Theory for Theatre Studies: Sound

Susan Bennett is University Professor in the Department of English at the University of Calgary, Canada.

This book presents an important analysis of the fundamental function of sound in theatre, from the acoustic expanses of Ancient Greek architecture, to the personal-political spaces of contemporary Headphone theatre. The breadth of knowledge and new insights afforded by the book are a breath of fresh air for researchers and students alike in a field which is often treated as a sub-category of other disciplines. Bennett draws on a wide range of theory and philosophy to demonstrate how sound has played a much more significant role in playtexts, production and perception than traditional theatre studies scholarship has hitherto considered, and puts forward a politics of theatre sound and its potential to perform difference through acoustic experience and ethical listening.

• AcknowledgementsSeries PrefaceSOUND: An IntroductionSECTION ONE: Classical SoundTheatres in Ancient Greece and Aristotle’s PoeticsThe vocal map of ancient Greek dramaCase study: Aristophanes’s The FrogsVitruvius on acoustics: De ArchitecturaShakespeare’s Globe and Francis Bacon’s Sylva SylvarumAcoustic world-making on the early modern stageCase study: Shakespeare’s The TempestA sonic imagination of early modern LondonSECTION TWO: Avant-garde SoundNew technologies for sound performanceCase study: Luigi Russolo’s intonamuri and ‘The Art of Noise’Hanging on the telephone: Sigmund Freud and Roland BarthesCase study: Jean Cocteau’s The Human VoiceThe sounds of silence: John Cage’s future of musicAcousmatics and radiophonics: Pierre Schaffer and the BBCAura and archive: making sound memories Case study: Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last TapeSECTION THREE: Experiential SoundProsthetic performance and deterritorialised listeningCase study: Janet Cardiff’s sound walksListening to women: Andrea Hornick and Luce IrigarayAffective theatres of embodied sound Case study: Shannon Yee’s Reassembled, Slightly AskewCase study: Rimini Protokoll’s Situation RoomsCoda: sound across the worldReferencesFurther ReadingIndex