What is dramaturgy?
Theatre studies are vital for getting a fuller understanding of a play’s world and its impact. A dramaturgy will ensure that playwriting, playing writing, directing, and acting are incorporated into a play development process effectively. Dramaturgy is an exploration of the world of the play. Both the text itself and how the text engages with the world in which we live. Note that “text” means whatever way of storytelling is being used. According to Leon Kats, “The goal of Dramaturgy is to resolve an antipathy between the intellectual and the practical in the theatre, fusing the two into an organic role.”
Dramaturgy is a sociological analysis of everyday life. Developed by American sociologist Erving Goffman in 1959, dramaturgy uses the metaphor of theater to explain human behavior. According to this perspective, individuals perform actions in everyday life as if they were performers on a stage. Identity is performed through roles. Dramaturgy argues that the presentation of oneself through role is a way of engaging with society. People present themselves to others based on cultural values, norms, and expectations. Most of the time, people seek to meet society’s expectations, but the dramaturgical frame applies even in cases of rebellion. It is the assumption that all persons in society have their own roles to play. This allows a person’s role to be viewed in a unique way.
Gorffman explains in her book that people perform roles in life to convince the people around them that they are who they say they are. What makes her book valuable is how Goffman broadens this simple concept by showing how broadly this observation can be applied and how deep we can take the concept into the human psyche. All people, conscious or not, are making decisions on what to show to other people, what to say and how to present themselves. The study of dramaturgy makes the bridge between the world of the play with real life roles.
What is a Dramaturg?
The word dramaturg comes from the greek drame “action of doing” and urgy “process or working”. According to Beehive Dramaturgy Studio, a dramaturg is a dedicated person on the creative team whose primary task is to support the play’s development by asking key questions to link the world of the play to the world we live in. A dramaturg starts conversations, research, provides context, and helps the artists to make meaningful connections as they work together to tell the intended story. Dramaturg and professor Geoffrey Proehl uses the phrases “historical, critical, literary, and philosophical consciousness,” “watchdog,” “audience’s surrogate,” “designated readers,” “keeper of the text,” “word person,” and “diplomat or mediator” to describe dramaturgs.
The dramaturgs profession that started in eighteen-century Germany, has just recently got instituted in the United States. The Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) states “over the past three decades, the role of the dramaturg and literary manager has expanded in the United States and Canada alongside the increasing importance of contemporary playwriting”. Dramaturgs contextualize the world of a play; establish connections among the text, actors, and audience. The dramaturg prepares the text for performance by translating, editing, researching the play’s production history, and they collaborate with the director on textual interpretation. According to Arthur Ballet, former dramaturg at Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, dramaturgs must constantly ask themselves and the people involved in the production ‘why are we doing this play here, now, or at all?’.
In theatre-making, dramaturgs forge a critical link between artists and institutions, and institutions and their communities. According to Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) a dramaturg works in theatres and playwrights’ organizations, in colleges and universities, and on a project-by-project basis, offer opportunities for playwrights; generate projects and programs; and create conversations about plays in their communities. The Dramaturgs serve the field as experts on our dramatic past and as advocates of the future.
Assistant Directing
The assistant director is the Director’s first hand. The specific duties of the assistant director vary from director to director. Usually the AD takes notes from and notes to the director during rehearsals. According to Unwin, working as assistant director is an intriguing and complex task. It can be frustrating many times. Unwin says “even the most rewarding experiences can be difficult: watching somebody of tremendous experience and ability working with skill and panache, to achieve something wonderful, which you can’t quite define, but which you know is beyond your reach”.
Students who wish to pursue a concentration in Directing are strongly encouraged to be an Assistant Director. Directors were most likely assistant directors and they learned their directorial skills from their mentors. Assistant directors are there to, as the name of the role says, assist the director with whatever they need. That is why the role can look very different in each performance. Usually it’s expected that the AD handles the logistics of running the set during production. They are the liaison between the director and the rest of the crew. In my own experience I had the opportunity to work with the actors during rehearsals, while the director was working with different actors in another room; that was an espetacular experience.
According to Zip Recruiter, the responsibilities of an assistant director vary with the needs of the director. “You may work with actors on their performances, help during rehearsals, run rehearsals in the absence of the director, and facilitate specific aspects of the show when assigned to do so. ADs often work behind the scenes as stage managers during performances, but you may be asked to sit in the audience to take notes on the production instead”.
Assistant Director and Dramaturg overlaps
No matter what role you accept in a production, the goal is to know as much as possible about the play, understand its history, its goals, its message, etc. Depending on the position, the time and effort spent in research about that play will be more necessary. It is part of the job of a dramaturg, as well as an assistant director, to understand the world of the play a little deeper. For that reason, there are some steps that overlap between the Assistant Director and Dramaturg process:
- Meet with the director: talk about ideas and understand their vision;
- Do initial readings: Not just the text but inicial research of the pay, and ongoing script analises, always discussing or observing also the Director’s point of view;
- Create a text glossary: with foreigner words, with words that ask for certain understanding in the world of the play (cultural references, music, historical etc);
- Research on the playwright’s background: it’s important to know pertinent autobiographical information that does shape or influence the play;
- Research the background of the play: know as much as possible about the play’s setting and historical period (for sure the dramaturgs research here will be deeper than the assistant director).
Dramaturgy is the core of any play, and all the roles of the production are involved in how the dramaturgy will be applied and utilized correctly to achieve the goals of the play. It is crucial that the world of the play be cohesive with the world we live in, so the audience can take the message of the play and apply it to their own lives.
Work Cited
Beehive Dramaturgy Studio. What is dramaturgy? http://www.beehivedramaturgy.com/whatisdramaturgy
Cardullo, Bert. What is Dramaturgy? 1995. 1st edition, New York
Educational Theatre. Dramaturgy 101. June 3, 2020 https://schooltheatre.org/dramaturgy-101/
Clark, I. E. Stagecrafters Handbook. 1994
Educational Theatre Association. Dramaturgy 101. June 3, 2020 https://schooltheatre.org/dramaturgy-101/
Forum Theatre. What Is Dramaturgy In Theatre? March 3, 2022
https://forum-theatre.com/what-is-dramaturgy-in-theatre/#1
Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. 1999
LibreTexts. Dramaturgy. Feb 20, 2021
https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Sociology/Introduction_to_Sociology/Book%3A_Sociology_(Boundless)/05%3A_Social_Interaction/5.01%3A_Understanding_Social_Interaction/5.1C%3A_Dramaturgy
Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA). What is Dramaturgy? https://lmda.org/what-is-dramaturgy
Unwin, Stephen. So You Want to be a Theatre Director? 2004
Zip Recruiter. Accessed on May 14th, 2022 https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Career/Assistant-Theatre-Director/What-Is-How-to-Become