Opening Acts: The Performance of Trauma in the Work of Shakespeare, Artaud, Brecht, and Cervantes Open Access

Abstract

Opening Acts: The Performance of Trauma in the Work of Shakespeare, Artaud, Brecht, and Cervantes, argues that problems of theater and theatricality are irreducibly linked to the unspeakable performance of trauma and madness, and examines a selection of influential playwrights--Shakespeare, Cervantes, Brecht, and Artaud--to explore the intertwined themes of madness and theater at the heart of their dramatic work. Chapter 1 examines the struggle to witness unburied, unremembered, and unmarked death in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Chapter 2 explores the staging of unspeakable acts in Artaud's Les Cenci. Chapter 3 focuses on Brecht's attempt to enact a revolutionary overthrow of war, death, and voiceless silence in Mother Courage and Her Children. Chapter 4 examines Cervantes' self-displacing portrayal of his experiences as a ransomed slave in El Trato de Argel. In each of these cases, the work in question is shown to repeatedly align trauma with theatrical problems such as action, doubling, the exchange of persons, false appearances, misdirection, and displacement. Through such motifs, the various dramatists attempt to express what has been radically excised from human experience (both their own experience and the collective experience of their societies), and come to terms with the forces responsible for that excision. In reading these attempts, I highlight the dramatists' deep insights into the limits of human understanding, and show how their works invoke the dangerous, revelatory, and revolutionary possibilities latent in all theatrical performance and all instances of madness.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

I. Introduction: What is an Opening Act?.................................................................1

II. Maimed Rites: Mourning and Madness in Hamlet...................................................11

III. Things That No One Can Say: The Unspeakable Act in Artaud's Les Cenci................42

IV. Silencing Violence: Repetition and Revolution in Mother Courage and Her Children.....72

V. The Name of Saavedra...................................................................................103

Notes.............................................................................................................135

Works Cited.....................................................................................................138

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Comparative Literature
Degree	PhD
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	Literature, Comparative Theater
Keyword	Artaud dramatic literature trauma studies Shakespeare Cervantes Brecht
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Caruth, Cathy, Cornell University Felman, Shoshana, Emory University
Committee Members	Nouvet, Claire, Emory University

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