Performance:Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies Vol. II

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PE RFO RMANCE

Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies

Edited by Philip Auslander

Volume 11

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I (JNII( IN "hll l NI W YO HK

C ONT E NTS

VOL UM E 11

IX

Acknow/edgements

PART 1

I·irst [luhlished 20m

hy Rou l!edge

2l'ark Squarc, Millon I',¡rk, i\bingdon, Oxon , OXI4 4 RN

Simullaneollsly published in lhe USA ami Canada

hy Rout!edgc

270 Madison J\vc, New YOrk NY 10016

aOU//fc("e is UI1 imprill/ !I( /!Te ]'(jy/or & hUl1cis (iroujJ

Rcprcsentation

1

21 T lle theater of cruelty 3nd the closllrc of representatiol1

3

J AC'Q U ES DER RI DA

25

22 The tooth, tlle palm J EAN-I'R A Ny OIS L YO r ARD

Transfcrrcd lo Digitall I'rinling 200'! l dilorial m a lter an d scleclion 20m Phili[l J\lIsJander; individual

n wne rs re lain cO[lyrighl in lheir own malerial

23 Frame-op: feminism, psychoanalysis, thealre

32

BARBA R A F REJi D MAN

I'ype scl in Times hy Gra[lhicrart Limitcd, Ilong Kong

AII righlS rcse rvcd. No [lan 01' lhis hook may he reprinled nr

['cprndllced or LLlilised in any rorm or by any c1eelronic.

mechaniea.1. m other means. no", known 01' hereafte['

invenled. including [lhOloco[lying and rccording, or in

any int'onnal1on slmage 01' relrieval syslem, withoul permission in

wri !ing from the [lL~hlishcrs.

13ri/il'/¡ Uh I'O/)' Cat(/¡oglling in l'uhlinr/io/1 1)ata

A calal ogue record ro l' this hook is availahle I'rom lhe Brilish I.ihru[·y

24 The dynamics of desire: sexuality and gender iD pornography and performance

57

JII.I . D OL AN

I'ART 2

Tcxtuality

77

25 The¡¡"rica l performance: iIIustration, translation, fulfillment, Or supplement'l

79

U/mI/y o(Congre.\s Ca/%gillg inl'uh!ica/ioll 1)a/a

J\ catalog record ror !his hook has hcen reqlleslcd [SnN 0-4 15-25511 -2 (Scr)

IS BN 0-41 S-25 5 1VJ (Volullle U)

M,\RVI N ('A lU S! )N

Puhlíshcr', 1'1"11:

Rekrc ll ccs w ilhin ca ch ¡;ha ptcr are: as Ihey ,[[' peal' in Ihe

!)[,ginal ('!)[[¡pl d .; work.

26 Ornma, Iwrformutivit y. ,lIId Jll!rf WII I.I A M S

124

40 Why modero plays are /lot culture: disciplinary bli/ld spots

8liRNt'lcRD J , fIlJl RITTS

313

S IJ ANNON J ACK SON

41

'>ART 3

Embodying difference: issues in dance and cultural studies

c.

Bodies

155

30 The actor's bodics

157

5.2 Inlerwltural,I'fudies

175

42 Twins separa ted at birtlt'! West African vernacular and Western avant garde performa tivity in tbeory and practice

D AVID GRAVER

31 The body as the object 01' modern performance J O N ER ICK SO N

JA Nh

I> BSMOND

359

'YNTIII A WARO

32 Strategic abilities: negotiating tite disabled bOOy in dance

188

ANN C OOPER AL BRIGI-I T

33 Feminine free fall: a fan tas)' of freedom

207

43 Western femi nist theory, Asian Indian performance, and a notion of agcnC)'

DAR y 1. e lll N

PART 4

Audiences/spectatorship

217

34 Dramaturgy of the spectator

219

MARC O D H MA Rl N IS

236

35 The pleasure of the spectator ANN E U BERS FELD

36 The audience: subjectivity, community a nd the eahies of listening

249

AI.I CE itA YN ER

37 O dd. anonymous needs: tite audience in a dramatized socicty

269

II ERIIEln JlI.¡\U n~c

of media culture

282

'" I/AIII'I II "'I ,AVI R

l '1

382

AV¡\ N T I-I I MEDURI

44 IntercuJturalism, postmodernism, pluralism

N iT A T A1T

.'\8 Sped.alorhll tlu.'ury in lit\!

334

11

395

A CK NOWLE DGE M ENTS

Thc Publishers wo ulcl like to thank the foll owing for penn ission lo reprint Ihcir material: Thc University 01' Chicago Press for permission to reprint Jacques Derrida, "Thc theater 01' cruelty and the c10sure of representation ", in WI"iting on ')¡ffel"ence, translated by A lan Bass. (Chicago: Uni versity of Cbicago Press , 1978), pp. 232 - 250. © 197R by The University of C hicago. Thc University of Wi sconsin Press for permission to reprint Jean-Franyois Lyotarc\, " The tooth, the palm", translated by A nne Knap and Michel BenamoLl, SubStance 15 (1976): 105 - 110. © 1976, SubStance l nc. The Johns Ho pkin s University Press for permission to reprint Barbara I:reedman , "Frame-up: fe minism , psychoanalysis, theatre", Thealre Jo ur!1al 40(3) (1988): 375- 397. © 1988 by The Johns Hopkins University Press. The Johns Hopkins University Press fOI" pcnnission to reprint Ji ll Dolan , "The dynamics of desire: sexuality amI gendcr in pornography and perform­ ;\I1ce", Tlmllre .Journal 39(2) (1987): 156- 174. © 1987 by The Johns Hopkins lJniversity Press. The Johns Hopkins U niversity Press for permission to rcprint Marvin C arlson , "The,Ltrical perfornlance: illustration, translation , fulfi llment, or supplement?", 'nlealre .foumal 37( 1) (1985): 5- 11. © 1985 by The Johns Hopkins University Press. The Modcrn Languagc Association for permission to reprint W . B. Worthen. "Drama, perlormativity, amI performance" . Puh/icaliolls oj"the Modern '"(/11­ ~/I(/g(' A.I'.I'ol'ÍalionI13(5)(1998): 1093, 1107. © 1998 byThe Modern Language Associatioll.

Thc M; lss;¡ chu sclts InstiluIC 01" Tcch no logy Press ro r permi ssion lo rep rint Uino r F uch¡¡, " Prcscl1\:c an d lhl: rcvc ngc 0 1" writing: ret hin ki ng thea lre after Dcrriua" . "" (/ l)l'II lillg ,~rf \ .1/1/11//(/1 9(211 ) ( 1 9R~ ): 161 173. (O 1985 by New Yml- ll l1i vl:rs ily ill1\ llhl: M ,I s~ : II"IIII ~clh (nsl illll C ~) r réchll ol ogy . 1\

1\1" NI/WI Id)(' H .I I·NI "

An~

N , , W 1 1: 1) f¡ H~ 111 N I.'>

The Mus:sa c hu~dts lnstituh; o f T"cl:hn o logy Prcss for pen nissio n to rep rint R ie Al lsop. " Perl"ormance writing" , Per{orming Arl.l' JOllrna!21(1) (1999): 76- 80. Ü 198 7 by The J o hlls I Jopkins Universily P ress .

: amh rid gc 1I11ivnsily Pn.:ss :lItU tilt' cs t ~l tc uf Raymo nd Williams for per­ missi o n l l) rcp rint Ra ym onJ Willi ams. " D rama in a dramatiscd societ y" . (Cambridge : Camhridge University Press, 1975), pp. 1 21.

The ./ournal ol COl1lempo/"{fry L egal /sslles for permission to repl-int Bernard H ibbitts, "Mak ing m o tions: the embodiment of law in gesture" , Jour!7a! o( COl1lemporary Legal ¡ssues 6 (1995): 51 - 81.

Thc U ni ve rsity of T oronto Press for permission lo reprin t Shannon Jackson, "W hy 1ll0dern pla ys are not culture: djsciplinary blind spots", j\1odern Drama 44 (2001): 31- 51. © 2001 The l..Jn iversity o r T oronto.

T he National Communication Association (formerly the Speech Co mmun­ ication Association) ro r permission to reprint David Graver, "T he actor's bodies". Texl 0/1(1 Pe/j iml1ol/ ce Quarlaly 17(3) (1997): 221235 . © 1997 The Speech Co mmunication Association. The cc tal ()r\ 1110" 111 \VI II he loo" bac" in a way th at d isplal:cs hcr g U/c? T hcatrc's mask s 01' their displaccment, announcing, '" am already taken ," as in "this seat is takl;n," or as in, "That was no lady, that was my wife (mother). " Theatrc is the pl ace wherc a male ruling class has been a ble to play at being the excJudcd other, to rcveaJ the sense that ''1'' is an olher. Ir theatre has o tTered men a chance to identify wil h the place of a mother':; loo k, to im ilate the mother's tlesire, and to control the woman 's looking back, theatre also offers the opportunity 10 reframe that moment from a point 01' view alien to it. The paradox of the frame and the gaze. the problem of the conslilu tive gaze in relationship to key problems of change, needs to be worked out more fulty both witb.in the discourses of feminism, psychoana lysis, and theatre theory, and in the arguments with which they are in volved . Feminism faces this problem in the Kristevan paradox of the scmiotic and the symbolic; psychoanalysis faces this problem in the rclationship of the Imaginar)' and the Symbolic; but theatre al one is capable of staging the paradox of the fra me in a way that subverts it. Unlike feminism and psychoanalysis, theatre has no altegiance but to ambi valence, to a compulsion to subvert its own gaze, to split itself through a reflected image. Theatrc comfortably allies with feminism again st psychoanalysis, witb psychoanaJysis against cinema, a nd with cinem a against itsclf, without ever fi nding a resting point except as provisional and always already undcrmineu.. Whereas feminism and psychoanalysis seek to reflect the subject from a place where it can never see itself, be.it gender, ideology, or the unconscious, theatre pro vides the tools- the stages, the mirrors, or refleeting gazes--through which perspectives are fra gmented , shattcrcd, and set into play against one another. A methodology necessarily tied to no master, theatre is quintessenti­ alt)' deconstructive, and poses a mcthodologica 1 chalJenge to feminism and psychoanalysis to escape its terms , its goals, its identity. We dose here with an open q uestion, one posed at the end 01' Laca n's seminar, "The Spli t Between the Eye and the Gaze." "To what extent," a uthorized in a relatively straighlforwan.l way by a scripteo text does indeetl consign theater (ano criticism th a t lI nderstanos performance to be de1er­ mineo by the text) to some faded conceptual Levi ttown: dramatic perform­ ance is a series ol' aut horized reproductions, each plotteo on th e bluepri nt 0 1' th e authorial texL It may be that a t this moment in the history ol' cult ural proouctio n in th e West, the perfo rmance 01' pl ays i.\' residual , a mode 01' proouction fully inscribed wit hin a discourse 01' textual ano cultural au t hor­ ity (e.g. , Shakespeare or Beckett) that other kinds of performance are ablt: to engage in more resistant, o ppositi onal, emergent ways. The apparent t rop­ in g 01' performance by the text seems so evident, so dee ply rooted- despite A rta ud and his inheritors- in convcntional ways of describing, p roducing. ano evaluating Western dramatic performa nce that it is rarel y unpacked . Yet aJ though the sense of orama tic performance as a performance of a pl ay is widespread , as John Rouse remarks, just " what the word (JI' means " in thili c~) n lexl is " far from dear" (146). How can performance studies help move the literary conception of drama beyond the incapacitating notion 01' perform­ unce as a version of the tex!, a version emptied of Inultiplicit-y a nd am bigu it y Ihrough the process of (authorized) embodiment: altcrnatively, how m ight a rcl hinking 01' drama reinvigorate it as a mode 01' performance theory, a way 01' cxploring- not prescribing- the possibilities of performance? 'Iere I consioer two places where dcfinitions o f performance depem.1 on a n artificially narrow sense 01' the relation between texts and performa nces: lirst, literary oiscussions of performativity ano performance that develop J. L. I\ ustin ':-; account of speech acts and, second, the tribulation s oftext ualily a no tex tualized Ill odeb o f performance in performance studies, particu larly in performance ethnography. To ask how perform ance ofa text- a d iffi cult ph rusc in itsel f might be conce ived to investigate or retheo rize the prob­ k ma tics nI" pe rforma ncc, I condu ele with él gla nce at Saz Luhrrnann's recenl lilm lI'il/iall/ Sllllkt'.I'!I('arc ·s Romeo a nd Ju liet. Th o ugh IAlh n n;lItn 's work is a lillll perhaps givcn license beca usc it is nol licd 111 Ih~ In.l llal un lolQgy 111111 :1I'11U.:Is I.:Prtl llllH1 1I 1 1I1 t:rs l;¡lI di ll r. ~ 0 1' slaged dl':III1,1 11 ~'II.ll' I .' : :1 pllwer rul

I111'( 111.:1il.:il l \! lIl'otlll h:1 ", ill! 1111' ljll l... . :IIPII S I explote Ite r~. wilh ways o r relhi nk­ 111 1.'. tltl' rda lioJl s ul' alll ho ril'y Ilt il l iJll'ulI1I tcxts ano pcrformances.

( )m: way literary scho lars have aua pted their unuersta nding of texts to tbe "JlVirOlllllent 01' performance is by using A lIstin 's approac h to speech acls, workill g to see the performati ve meoiating between la ngu age ano modes o f dllill g. M lIch as literary scholars tend to see oramatic perfo¡wance as lapsed I\!ading derivin g from the pro per meanin gs prescribed by the text, Aust¡n is 11I1lorio llsly ske ptical 01' thea trical performatives. Ausli n. of eOllJse. finu s Ihculrical discourse peculiar1y " hollow"---" pcrformativc utter3nce wi ll , for I'"\ lI lIlplc, be in a peculiar lI'ar hollow or voio if said by an actor on the stage" I ':!) insofa r as it exem plifies a special c1ass of infelicito us utteranee in which Ihe lIlotives 01' lhe agent (" persons having certa in th o ughts or feelings " [15]) ,lIl' insincere or are not directly embodied in subsequent conduct (an utter­ ;lItl.:e can also be hollow in this sense if "introoUl;ed in a poem, or spoken in ,\l liloqlly" [22]). A ustin excludes sllch hollow utterancc from considera tio n Iill'ciscly beca use it uses language in ways he finds " parasiLic upon [lan­ ¡'lIagc 's] nOl1nal use- ways which ¡-all under the doctrine of the elio!alions of Iang llagc" (22). Oddly eno llgh, while A ll.stin 's cavalier dismissal 01' theat rica l pl'rformatives--holl ow to whom? in what sense?- now seems to d rive liter­ .11 y 'll lidies toward perfo rmativity and performance, it does so by asserting 1I!¡; peculiar holl owness of oramatic theater. Several recent efforts to use A ustin to reclaim perfo rmance from oramatic Itrl'aler work in this way, segregating unscripted perfonnance from the tawdri­ ne,,:; nI' the stage to libera te performance (ano performance studies) from its 1Ir1\.'licilous connection to the theatrical (and to theater stlldies). Andrew Parker .111111 ':ve Kosofsky Seogwick , for instancc, use A ustin to chart a "convergence" 11l'IWCCll literary studies and performance studies that has pushed perform­ IIIVily "onto center stage" (l): " rf one consequence of thi s appreciation has 111'1.'11 a hcightened willingness to credit a performative dimen sion in all 1IIIIal. cercmo nial. scripted behaviors, another would be the acknowledgment 11 ... 1 philosophical essays them selves surel)' count as one sllch performative III/> Iance" (2). Whil e it ma y be a relief to sorne that philosophers are now IWl lmlllers, it is striking to think that literary scholars have only recently recog­ 1I1 /,l!d I hl~ pcrrorllla l i \'e aspects of ri tuals and ceremon.ies, a oevelopmen I they I.SlglI lo lhl: new antidiscipline 01' performance stlld ies. Accoroing lo Parker IlI d S..:dgwick, then ter studies. "[r]eimagining itself over the course of the past dn: ad..: ;IS Ihe wider licld 1)1" pe rformance stlldies," has " moved well beyond 111,· d assicalolltology 0 1' the hla l:k box mooel to embrace a myriad of perfo rm­ IIl h'l pr;wliccs. ranging I"r\)m 'lla gc lO Ih ti va l anu every thing in between ~ (2).3 Pal hel all d Scdgw ick's rtlWl.!1 flll n:ad ing l)r Austill qlleers felicitous per­ 1\1 I1I I:t li\' iIV. lk ll10 1l ~ll'lIlillp ils ~'IIIl ~li lll ,ivc p l'..:dicH ti on on l he "cliol a ted " ­

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me.forú IIP, 1')')1. - - o"'!'he Rcnaissancc a nd the Enú 01' Ed iting." Bornslcin amI Wllli,um 121 -4 loss \Vas IlrcaJy ::;ighlcd. ! n I hi ~ peri lld b()1h practilioners ami theorists became pas­ '"oliNh: advllcaks ('Ir I'rL:sel1¡';~ . dnd IH1wlu:n : mort! clll h llsia sticaJ1 y than in the I 111 i ICÚ

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In ¡he nl ,'/l /n o / ~'1'1'I1I pll bli shcd in IVXIl.l'i nlOth y Wik"'l h s~oIl Ss~s tlll' (;a '(lllll onl:e wro lc C'ynlhia Novack, S/¡({ring lh e Dance: ClJnlacl/mprovisalion amI AmeriNlI1 e l/l/tII'L' (M:ldison WI: lJniversit y 01' W iscon sín P ress , 1990), 186. For references to Judso n Dance T heater see Sa ll y Banes' work o n the era, espeeiall y Terpsic/¡ore in S neaker,l' all d lJI.'1II0{,/,({{Y 's Body : Jud.l'on Da/l.ce Theater /962 - /964. I \ ('lI rl Siddall, "Contact l mprovisation ," Easl Bay Review, September 1976, c! led in "IIII (,amble. "On Contact Impro visatíon," Tlle Painled Bride Quorlerly 4 (Ann /\r hor: U MI Research Press, 1983), No, 1 (Spring 1977), 36. 1,1 Sk V\: Pa"ton , "3 Oays," Conlacl Quarlerly 17, No. 1 (Winter 19(2), ]J, 1 ~ INri. 1 (J,

('ircus cxists uneasily in what Peter StaJlybrass and AlloD W hite refer to as a "displacemcnt between sil es of discourse " in the hierarchy of geographlcal places associated witb cultural production. ' Jt remains part 01' Stallybrass and White's designated low culture in a stratilication 01' values in which society rcjects marginalized communities, but desires their presence to reinforcc the parameters of social normality , Circus was the most popular form of enter­ tainment in Australia 2 fram European colonization in the mid-nineteenth century until the 1920s. 3 It evoked an ideal of freedom within the context 01' a Ilcwly established colony which had rejected the old world. As Stallybrass and White explain wi th refere nce to Barbara Babcock's work, wbat is "social/y peripheral is so frequently symhofically central."4 The transitory nature of circus evoked a social fantasy 01' liberation from regulatory systems of order. The presentation of circus acts, however, was (lL"signed to maximize the impression of extraordinary feats. The trick could only be aecomplished within the circus. The tantalizing appeal of the circus pcrforlller depended on maintaining an illusion of unrestricted physical free­ dom in performance. J \Vould argue that the widespread fascina tion with the cirL"us performer as "other" for Australian audiences was analogous to that aCL"Orded to Stallybrass and White's "Iow-Other. '" The circus 's " lo\V-Other" could be symbolically venerated rather than social1y estccmed beca use the central experience 01' circus attendance involved viewing acts of physical c: ~ o

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34 DR AM ATURG Y OF

THE SP ECTATOR

Marco De Marin is Sourcc: Translatcd by Paul Dwycr, TDR: T/¡e .!ournal 100 114.

(ir l'er/órnwl1cc S ludies

~1(2)

(1987):

An unlikely association I wish to reconsider here the problem ofreception in the theatre as broadly and with as little theoretica l bias as possible. On the one hand, 1 wil1 concen trate on l'csults drawn from the work oftheatre practitioners while considering. o n lhe other hand , the hypotheses and data coming out of the scientific research into this and l'elated matters. T his research ha s been going on in va riolls f1elds- often via a multidiscip linary approach ranging from sociology to experimental psychology, from anthropology to history and, of co urse, to scmiolics (see De Marinis 1982, chapler VII, 1983, 1984, 1985). Thel'e is an unlikely association of two tel'ms which we are not general1y lIsed to seeing as connecled: dramalurgy and speclalor. First, an important distinction in terminology: Drama tlll'gy- This may be defined as: th e set of tech n iq uesltheo ries governing the composition of t he lheatl'ical text. Theatrical tex t- This is no longer meant to indicate the dl'amatic, literary text but rather the text 01' the theatrical performance (Ieslo .ljJe//aco/(/re), the performance text. This is conceived of as a com­ plcx network of different types of signs, expressive mean s, ol' actions, coming back to the etymology o f the word " text" which implies the idea of lexture, of something woven together. "Dramalllrgy" can now be lldi ncd as: lhe techniques/theory governing the com po:i ílion ~l r Ih\! pCIII)f llIancé-a:H ex t (l es/o spellaco¡are) ; it is: lhe set of cchn iqul's/Ihcor il.:s ¡"'W I "" I!' I he ("() lllPll:,;itioll 01' signs/expressi ve means/ '1')

!"Ift ,\ .lll iI HI :i whil' h :11 1; WOVCI1 I IIl' pC lfülrl UlI1~C Icxl

1 1I~':l h c r lo ~n!¡II¡,; Ihe h:X l llle

01

lhe pc rl'o rlll;mc.;"

Oramaturgy of the performance/dramaturgy of the spectator lll hc basÍ!) llfthis redefi nitio n, there c1early exists a drama turgy orthe director alld ti ura l1latLlrgy ofthe pcrformer. Howevers ur prisingly it may seem at fina, we also ca n an d should speak- not just metaphoric,llly--of a dram al urgy 01' lhe spcctator (see R uffm i 1985). Por a start, I wo uld suggesl that we can speak nI' lhis dra maturgy o f t he spectalor in two ways, both 01' which are a lready Jrammaticall y presen l in the do ub le mea ning (objecLi ve and subjective) 01' the r osscssive "01" ': l. Wc can speak of a dra ma turgy 01' the spCctator in a passive o ro more precisely, o~jec.:ti ve sen se in wbic h we conceive of the aud ience as a drama turgica l object, a ma rk or target for the actions/operations 01' lhe director, the performers, and , if there is one, the writer. 2. Wc can also speak of a dramaturgy of the speda to r in an active or sub­ jcctive sensc, refe rring to the various receptive operati ons/aetions tha t an a udience ca rries o ut: pcrception , in terpre tatio n, aesthetic a pprecia ti on. memo rization , em olive a nd inte llectual respon se. etc. (see De Marinis 19S3, 1984). These o perati o ns/actions of the audience's members are lO be considered trul y dramaturgical (no t just meta pho ricaJly) sin ce it is only thro ugh these acti o ns that the pcrfonn ance lext achieves its fullness, bccoming realized in a ll its semantic and communicativc potentia l. N;ltllrally, in order to speak o f an active dramaturgy of the spectator, we mll sl sce her/his understandin g of the performance not as some mechanica l ' II'lC ration which has been strict ly predetermined- by the perfo rma nce a nd its pll ld llcers- but rather as a task wh ic h the spectator carries o ut in condi lions IIr Icla tive indepcndence, or, as Fra nco Ru rfini has recently suggestcd. in con­ dlllOIlS uf "controlled creativc au tonomy" ( 1985:35). T he parti a l or rela tive ;lIlllll10my of eaeh of the ditTerent dram atuTgies (the director 's, the write r's, the pcrformer's, Ihe spectator's) all work toge ther in the compositio n of the pelformance a nd m ust be seen as mutually setting aad occasio nally adjusting each other's boundaries. In particular, as rega rds the spccta lo r, to d en y her/ hi s (rclative) autonom y or, co n versely, to con sider it tota lly beyond rcslrainl.s llIeans upsetting and threatening the balance between determina tian (con­ ~Iraint) a nd freeclom; t his di aJectic between th e constraints im posed by Ih!.: wo rk (the "aesl hetic text" ) and th e possibilitics left o pen to (hose whn rcccive I he wo rk sl ri kcs a bal a nce wh ich is the essencc o l"t he aesthetic experiom:e amI Ihe sO ll rcc 01" ils vi lalit y.

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I'I J ltli't' 1.11 ' 'I ' I I H SI'I,' I

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101
I1 01' Ihe thcatrc-goer comes from his abili ty lo recapture time past, to revcrs{

36

T HE AU D I E NC E

Subjectivity, community and the etrucs of listening

Alice Rayner So un:c:

JO/JI'//{{( o!f)I'(/IHatic TI/ eor)' l/lid Crilicism

7(2) (1 993): J 24.

In Rosencranlz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the Player King accosts the uncer­ tain duo "joyously," with the words, " an audience! Do n't move" (21 - 22). [n his monumenta l book on the audience. Herbert Bla u begins \Vith a quotation from Virginia Woolf. " No audience. No ech o, T hat's part ofone's death " (1). In his play, ortending lhe Audicnce, Peter Handke announces, " Yo u are the topie. . .. y ou are th e cen ter. You are thc occasion. Y ou are the reaSOTlS why" (21) . And in certain historical accounts, a ud iences are iden tified by d01l1inant cultural ideas by such statements as Tillyard 's: " orthodox doctrines of rebellion and of the monarch were shared by evcTy section of the community" (64, . I f these uses of the word are at all indicative of the range of how "audience" is convention ally understood , they suggest how an audience is projected as a fixed point (" Don 't move"), a dimensi on o fself-reftection ("No echo. That's part of one 's death"), a teleology (" th e reasons why") and an orthodoxy. In semiotic terms, thc audience is a sign for purpose (telos), a point of reception , an echo, an orthodoxy. One of the first problems in trying to understand the word " audiem:e" comcs with the assumption that it signifies a collcctive vcrsion of a single consciousness rather than just the desire for such unity. The word "audience" oftcn appears to function as an im age of unity created out of diversity, as a kind of e plurihlls unum: an aggregate 01' indi viduals that together constitute a largcr yet still singular individuality, as though " the" audience has a collect­ ivc co nsciousness that is analogo us to a uniflcd individual subject. Such an ass umpti Qn di~intcgrates rather quickJ y under the pressure of both hi storical a mi dec(mstruct ive qucstions. The sign obviously. perhaps neccssarily, conceals tlle di lTere nces th at l11a kc each ind ividu al member unique not only by various ..:Iassilic,tt ions of ra¡;c, n;i1iol1 , dass or gendcr, famili al, social, cducation a.l, Iill glli~tic ;Ind \,l xpc!'icnl ¡a l hi stories hut abo by lhc particular position (literally i ..¡\

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and figu ra lively where one sits) in lhe con fig uratíon u r an evcnt. Ncithcr ca n the wmd accou nt ror th e temporal aspeclS of history~ that audiences ch ange over time. fro m moment to moment, night to nigh t, epoch to epoch. !\nd even when the word does not refer to a gro up 0 1' ind ivid uals , b ut to either ano ther perso n or lo the dívided consciousness in which a sel l' is " audience" lO itself, similar di fferences are concealed o r ignored. T he sign "a udien ce," in other wo rds, does not ne~'Cssarily OI wholl y confo rm to the practice of "a udie nce. " In addition lO rhe uses 01' the sign , one may consider "a ud ience" as a \Vord tha l im plicitly loca tes the d ivision betwccn speak in g and hewi ng, a divisi on that applies as much to a supposedl y si ngular s ubject as lO a collecti ve o ne . As soon as I speak. lhe wo rds 1 have found (as soon as they a re won.ls) no longer belong to me, are origin all y repeated (Artaud desires a theateri n which repeti tion is impossiblc ... . ) I must first hear myself. In soliloquy as in dialogue, to spea k is to hear oneself. As soon as 1 am heard , as soon as J hear myself, the I who hea rs itsel!; who hea rs me, becomes the I who speaks and ta kes speech from the J who thinks that he speaks and is hea rd in his own name; ... (177) Th e ''1'' who speaks, in Derrida 's formulat ion, is already an audience to itself. an audience thal is comprised by division and differenee . Bu t understanding ofwhat is sa id or written or seen is also, in Ba rbara Herrnstein Smi th's view, radically eontingent upon time, context and inlerest (as opposed to merely " slIbjectivity" or the divisions ofsignifier and signified) (11). That is, the divi­ sion occllrs within a context no t only of history a nd circumstances but o f intentions. The individual hears with varying capacities, from varying posi­ tions, from di ffering interests, from one moment to lhe next. Sometimes r hear you from my position as a woman, sometimes as a professor, sometimes as a mother, sometimes as bOllrgeois. My hearing depends on detailed differ­ ences or similarities: have 1 read thc same books; have 1 heard this before; do I have an earache; do 1 see you or listen on the telephone; do 1 presume we are alike or different. 1 And sometimes an d in varying degrees , t can ch oose the mode of my conscious Iistening. From the pressure 01' such questions of differences a nd paIticlllarities, not lo mention intentionaJ ities, the very reaU ty ofan audience might seem to disintegrate. As a paradigm of community, moreover, the audiencc is a lready in the process of such d isintegrati on. W hether explained through the de­ constructi ve turn (Derrida) , the lo!:,'¡ c of la te capitalism. mu ltina ti onal eco­ nomy. and the postmodcm aesthetic (Jameson), the en d of master narratives (Lyolard ), the skepticism toward history by histori ogra phy (Whitc), lhe era 0 1' mech an i\:ttl rcp rod uction ( Oenja mi n). l he J isplaccl11cn I uf I he Re'JI (La\:an). powcr I,;om in g rrom belo w (l-'o\l\:a ll ll). 01' simply lh l' I\gc ni Aq uarius. lhe IlId iclICl' UIIlI cOllllTlun it y :m: di ~pcrsing. Ir lhen: is ;1 n i ~ b in 11I1liL'r\lil llding "'lO

1111 "~lIId i c llcc " il l11ay \Vell hl: IIlIly Il lI é 1I101~' iIlSI :U H':C ()I' Ihe cOll lcmporary crisis arising rmlll lhc ~ ritiqllc 01' n~I;lJ 1'1I11II1S, sc lf~ rctkxi v il y, Icl eo l()gy and idco­ Illgy , a criti que lllal :;cenls l() d iSlll a ntk l:ol11munities as it dismantles meta­ physics. For tlle taxonom y 01' dilTerences yields eventually to the radical partil:ularity and plurality of every individual and lhus disso lves the force 01' eOI11TTIunal or collective real ity ati well as of intentions. Excessive em phasis on individual differences suggests the impossibility of lIsing the lerm "audi­ cnce" in any meaningful way as an instance of a commun ity . W hile tbere are certainly modest uses ofthe word, "a udience," uses that seem to ma ke no assertions about an ontological sta tus, the word's status as a noun gives it aspects ol' a su bstanti ve lh at, as Wittgenstein pOÍJlted out, " makes us look for a thing that corresponds to it" (1). T o account fo\' what an audience " is," to ask for the point of reference, is a difficult if not suspect p rojecr, since the referent does not operate, as Wittgenstein wou ld have it. apart froTTI the uses of the termo If it is imposs ible to mak e an y assumptions abo ut the status of either cOl11munity or audience outside usage, however, we a re left with either a pessimistic view that community a mi audience do not exist and lh at there i:; therefore no reality for indi vidua ls in a gro up, no force in social acli on. o r the optimistic view that they can be endlessly created and reereated in an infinite play oflanguage games, as Lyotard describes it in The Posll11odern Gnu/ilion. The mystery of coherence, whose disintegration is either deplored 01' cele­ brated in postmodern politics and aesthetics, is a mystery of the eollective no un . T he focus or the collective noun upon the unified status of an aud ienec tends to obscure both diversity and Lem porality, suggesting an idea l conform­ ity between speaking and hearing, an ideal of simultaneity imagined by Heidegger." On the other hand, the deta iled specification of any single audi­ ence disintegrates the co llective idea to infinite particlIlarity. Ir Ihe alldience is accurately a eolJective noun, however, il is best undcrstood as a multiple subject. The questions about audience, 1 think , need to turn away from ontology what an audience or a community is- toward the listenin g func­ tion that would constitute the action of audienee. an action that has historicaJ and unconsciol\s con lexts as well as intcntions. F or it is that function, J might suggesl, lhat comprises a means for brid ging the deconstructed sign " audi­ ence" and ethil:al acts that produce social meanings in social encounters. The contradiction between the audience that is constructed linguistically, ideologically 01' ideally as a sign and the audience that actively Iisten s may be irreconcilable. But that contradiction may itself be productive insofar as it identi1ies the ditTerenees that comprise the social world . The very division helween speak ing anu hearing that Derrida has described aboye, that is , can he ivc oodily unil o f il:; own. In a "white" ver~io n of hip hor, rep n:S\!n lctl by 111 lo! I."n on1lO lIsly pop ular and fi llancially s uccessfu l gro up New Kids o n l he BI()ck, we can see a slm ilar loning dow n of the movement. Thc emph asis o n vi gorou s, pa tterned stepping