chapter as well. In Chapter One, incorporating with States’ illustration about the actor-audience-character relationship, I apply Berger’s theory of imaginary audition to estimate the development of the theatrical and fictional character formations. Berger proposes to listen to a B-B soliloquy from auditing an A-B dialogue. That is to discover an alternative B by using B’s ears to listen to B’s language rather than simply listen to A’s speech. States applies the speaker and listener relationship to rethink the actor-audience-character interaction. Therefore, to insert an active role of the audience into Berger’s view of imaginary audition, more than listening from A or B’s perspective, the audience can also contribute to character formations. Chapter Two begins the second part of this thesis. Lover and aristocrat formations─on page, on stage, and on screen─are reevaluated in a view of auditing a B-B soliloquy from reading an A-B dialogue. Firstly, I discuss the distinctions between the traditional disobedient youths and lovers categorized by modern directors’ on-stage or on-screen strategies. Then, I challenge the stereotyped Theseus and Hippolyta portrayed by the male supremacy in reading an A-B dialogue. I further question Hermia’s rebellious personality and Egeus’s patriarchal authority by reconsidering the dialogues in Hermia’s courtroom trial. Fourthly, from listening to a B-B soliloquy in reading an A-B dialogue, lovers are brought to undergo a self-fashioning. After that, the functions of allusions and the strategy of doubling resulted from reading an A-B dialogue lead the enacted characters to take the risk of being the theatrical commodity nick-picked by the audience. Chapter Three deals with the interaction between the audience’s collaboration and the formations of visible invisible fairies. In this chapter, I rethink both conventions and creations in the twentieth century. I reconsider first the conventional ethereal fairies, which are gauzy, winged, and diaphanous. I discuss next the crux of Harley Granville-Barker’s gilt immortals created in the early twentieth century. Thirdly, I examine Peter Hall’s modern dryad─the fairies painted green. In the next section, Peter Brook’s theatrical illusions are reevaluated. Fifthly, I pay attention to the creations of alternative fairies living in multiple cultures. Sixthly, it is about the mortal-like immortals and the availability of doubling Oberon-Titania as Theseus-Hippolyta. The final section discusses the in-between characteristics of Puck or Robin the Good Fellow and the metatheatrical function of his epilogue. Chapter Four focuses on the interaction between cultural contexts and formations of modern mechanicals. I intend to discuss Shakespearean mechanicals with their in-between characteristics: mass or mortals of another kind. Firstly, I discuss the mechanicals filmed as the mock heroes with the “American Dream” in Hollywood productions. Next, by pointing out mechanicals’ either controlled or subversive personality, the traditional evaluations of the mechanicals’ making a farce of Pyramus and Thisbe is reconsidered. Thirdly, by adopting the relevance between the workmen’s characteristics and the language they use, I draw attentions to the anxiety of modern interpretations and strategies to illustrate the mechanicals as beings under the cultural collision and the cultural collusion. I further reevaluate the validity of workmen impressed with strong libido and conclude the ambivalent state of Shakespearean mechanicals in the twentieth century as both the mass and the minority. Conclusion for this thesis is to rethink the inevitable distance between the representation and the interpretations of the play. Hollywood concerns and effects have altered the insistence of representation, and the audience members in the younger generation turn to be the new target for Hollywood market. Moreover, though the interactive footprints between criticism and performance are shown in the twentieth century, there remains the gap of applying a stylized performance theory to interpret a literary criticism or vice versa. In addition to shuttling between page and stage, cultural contexts indeed give multiple ways for the audience/reader to practice his or her imaginary audition for character formations. Therefore, representing the play by simply insisting on the fixed authorial intention or established literary and theatrical models is a mission impossible.