Week 4: Semiotics & Theatre

Today we will seek to answer the following questions:

Where is meaning made on stage ?How is it communicated to an audience Why is meaning social in origin?

THEATRE SEMIOTICS: A STUDY OF SIGNS ON STAGE

RECAP LAST WEEK:

• SEMIOTICS = A method of analysis. In other words a ‘reading’ strategy.

• The basic operatives are the signifier (or sign) and the signified.

• If we consider theatre as a sign system, then Semiotics, when applied to theatre, explores how theatre communicates, or how theatre produces a meaning.

THE AUDIENCE & THE PRODUCTION OF MEANING

The signifier = the ensemble of elements in a theatrical production that compose its meaning

the text, the actor,

the stage space, the lights,

the blocking, etc

The signified = is the meaning or message which is derived from this signifier by the

‘collective consciousness’ of the audience.

PRACTICAL WORK Last week we decoded this performance from HAMLET:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8VOZLjQbvQ&feature=related(David Tennant's “Am I a Coward” soliloquy).

• The basic operatives in the production of meaning are the signifier (or sign) and the signified.

• In this production, what were the signifiers?

• How are they used to communicate meaning to the audience?

Where do we find meaning? How does an audience read a text, or read a performance?

• The signifier is the ensemble of elements in a theatrical production that compose its meaning - the text, the actor, the stage space, the lights, the blocking, the stage directions.

• The signified is the meaning or message which is derived from this signifier by the audience.

Saussure’s sign has a job: denote what you see

A semiotic reading of this: ... and now?

A sign has the power of connotation

• Japanese theatre.• Red ribbon = blood • Blood is signified by the ribbon (a sign).

• AIDS• Red ribbon = awareness

Image/concepttangible/ intangible

• the signifier is a material aspect of a sign• the signified is a mental concept • the two are inseparable i.e.• there is a conventional (agreed) relationship

How is meaning constructed?

• Meaning is born out of what something is and

how that something is perceived. (aka: material object, or action/sign)

• Meaning is social in origin(we give it meaning)

How do signs contribute to our understanding of the meaning?

• An image transmits meaning through signs. • Some people think it’s easier to think of these

signs as code.• To understand an image you have to be

familiar with the visual codes that are being used.

Culture codes meets theatre codesSemiotics = describes the way in which the set becomes a

sign: how it signifies place, time, social milieu and mood.

Semiotics = identifies and explores those elements of the actors performance that signify character and objective to the audience.

Theatre = establishes its network of codified sign-systems

by virtue of the cultural codes which govern behaviour (speech, dress, make-up, etc.) in society at large.

Culture / language

Our culture is made up of structural networks

These networks operate in a systematic way

... though codes

Culture has a system of signs

which can be read or decoded like… language

Roland Barthes Cultural encoding: the imprint of ideology upon the sign.

The set of values, beliefs and ways of seeing that control the connotations of the sign in the culture at large.

• In any culture meanings are assigned to signs, prescribing its resonance’s with their biases.

• Set of values, beliefs and ways of seeing

• connotations of the sign in culture

• The norms of culture assign meaning to sign

FOR THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF SEMIOTICS AND THEATRE, WE TURN TO MARK FORTIER:

Fortier, page 26 - Opening of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.

Fortier: p. 29 A. “Brecht’s theatre primarily concerned with conveying meaning

and understanding rather than capturing detailed illusion of reality”.

B. “The purpose of theatre is to put audience in better position to understand the word”.

C. “A sign is a social sign”.

Practical application of semiotics and theatre(continued...)

Fortier. p 30 D. “Every art contributes to the greatest art of all:

the art of living. But living is a social contract.”

Fortier pp 17/ 18 E. Semiotics (and phenomenology – next lecture) are

attempting to get at something fundamental about the human condition.

Ferdinand de Saussure (recap)

• words are arbitrary – attributed by random chance/ not logical. • they bear no connection to what the word designates.

• words can’t be defined in isolation from other words. • Their meaning depends on its definition to other words. • therefore:• meanings of words are relational • they are understood when look at in context of ‘how they relate to each other’.

• we construct something by how we choose to ‘coin’ (name) it• this ‘coining’ has implications on its meaning • Meaning is always attributed to the object [or idea] by the human mind,

theory (recap)

• choosing to emphasise a concept in a new way, is more important than discovering a new concept. We are looking at something from a different angle.

SEMIOTICS (recap)

Where is meaning made?How is it communicated?

Why is meaning social in origin?

Review #1: Following today and last week’s lecture how might you start

writing on Semiotics and Theatre? 1.

• The idea that politics is pervasive.

• Signs have tremendous political power.

• We don’t read, or see anything neutrally.

• Even the most simple, elementary sign is deeply imbued with politics

• “We are immersed in a semiotic bathtub”.

• “We are imprisoned by the signs which define us”.

2. • Playwrights project things as meanings. • How does performance present these meanings to an audience?

Review #2:

• How might semiotics help you to decode the following stage sets?

• If you were to place the opening of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House in each of these sets, how would this work to communicate different meanings to an audience?