
Reality Principles
From the Absurd to the Virtual
Herbert Blau(Author)
The University of Michigan Press
Published on 7. June 2011
Book
Hardback
300 pages
978-0-472-07151-7 (ISBN)
Description
"Herbert Blau's long sustained inquiry into theater's most provocative questions-presence, liveness, and finitude-are, at their deepest level, queries into life. Reality Principles returns us to Blau's inspiring provocations and extends them to new subjects-9/11 and Ground Zero, the nature of charisma, Pirandello and Strindberg."
-Peggy Phelan, Stanford University
Reality Principles gathers recent essays by esteemed scholar and theater practitioner Herbert Blau covering a range of topics. The book's provocative essays-including "The Emotional Memory of Directing," "The Faith-Based Initiative of the Theater of the Absurd," "Virtually Yours: Presence, Liveness, Lessness," "The Human Nature of the Bot"-were given as keynotes and/or memorial lectures and are collected here for the first time. The essays take up a remarkable array of topics-from body art and the self-inflicted punishments of Stelarc, Orlan, and the Viennese Actionists, to Ground Zero and 9/11-and allow Blau to address critical questions of theater and theory, performance and relevance, the absurd and the virtual, history and illusion, community and memory. Reality Principles offers a panoramic view of Herbert Blau's perspectives on life and the imitation of life on stage.
-Peggy Phelan, Stanford University
Reality Principles gathers recent essays by esteemed scholar and theater practitioner Herbert Blau covering a range of topics. The book's provocative essays-including "The Emotional Memory of Directing," "The Faith-Based Initiative of the Theater of the Absurd," "Virtually Yours: Presence, Liveness, Lessness," "The Human Nature of the Bot"-were given as keynotes and/or memorial lectures and are collected here for the first time. The essays take up a remarkable array of topics-from body art and the self-inflicted punishments of Stelarc, Orlan, and the Viennese Actionists, to Ground Zero and 9/11-and allow Blau to address critical questions of theater and theory, performance and relevance, the absurd and the virtual, history and illusion, community and memory. Reality Principles offers a panoramic view of Herbert Blau's perspectives on life and the imitation of life on stage.
Reviews / Votes
"Broad in scope, this collection is a rich contribution to the field and offers a fresh look at the work of one of the most well-known scholars in theatre and performance studies."-Sebastian Calderon Bentin, TDR: The Drama Review -- Sebastian Calderon Bentin * The Drama Review *
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Ann Arbor
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-472-07151-7 (9780472071517)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Herbert Blau is Byron W. and Alice L. Lockwood Professor in the Humanities at the University of Washington and author of many influential and prize-winning books, including Blooded Thought: Occasions of Theater, Take Up the Bodies: Theater at the Vanishing Point, and Sails of the Herring Fleet: Essays on Beckett.