"Discuss your potential dissertation"

[roguesenna]

So in my SOP I'm supposed to talk about what I want my dissertation to be. I have a few ideas, but no idea how to frame them into what the people reading my SOP are looking to see. What have you written? I'm a theatre major so I'm trying to decide between two topics, gender & sexuality in contemporary american theatre OR magical realism in contemporary performance. I have a few ideas for specific plays that I would discuss as well, but I'm not quite sure how to meld this all into what is essentially the baby form of a dissertation proposal. Help?

[Loric]

Magical realism in theater would probably be the more compelling subject because it's not as well studied as it seems to be literature and art. Heck, I have a degree in theater design and it didn't immediately strike me an an "-ism" i'd ever aimed to evoke, but obviously it's used and frequently (thanks Google.)

 

I guess I come from always seeing "realism" and its conventions as an opposition to the unsustainability and impracticality of naturalism, rather than having much of anything to do with the real world or mundane. A way things are portrayed (the awful naturalist actually cooks on stage.. realism mimes it) rather than the subject matter of things. 

 

So I guess if you could explain what you mean, why it's important, and where you intend to look for answers.. that's what they're looking for?

Edited November 14, 2013 by Loric

[Loric]

You could probably also dabble in the notion that magical realism imposes reflective distance and the smoking gallery of Brecht by introducing the norms of the absurb into what is seemingly the direct opposition of the intent of realism - evoking naturalism practically, and the suspension of disbelief. How those tow ideas are at odds and yet often aim for the same goal. 

[Loric]

At this point i'm rambling but I always feel it's important to mention a reasoning for realism versus naturalism.. 

 

It's night in a scene. You don't turn the lights off - people can't see. It's blue. It's a convention, it's accepted by the audience, it means night. They still believe ardently whatever it is you're trying to convey, not viewing it as an affront to logic. You introduce the "magical" and begin seriously toying with that balance. 

[roguesenna]

I find it interesting that you mention Brecht because I definitely see a strong relationship between verfremdungseffekt's ideal of distancing people from the what they're watching in order to allow them to process it and magical realism's tendency to romanticise or fantasize a series of events with the same ultimate end goal. I'm definitely interested in that distancing effect and I share your distaste for naturalism. I hate "method" acting. I was always taught that part of acting is knowing where the edge of the stage is.

[Loric]

Well, Method is Stanislavski. He thinks that emotion can only be portrayed if truly felt. Otherwise it's "impersonation" and will be seen as such. You have to understand that it came out of a world where the overtop "I wave my hand this way and it means I'm feeling faint, wave it the other way it means I'm feeling frisky" sort of acting. The audience was expected to know this sort of visual shorthand - think Kabuki theater - and it was so over the top and controled that it was all farce.. all the time..

 

Then you get into things like Meyerhold where you're searching for the expression via movement. Biomechanics. He's trying to key into innate recognition of gestural movements in the human psyche. Sometimes it's amazing how well it works.. though on it's own we'd consider his vocabulary of movement to be rather unnatural.

[roguesenna]

Yeah, I'm aware of the background of codeified language and I actually don't have a problem with the Stanislavski method, what I have a problem with are actors who feel they need to spend six months in prison before playing a criminal. There's a difference between research and self-torture, IMHO.

And for me, personally, I am big on using body and movement to enter the mind of a character. I am largely influenced by Commedia Del Arte and to a lesser extent by the reading I've done on Gratowski.

But this is sort of tangential to what I was initially talking about...

[Loric]

Is this for Columbia or NYU? I have friends at both - I can ask if they have any insight into what the prompts are looking for.

[roguesenna]

This one is more for Columbia, but I'd love to hear about both if you have access!