Improvisation and playmaking : a look at some improvisation techniques and their applications during the directing process

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:In this thesis the author investigates aspects of the use of improvisation andimprovisational methods, techniques and exercises by modem practitioners.The study commences with a look at the beginnings of modem improvisation in thenineteenth century, when improvisation was used only tentatively by performers as a preproductionaid to the exploration of character and personal response. In more recenttimes the process has become one of collaboration and research; as a means of selfdiscovery,as a means of text creation and as a vehicle for finding a 'voice' for the silentmajority within a particular community or society.This study also traces the use of improvisation in South Africa where the improvisationalprocess has been incorporated into democratic and collaborative forms like workshoptheatre and workers' theatre, and serves as a useful method of political investigation andconscientisation. The study will also briefly touch what on is now termed 'theatre-fordevelopment',since its practitioners make extensive use of improvisational techniques,and its techniques are allied to those of workers' and workshop theatre.The final chapter provides an application of the theories discussed in the bulk of the studyin a brief discussion of the author's own attempts at utilising improvisation as a directingand scriptwriting tool in a student production.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University