Brechttel vitázva
Quarrelling with Brecht

Understanding Bond’s post-structuralist political aesthetic

Summary/Abstract: This article challenges David Allen’s conclusion, following his production of Edward Bond’s The Children, that the play is essentially didactic, a ‘new form of Lehrstück’ (Allen 2007). I will focus on one particular action (the slow raising of a towel from this production) to argue that Brechtian denaturalisation (which comprises a modernist challenge to social values by championing their binary opposites) is unhelpful when applied to Bond’s work. This is because Bond acknowledges the post-structuralist collapse of binary (moral) values. All drama uses a live combination of language and image, opening up an (Oedipal) gap between symbolisation and sensation. It is argued here that the Verfremdung sutures this gap, fulfilling the role of ideology by prioritising rational thought. The Bondian ‘centre’, on the other hand, can be seen to technically incorporate Jacques Lacan’s ‘lack’ into the symbolic by challenging the logic of the signifier with physicality.

• Details
• Contents