Drama, Performativity, and Performance Author(s): W. B. Worthen Reviewed work(s): Source: PMLA, Vol. 113, No. 5 (Oct.

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WB. Worthen

Drama, Performativit-y, and Performance

W B. WORTHENis professor of Englishand of theater and danceat theUniversity ofCalifornia, Davis. His booksinclude The Idea of theActor(PrincetonUP, 1984), ModernDrama and the Rhetoricof Theater (U of California P, 1992), and and theAuthority Shakespeare ofPerformance (Cambridge UP, 1997). He is working on the performance ofnationalidentitiesin contemporary drama and theater

in general. theatrical andperformance aboutdramatic texts, productions, In theintroduction to Performance ElinDiamond and Cultural Politics, inperformance an exemplary ofcontemporary interest provides account has nowbecomereflex, and,in a gesture that suggests whythisinterest necessarily thenarrowly ofdramatic sidesteps authorized performances theater. As a consequence, she argues, of late-1960s theexperimental ater, theeffect oftheory on writing aboutperformance, and "poststructuralist on Brecht, on Artaud), theorizing (Barthes Derrida performance cameto be defined in opposition to theater structures and conventions. In brief, theater was charged with to theplaywright's obeisance authority, with actors tothereferential disciplined taskofrepresenting fictional entities" (3). Although there has beenan explosion of "performance disinmany course, anditsnewtheatrical partner, 'performativity,"' respects thisexpanding in performance investment has "floated freeof theater precincts" and ofthemodesofperformance andperformance analysis associated with theater anddrama (2). Indeed, performance has beenso with "honored dismantling textual authority, illusionism, andthecanonical actor"that itis questionable whether anyfrontier remains between dramatic studies andperformance studies (3). The reasons forthis "terofperformance minological expansion anditsdrift awayfrom theater" (12n22)haveto do in part with thedifferent disciplinary investments of performance studies andliterary studies. Literary engagements with performativity tendto focuson theperformative of languageas function in represented literary andmuch texts, performance-oriented criticism of forall itsinvocation ofthetheater, drama, similarly a desireto betrays locate themeanings of thestagein thecontours of thedramatic text. Performance studies has developed a vividaccount ofnondramatic, nontheatrical, nonscripted, ceremonial, and everyday-life performances, performances thatappearto depart from theauthority of texts.Both viewdrama as a speciesofperformance disciplines driven bytexts; as a

B in the ways different disciplinary stylesapproachquestions

a crisis crisisin drama reflected HERE IS a conceptual studies,

1093

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andPerformance Drama,Performativioy,

as a sideeffect ofdramatic merely writresidual performance to be an increasingly result, drama appears in an ambiguous with tension theing.Flourishing modeofperformance. studies ater studies anddrama studies, theliterary discussion performance of In thepasttwodecades, nowtraces thehorizon ofan energetically expanddramahas developeda sophisticated to approach ofaims, characterized bya range methods, a critical forconsidering ingfield performance, vocabulary of perforthescripted dramaand the and objects of inquiry: ethnographies theinterplay between Rhetoric" and "Ethnography, of stage mance(Conquergood, (actual,implied,or imagined)practices Ethnography"; studies-one corner "Rethinking Limon;Taussig);psyIn Shakespeare performance. has had an ef- choanalytic ofliterary where (Phelan)andpostcolonial (Bharucha; study performance institutional ofstage is motivated Savigliano)modelsofrepresentation; fect-theanalysis performance studies(Cole; Patraka);studiesof street in thedramatic interest and perforby a disciplinary text, "Mardi (Roach, ofthestageim- mance GrasIndians"), notsurprisingly, performance many discussions in everyday art(Schneider), and performance life to be underwritten plicitly takeperformance by a of identext. Thisviewis exemplified studies (Kapsalis); and theoretical investigations byimportant with Yetthe collocatetheatrical Gender performance that practice (Butler, Shakespeare tity Trouble). of performance has notreally studies scholarship (Styan, Shakespeare Revolution; Tay- burgeoning that trace histrionic clarified therelation between dramatic textsand lor,Reinventing Shakespeare), or illocution- performance. As an objectof and vehicleforsusandShakespeare) (Goldman, Acting in theplay texts, latent that tainedtheoretical dramatic ary(Berger)patterns inquiry, performance in performance describe theperformance "discoveries" studies with emerges marked productions often makeabouttheplays(Warren 3) orthe"decisions" thevaguecontemptibility ofthefamiliar. As Richconfront instaging a text must ardSchechner anyproduction putsitin a nownotorious comment (Dawson xi), orthat thedramatic text notonly in TDR: "[T]heatre interpret as we haveknown andpracticed as encoding intheeraoftheplay's it-the staging current practices ofwritten dramas-willbe thestring trouble in Shakespeare's composition (gender ofthe21stcentury: plays quartet a beloved butextremely in cross-dressing reflected bymale actorsplaying limited a subdivision ofperformance" genre, ("New femaleroles,forexample)butalso as responding Paradigm" 8).2 tothecircumstances ofmodem How practitioners stage performance.' ofperformance studies andof While thesemodes of performance analysisare dramatic studies understand dramatic performance highly developedin Shakespearestudies, similar is important, notbecauseSchechner is wrong, but scholar formations orbit other around playwrights, becausehe is mainly right. Understanding dramatic where criticism traces performative features ofthe performance as authorized in a relatively straightdramato designsin thedramatic text-Chekhov forward text does indeed waybya scripted consign (Styan,Chekhov), Beckett(Cohn), and Moliere theater that (andcriticism understands performance (Whitton) cometo mind, as do classicalGreek dra- tobe determined bythetext) tosomefaded concepmatists (Taplin; McDonald). tualLevittown: dramatic is a seriesof performance As MichaelBristol andothers haveobserved, this authorized eachplotted reproductions, on theblueviewoftextandperformance places performance print oftheauthorial text. Itmaybe that atthis moin a "ministerial" or "derivative" relation to the mentin thehistory of cultural in the production dramatic whichis regarded text, as theauthentic West, theperformance ofplaysis residual, a mode groundor source of theatrical meaning(Shakeofproduction inscribed fully within a discourse of speare's America105; Big-Time Shakespeare 61). textual andcultural authority (e.g.,Shakespeare or Therearevarious reasons to question thismodelof Beckett)that other kindsofperformance are able andthe"expansive performance, interdisciplinary to engagein more resistant, oppositional, emergent or postdisciplinary agenda"(Roach,Citiesxii) of ways.The apparent troping ofperformance bythe performance studies might be expected to relocate textseems so evident, so deeplyrooted-despite dramatic performance within a wider perspective, Artaud andhisinheritors-in conventional waysof an "antidiscipline" (Carlson188-89) notconcerned describing, andevaluating producing, Western drawith maintaining thepriority oftexts orwith seeing matic performance itis rarely that unpacked. Yetal-

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as a perthesenseofdramatic though performance formance as John ofa play is widespread, Rouse theword conremarks, just"what ofmeans"in this text is "far from clear"(146). How canperformance ofdrama studies helpmovetheliterary conception as beyond theincapacitating notion ofperformance of multia versionof thetext, a version emptied theprocessof (auplicity and ambiguity through how might a thorized) embodiment; alternatively, it as a mode of rethinking of dramareinvigorate a wayofexploring-not performance theory, prescribing-the possibilities ofperformance? Here I consider twoplaces where definitions of on an artificially narrow sense performance depend of therelationbetweentextsand performances: ofperformativity first, discussions andperliterary formance thatdevelopJ. L. Austin'saccountof speechacts and,second,thetribulations of textualityand textualizedmodels of performance in in performance performance studies, particularly ethnography. To ask howperformance ofa text-a difficult in itself-might be conceived toinphrase orretheorize vestigate theproblematics ofperforI conclude with a glanceatBaz Luhrmann's mance, recent film William RomeoandJuShakespeare's liet.ThoughLuhrmann's workis a film-perhaps givenlicensebecause it is nottiedto thetextual thatafflicts ontology common of understandings staged drama-it enactsa powerful theoretical encounter with thequestions I explore here, with ways ofrethinking therelations of authority that inform texts andperformances. I One wayliterary scholars haveadapted their underoftexts totheenvironment standing ofperformance is byusingAustin's approach to speechacts,workingto see theperformative mediating between languageandmodesofdoing. Muchas literary scholars tend to see dramatic performance as lapsedreading from deriving theproper meanings prescribed by thetext, is notoriously Austin skeptical oftheatrical performatives. of course,finds Austin, theatrical discourse peculiarly "hollow" "performative utterancewill,for be ina peculiarwayhollow example, orvoidifsaidbyan actor on thestage" (22)-insofaras itexemplifies a specialclass of infelicitous utterance in whichthemotives oftheagent("per-

orfeelings" certain sonshaving thoughts [15]) are embodiedin subseinsincere or are notdirectly can also be hollowin quentconduct (an utterance senseif"introduced ina poem, orspoken this in soexcludessuchhollowutterliloquy"[22]). Austin ance from consideration becauseituses precisely languagein ways he finds "parasiticupon [language's] normal use-ways whichfallunderthe oftheetiolations oflanguage" doctrine (22). Oddly enough, whileAustin'scavalierdismissalof theatricalperformatives-hollow to whom?in what sense?-now seemstodrive studies toward literary performativity and performance, itdoes so by asthepeculiar hollowness ofdramatic serting theater. Severalrecent efforts to use Austinto reclaim performance from dramatic workin this theater from way,segregating the unscripted performance ofthestage tawdriness toliberate performance (and performance studies) from itsinfelicitous connection tothe theatrical Andrew (andtotheater studies). Parker and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, forinstance, use Austin to chart a "convergence" between literandperformance arystudies studies that haspushed "ontocenter performativity stage"(1): "Ifone conofthis sequence hasbeena heightened appreciation to credit a performative willingness in dimension all ritual, another ceremonial, scripted behaviors, wouldbe theacknowledgment that philosophical essaysthemselves as one suchperforsurely count mativeinstance" (2). While it maybe a reliefto some thatphilosophers are now performers, it is striking to think that literary scholars haveonlyretheperformative cently recognized aspectsofrituals and ceremonies, a development they assignto thenewantidiscipline ofperformance studies. Acto Parker cording and Sedgwick,theater studies, itself "[r]eimagining overthecourse ofthepastdecade as thewider field ofperformance has studies," "movedwell beyond theclassicalontology ofthe black box modelto embracea myriad of performancepractices, from ranging stagetofestival and inbetween" everything (2).3 Parker andSedgwick's powerful reading ofAustinqueersfelicitous performativity, demonstrating its constitutive predication on the "etiolated"meaning "linkedwith theperverted, theartificial, theunnatural, theabnormal, thedecadent, theefthediseased"(5)-theatrical performance fete, it excludes.For thisreason,though, it is surprising

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andPerformance Drama,Performativioy,

in describing evolution ofthethat thedisciplinary aterstudiesintoperformance studiesParkerand theatrical use a contemporary convention Sedgwick oftheatrical fortheontology as a synecdoche perintheir viewthetheater andtheater formance: studies areepitomized bytheblackboxofmodem stage Giventhesubsequent discussionof marrealism. ofconventional itseemseviriageas a form theater, Parker andSedgwick meanby"black dent that what box model"is thespatialandperformance dynama perforics of modern proscenium performance, a century mancemodethat emerged barely ago, at thejuncture of thefamiliar and social, aesthetic, intechnological of Western (electricity) pressures a darkened a bourdustrial modernism: auditorium, conventions that confine geoisdrama, performance theplaybehind thefourth wallofa box setonstage. (In contemporary ofcourse, a blackbox is theater, a smalltheater to multiple conspace susceptible figurations and so to variouswaysof shaping the inthis senseblack-box thestage-audience relation; ater does nothavea proscenium. Whether theblack box-let alonethemodem house-deproscenium the"classicalontology" fines oftheater seemsopen toquestion.) theater studies' Ignoring long-standing in dramatic, interest and popularperforfestival, mance-as well as in thestageproduction of eras suchas thenineteenth often century, overlooked in accounts ofdramatic literature-Parker and Sedgwickenacta typically literary investdisciplinary ment intextually motivated forms ofmodem theater as definitive of theatrical production. Confining theater to theblackbox of modern stagerealism, Parker and Sedgwicktakeperformance studies to confirm theater as anessentially reproductive mode; viewtheater as a parasite on thedramatic they text, muchas Austin saw itas a parasite on language. Despite thisdisciplinary prejudice, Parker and read Austinin a way that Sedgwicknonetheless a more subtle imagines andadequate relation among and performance. drama, theater, Developingthe readingof Austinin Derrida's"Signature Event Parker and Sedgwick Context," notethat Austin's exclusion oftheatrical discourse from ordinary performance finally predicates performative utterance on the"hollow"citationality characteristic of the stage.Parker and Sedgwick opentheterrain ofthe performative bydeconstructing Austin's opposition

"normal" and etiolated bebetween performance, tween thefelicitously andthetheatriperformative be distinguished cal: performative speechcannot from the"hollow" utterances ofthestageon thebaas though sis oforiginality, nontheatrical speaking wereauthentic andnonrepetitive. Performatives can workfelicitously that like onlyto theextent they, theatrical arereiterable, that performance, they siga processof citation; nify through utterances perform actions iterate familiar verbal onlywhenthey or behavorial But whilethisdeconstrucregimes. tionreveals thecitational "hollowness" ofordinary it does not seem, conlanguageperformatives, to render the"hollowness" versely, to the peculiar Whileordinary-language felicitous.4 stage anymore performatives notas words butas a reiterasignify tionofvarious andbehavorial ideological regimes, theatrical theconventional performance-in literary senseassumed andbyParker byAustin andSedgwick-is understood in literary principally terms, as a modeof speaking The theater, scripted words. in thissense,is understood to signify principally thedramatic byreiterating text (a modeofcitation thatrenders theater peculiarly "hollow"),notby in theconstitutive deploying ciscripted language tational behaviors proper to thecircumstances of hereto thestage.Butis itlanguage, utterance, the thatmotivates text, theforceof dramatic performance?Is it,in other words, thedramatic text that thecitational ofthetheater performances cite? Parker and Sedgwick's senseoftheater andtheatricalperformance is dramatized in their canny examination of Austin'srelianceon the marital vow ("I do") as an instance ofperformative speech of (illocution), itself marriage as theater-marriage as a kind offourth wallorinvisible proscenium arch that moves through the world (a heterosexual couple secure intheir right toholdhands inthestreet), continually reorienting around itself thesurrounding relations ofvisibility andspectatorship, ofthe tacit andthe explicit, ofthe possibility orimpossibility ofa given person's articulating a given enunciatory position. (11) Parker and Sedgwickarguethat theperformative forceof marriage is enactednotby theAustinian thetext "I do,"butbythewaysthis utterance, utter-

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citesand theceremony, within ancetext, performed heteroof compulsory so reenacts theinstitutions that is "likea play"totheextent sexuality. Marriage a theater whose realistic theater, it is like modern and spectator"relations ofvisibility conventional mask the ship,"as Brechtlong ago recognized, ideological laborbehindits claims to versimilar definirepresentation: "Likethemostconventional liketheworking precisely, tion ofa play"-or,more realistic of modern playsin a modeofproduction that Parker associated with theatricality proscenium definiand Sedgwick taketo be the"conventional as a specis constituted tionofa play"-"marriage to either tacle thatdeniesits audiencetheability in it"(11). itorequallytointervene lookawayfrom rethink theworking Parker brilliantly andSedgwick "I do"; it gainsits force of Austin'sillocutionary ofa text, notbecause notbecauseitis an utterance an action, butbethewords themselves accomplish an entire cause the"I do" citesand so reproduces ofperformance. Thatthisperformance-the genre of heteronormativity-is coercivecitation epitotheater revealshow Parker mized as proscenium and how they and Sedgwickconceiveof theater to performance theater relative andto the position ofperformance ForParker and "wider field studies." ofmodtakethecharacteristic formation Sedgwick emtheater-the silent immobilized before audience the frame where alltheaction is (faked); proscenium an audience from from visiremoved participation, from thespectacle their individual bility, consuming ofindividualized subjects seats;a darkened throng theillusion ofcommunitydisciplined byandinto to epitomize dramatic theater itself. Reducing theaterto thecharacteristic ideologicalapparatus of modemrealism, Parker and Sedgwick's stageis fiofpowerful yetcoercive convennallytheemblem much modem theater is). tionality (as, ofcourse, "Whenis sayingsomething doingsomething? Andhowis saying something doingsomething?"as Parker andSedgwick imply, one oftheproblems of modeling dramatic on Austinian performance is that is reduced tothe performativity performance of language,words,as though draperformance matic ormost essentially, performance weremerely, a modeof utterance, production the(infelicitous) of speechacts(1). The conundrum that Parker and viewof Sedgwickenactherehas to do withtheir

themodeof utterance dramatic performance-or citation of as acting-as a straightforward known textand nontheatrical performance thedramatic for as a modeof (themarriage ceremony, example) thetext extends wellbeyond that ("I do"), citation instead of thetext themeanings that reconstitutes it Indeed, ofbeingdetermined bythosemeanings. reParker andSedgwick's that is in thisdistinction for of speechactsholdsthemostpromise thinking For while of dramatic a rethinking performance. a peculiarly hollowsign remains forthem theater arereproduced ofhow social hegemonies through ofvisibility a conventional (theprosceapparatus modesofdramatic narrative niumandtherealistic it shapes),themarriage and audienceinteraction a searching modelof therelaceremony provides a tionbetweentexts("I do") and performances, dramodelmoreadequateto thetaskof figuring matic It is notthetext that prescribes performance. themeanings oftheperformance: itis theconstrucofthe tionofthetext within thespecific apparatus The perthat creates force. ceremony performative formance is nota citation ofthetext. The ceremony the text-and else-as much partof an deploys of elaborate reiteration a specific visionof social on themeaning oftheperformance depends order: thecitation notof thetextbutof theregimesof on theinterplay among heterosexual socialization, a specific individual the"materitext, performers, ofperformance" (Diaalityandhistorical density mond, Introduction 5), andthewebofperformance as a meanpractices that constitute theperformance citation. thetheater is, forParker ingful Although andSedgwick, still their ofnonhollow, discussion theatrical dramatic perperformance suggests that formance shouldbe releasedfrom thechargeof "obeisance" to theplaywright's or thetext'sauIntroduction thority (Diamond, 3). reconstitutes the text;it does not Performing the Performance echo, givevoiceto,ortranslate text. does notcitethetextanymorethan "I do" constitutes theforce of marriage.5 performance Instead, ciproduces thetext within a system ofmanifestly tational behavior, suchthat when"a performance itdrawson 'works,"'itdoes so "totheextent that and coversover theconstitutive conventions by whichit is mobilized"(Butler, ExcitableSpeech of 51). If, as Judith Butlerarguesin hercritique

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andPeformnance Drama,Peform'ativio,

theperlocutionary claimsof antipornography cen"theperformativity of thetextis notunsorship, control" themeanings dersovereign of (69), then be attributed to the theatrical cannot performance control of thedramatic text. Does stage sovereign less as an uttering performance operate citationally, oftheconor iterating of a text than as an iterating of performance, ventions whichaccumulate "the
the repetition or citation force of authority through of a prior and authoritative set ofpractices" (51)?

As a citational practice, dramatic performancelikeall other notso much performance-is engaged inciting texts as inreiterating itsownregimes; these regimescan be understood to cite-or, perhaps to resignify-socialand behavorial subversively, practices that operateoutsidethetheater and that constitute social life.The citational contemporary practicesof the stage-acting styles,directorial on and transconventions, scenography-operate form texts intosomething with force: performative behavior. The invocation of Ausperformances, tintendsto associatetheatrical performance with speechand so leads ineluctably to theportrayal of a performance's relation tothedramatic text as akin toAustin's ofan utterance's account relation tolanguage:dramatic theater is understood as a perlocuin which tionary medium, theperformance onstage is a direct consequence ofperformatives inscribed inthetext. Thisapplication ofperformativity todramatic reinforces performance thesensethat performances arescripted bytheir texts andso reproduces bothtraditional andrecent controverdisciplinary sies among drama studies, theater studies, andperformance A moreconsistent studies. rereading of an application Austin, of thedeconstruction of "I do" notonlyto social actionsbutto dramatic performance as well,wouldrelocatethefunction of thetextin theperformance, conceivethetextas material forlabor, fortheworkofproduction. Aldramatic though usestexts, performance itis hardly authorized topreserve bythem: this claimis topreservethesenseof dramatic performance as a hollow,evenetiolated, speciesoftheliterary. II

mance is by takingit merelyas a reiteration of a citation that or textual texts, imports auliterary In partbecause perforintoperformance. thority shares this senseofdramatic mancestudies literary it has successfully invoked theater, ethnographic ofritual behavior as a way models andeveryday-life toredefine inexplicitly and performance nonliterary Notsurprisingly, nontheatrical terms. Clifperhaps, of culture fordGeertz'sreadings as text-which havebeeninfluential in thepractice ofnewhistoricism and in its morphing intocultural poeticsprovidea defining For while pointof contention. thetextualization ofculture enabled studies literary to generalizeinterpretive from practices textsto other theethnographic inphenomena, approaches vokedin performance havecome to resist studies as texts. In part, reading performances thishesitationstemsfrom a laudabledesirenotto privilege thedramatic theater of theWestas a paradigm of performance: notonly,of course,are manynonWestern performance forms butinmany nontextual, ofthosethat use texts-No, forexample-thetext does notfunction as itdoes in conventional Westerntheater. But thisresistance is sometimes also driven bysuspicion regarding writing's implication inthereproduction ofauthority andconsequently in thereproduction of socialhegemonies. Resistance to a textualizing is modeled,in other ethnology words,on thedialecticbetween texts authorized andresistant performances that informs Parker and ofperformativity. Sedgwick's understanding In thisview-elegantly argued byDwight Conquergood Rhetoric" ("Ethnography, and"Rethinking Ethnography")-Geertz's textual modelofculture embodies a profound desireto represent other cultures within Western epistemologies. Geertztypicallytakes the ofa people"as "anensemble "culture of texts, themselves whichtheanthroensembles, pologist strains to readovertheshoulders ofthose towhom they properly belong" (452). The Balinese totakeGeertz's cockfight, celebrated example, does for other what, peoples with other temperaments and
other Lear and Crimeand Punishment conventions,

One of thewaysbothliterary studiesand performancestudies havemisconceived dramatic perfor-

do; itcatches upthese themes-death, masculinity, rage, pride, loss, beneficence, chance-and, ordering them into anencompassing structure, presents them in

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view of into relief a particular such a wayas tothrow their essential nature. (443) articulates thepractices ofother Geertz culclearly in theWest,but tureswiththerole of literature aboutthetextualizawhatdisturbs Conquergood Ethis a more fundamental tionofculture problem. of that it readstheculture nography, to theextent a colonizing as texts, nonliterate societies prolongs oftheother in project, modeling theepistemologies terms. that to regard Western Conquergood argues as a textand to represent is to itin writing culture notonlyin ofother cultures represent theprocesses of Western andrepresentaterms waysof knowing texts-thathave tionbutalso in forms-writing, often andexploit them.6 beenusedto dominate insteadto Conquergoodcalls forethnography as botha mode of investigation use performance He remarks and a mode of representation. that altersthe "performance-sensitive ethnography" of theresearch which "powerdynamic situation,' movesfrom the "changeswhentheethnographer observer anddetached to the gaze ofthedistanced involvement andengagement of 'coactivintimate withhistorically ity'or co-performance situated, named, 'uniqueindividuals"' ("Rethinking Ethnography"187-88). As GeorgeE. Marcusnotes,the of ethnographic "mise-en-scene" changing representation-associated"withthewriting of James and looselyderived Clifford from MikhailBakhtin'snotions ofpolyphony anddialogism as an alternative to themonologicauthority of modesof inthenovel"(91-92)-has forever voicing changed ethicsof ethnography, thefundamental as well as notions of collaboration, ethnographic complicity, and activism. objectivity, disinterestedness, Conquergoodmorenarrowly phrases thistransformationas a basic asymmetry in thepowerrelations ascribed to writing andperforming; byengaging in andvaluing performance, can alter ethnography its andprocedures: "Theperfordisciplinary processes manceparadigm can helpethnographers recognize 'thelimitations of literacy' andcritique thetextualistbias of western civilization" ("Rethinking Ethnography" 188).To Conquergood, theassertion of performance-asobject,as practice, as a means of scholarly dissemination-against texts, textualand thetextualizing ity, practices of conventional

oftactically ethis a means ethnography resituating andethnographers in a collaborative nography reandin a "subversive" lationship with their subjects oftheacademy" relation tothe "text-bound structure ofauthorization anditstraditional system (190). has thesaluPerformance-sensitive ethnography ofenabling andtheir audieffect tary ethnographers andperhaps to circumvent encestorecognize such Butwhileperformance colonizing epistemologies. an "opposition maysharewith rhetoric to foundationalist thought" (Conquergood, "Ethnography, as a modeofreRhetoric" 80), to see performance is to mistake sistanceto textual theinauthority for strumental theessential. Whilewriting (in some coat least)maynowbe associated with situations, lonialhegemony, with is hardly complicity authority of foundational to textual The authority practices. writing and other as modesof culperformances turalproduction is determined much as thatof acts is: an conwithin elaborate, speech historically of network citational tingent, dynamic possibilities. is alert to this Although Conquergood point ("How does performance chalreproduce, enable,sustain, andnaturalize lenge,subvert, critique, ideology?" he asks["Rethinking Ethnography" 190]),the habitual collocation oftextuality with reflects authority moreclearlyon the uses of writing-in ethnoin a culture at large-thanon esgraphic practice, sential features of texts orperformances as forms ofcultural production.7 Shakespearean drama, for nowbe taken as an example oftexexample, might tualculture, ofan avowedly indeed as part imperial educational Yetas Leah Marproject (see Bennett). cusandothers havesuggested, Shakespeare's works wereperhaps notviewed as textual inhisera,when thetransformation from oralto literate culture was far fromcomplete,even withinthe practiceof theater Shakespeare's (see 132-76);theattribution ofauthority to textual, as opposedto oral,communicationmay well have remained contestable to someextent throughout Shakespeare's career. And whileprint is nowcloselyidentified with authority in various ways-colonial, cultural, academic-it often playsa subversive roleinrelation tothetransmissionpractices of traditional or elite cultures. Elizabethan for manuscript circulation, examplea densely of thehothouse performed practice cultureof thecourt(see Wall; Whigham)-wouldin

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Drama,Performativit, andPerformance

thissensehavebeencountered byprinting, which makesreading generally morewidely"accessible through a system ofcommodity that efexchange fectively disempowers traditional forms of surveillance and control foranyonewho knowshow to read"(Bristol, Big-Time Shakespeare 44). While it is timeforthepresumed of authority texts overperformances to be displaced, Conquerto sensethat if"thePerformance goodis right Parais pitted digmsimply theTextual against Paradigm, then itsradical willbe coopted force byyetanother either/or construction that binary ultimately reproduces modernist The Performance thinking. Paradigmwillbe mostusefulifit decenters, without texts" discarding, ("Rethinking Ethnography" 191). Yetin somerespects, this"radicalforce" depends on a foundational theuntenable binary, opposition between texts andperformances. Forthesamereason thatConquergoodcelebratestheconnection between rhetoric and performance in a presumed to foundationalist "opposition itremains thought," important notto relocate that in an opfoundation position between scriptedand unscripted performances. To see performance as an "essentially contested concept" (Strine, Long,andHopkins 183) is to see thatcontestation takingplace not only within performance butalongitsborders as well, as JosephRoach impliesin suspending a "schematized opposition of literacy and orality as transcendent categories," that arguing "these modesof communication haveproduced one another interovertime"(Cities 11).Texts-with their actively boundaries in flux, their authors appearing anddiseventheir appearing, typography dissolving on the computer screen-might as wellbe seenas similarly contested fields in which fields, notions of authorityare constantly under negotiation, redefinition, A more change. sophisticated understanding ofhow performativity operates in thetheater wouldmake itdifficult to see dramaand theater as ineluctably authoritarian, dependent on thereproduction (rather than thedecentering, theremaking as performance) of texts. Can theconceptual toolsof performance studies andperformance theory be used to expand thewaysoftalking about dramatic performance that do notpersistently ground it in textual meanings, thereencoding in action ofessentially textual messages,theauthority ofthescript, thetext?

III Whataredramatic performances performances of? One of themostdisabling aspectsofperformance criticism ofdramais thewayittends-or until rehas tended-to regard cently theperformance as a reading, interpretation, realization ofthetext(or, much thesamething, oftheplayoritspotentialities To saythat or,for a perexample, ofShakespeare). is ofa textis immediately formance to recognize that itsrelation to that is extremely text tenuous: a performance is notusually in anydirect ofone text ofdifferent sincea number sense, versions ofa classicplaymight be consulted as part oftheproduction process andmany areproduced scripts andusedin theprocess of shaping a play.In contemporary textual scholarship, thewidespread of interrogation how texts constitute authority wouldmakesucha claim similarly problematic (see McGann;Bornstein andWilliams; Shillingsburg; Grigely; Masten). Thetext is absorbed into themultifarious verbal and nonverbal oftheatrical discourses production, transformed intoan entirely incommensurable an thing, event. Textsin thetheater arealwaysmorelikethe bookthan phone likeHamlet: aretransformed they bytheperformative environment ofthetheater into something else, a performance. One function of conventional theater is to assert therhetoric of of, an assertion that is boundup inconventions ofperformance rather thanin an essentialrelation between texts andenactments. The problem ofdramatic theater's citationality is a complexone, and manydramatic performances (hose-and-doublet Shakespeare) areinscribed with use acting, authorizing gestures: they dicostume, rection, theentire mise-en-scene to claim an aulocatedin a certain thority of a text, understanding a genre, a performance tradition, a mystified author. Performances do notsignify byciting texts. A performance createsa sense of "proximity" (to the to something text, else) as part ofitsrhetorical deployment ofcontemporary conventions ofperforas a wayofclaiming mance, "something wevalue."8 As rhetoric, suchgestures are hardly confined to dramatic performance. Theatricalproduction whichrecastsand so re-creates the script in another idiom,as speech,gesture, or actionthatis entirely incommensurable with notions ofthetext

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itself-should notbe seenas distinctively preoccupied withquestionsof authority. Such a viewigof authentication nores thediscourse a surrounding variety ofperformance andperformance-art forms, like Spalding notonlytheworkof monologuists Gray and Karen Finley,but also thatof Anna DeavereSmith-whoseelaborately depersonalized miming of herinterview subjects mayrecallJames Clifford's of "Geertz'sabrupt critique disappearance intohis rapport" (40-41)-or performances that appear to citea personal relation to thesubject matter In all these (AnnieSprinkle comestomind). cases, performance is performative in Butler's as a "ritualized sense, that "draws working practice" on and coversovertheconstitutive conventions by which itis mobilized" (Excitable Speech51); sometimesthoseconventions an illusory summon textualauthority, sometimes they do not. So whatoptionsare there forrepositioning the textwithin an understanding of theworkof dramatic performance? Is itpossible, as Joseph Roach to see performance-dramatic perforsuggests, mance-"as an alternative or a supplement to textualmediation" ("Kinship" 221)? Roachis talking hereaboutperformative research and dissemination, butI want totakehimin a different sense,one amplified bytheaccount of "surrogation" he gives in CitiesoftheDead (2-3). To Roach,performance can be describedas surrogation, an uncanny replacement an ambivalent acting, replaying ofprevious performers and performances by a current behavior. An actofmemory andan actofcreation, performance recallsand transforms thepastin the form ofthepresent. Like Schechner's "restored behavior"("CollectiveReflexivity" 39), surrogation involves notthereplaying ofan authorizing text, a butthepotential grounding origin, to construct that as a rhetorically origin powerful effect of performance.To consider theperformance of a play an act of surrogation, an act generating "improvised narratives of authenticity and priority" that often ''congealintofull-blown myths of legitimacy and origin"(Roach, Cities 3), is to altertheconventionalpriority of textto performance. Dramatic performance becomesmorelikenondramatic suritbecomesan act-like theperformance rogation; ofthemarital citationality "I do"-in which an un-

ofthetext notas thecausebut derstanding emerges as a consequence ofperformance. Although Roachtends toframe performance surthat rogation as a form ofresistant is remembering he associates opposedto theoppressive forgetting withtextual thepowerof thissense transmission, lies inhowitreflects ofsurrogation thetransformative nature ofthecultural transmission ofmeanings, textualas well as performative.9 "It is somewhat ina provocdisconcerting," remarks Joseph Grigely ativestudy ofthetransmission ofartworks, "given therecord ofunending changephysically altering that artworks, that many peoplecontinue to believe artis immutable, that theartist's areparintentions and thatoriginalworksshouldbe 'preamount, served'from variousagentsofchange"(6). From Grigely'sperspective, the transmission of arttexts, plays,sculpture, inpaintings-necessarily volvessurrogation, a continual "processof being unmade (as an object)andremade (as a text andas memory)," a kindofperformance he calls "textualterity" (33, 1). Drawingfrom Derrida'sunderof citation, standing thenotion Grigely of deploys "iteration" to characterize notonlythetransmissionoftexts butalso theongoing negotiation ofthe meaning ofartworks inculture. He argues that while "isiterative language totheextent that itis a socially sharedcode,"utterances-andtexts-seem to be noniterable (93). Utterances "maysurvive thedeath oftheaddressee, butin a specialway:they become desyntagmatized, lifted from thecontext of articulation, butdo notcease to function" (94). The implications fortextual andperformance studies here shouldbe clear: "although language(langage) is iterable, thisiterability beginsto rupture whenappliedto utterances (parole)" (96); as a result, "the fixedness ofa text is as illusory as thefixedness of an interpretation; neither is final, neither is authorial" (108). Grigelyarguesthattextualstudiesfrequently thenature misunderstands of iteration: insofar as textsare products of theworking of culture at a givenmoment in history, copies oftexts produced undernew conditions do not iterate theoriginal text. A performance, likean "edition, likea text, is a siteof passage of a workof literature: merely a sitein which instabilities arebothmadeandmade manifest" (118). Grigety's sense of the cultural

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iteration of artworks dramatic brings performance closer to an act of surrogation in Roach's sense. Muchas Hamlet exists as a work iterated variously in a textualhistory-as a rangeof printed, unprinted, and hypothetical (Shakespeare'smanuin various script)texts-so it is also surrogated in innumerable forms, audiotape, videotape, film, and stageperformances. A performance ofHamlet is nota performance ituses a text ofa text. Instead, (usuallya palimpsest of texts)ofHamletwithin a specific selection ofavailable ofproduction regimes setandcostume (acting style; therepresendesign; tational rhetoric ofstage, orvideo)toperform film, a newiteration ofHamlet, an iteration that-though it maybe encodedwithsignsof fidelity or resistance, toan "original," toHamlet, toShakespeareis finally a surrogation ofthework, one instance of "thedoomedsearchfororiginals by continuously stand-ins" auditioning (Roach,Cities3). How candramatic performance be conceived not as theperformance butas an actofiteraofthetext an utterance, tion, a surrogate in that standing positions, thetextwithin uses, signifies thecitational practicesof performance? Drivenin partby Artaud'scry"No moremasterpieces," stageperformanceduring thepastthree decadeshas often tried to disentangle itswork from theapparent authority of thetext, whileat thesame timeengaging with classic drama.I am notthinking hereof thelong tradition (datingto the 1920s) of setting classic playsin modemdressorin alternative "historical" Such productions settings. usuallydressconventionalnotions of textual in newclothes authority (see Berry14-23). Nor am I thinking of experimental productions like thePerformance Group's Dionysus in 69,a landmark participatory, "environmental" production nonetheless deeplygoverned byEuripides's TheBacchae.Instead, I haveinmind productions thatresituate the production of the text in theperformance in unconventional waysthrough speech, gesture, physical enactment-and thus theauthority resignify conventionally ascribed tothetext. In Robert Wilson's production ofIbsen's When WeDead Awaken, forinstance, theperformers'stiff gestures andoperatically unrealistic speech patterns prevented theassimilation ofthewords toa senseofpsychologically motivated character, usually viewedas a signof fidelity to Ibsen onstage. Oneofthemost powerful stage performances I have

seenrecently, Going, Going, Gone,a work"[c]onceivedand [d]irected" and "[c]rebyAnneBogart atedand[p]erformed" bytheSaratoga International Theater Institute also uses performance company, to interrogate textual and exemplifies functioning one version ofperformance-sensitive research. The cast consistsof an older and a younger couple whoseages,gestures, andbehavior evoke costumes, theactionof EdwardAlbee's Who'sAfraid of VirginiaWoolf? The stagesetandphysical enactment reiterate Albee'sWalpurgisnacht, oratleastRichard Burton's andElizabeth the Taylor's performances; actors'intonations, and movement posture, enact discussion, argument, seduction, "gettheguests," surrogating thebehavorial of Who's regimes Afraid In placeofAlbee'sdialogue, ofVirginia Woolf? the actors speakfragments drawn from a rangeof scientific andnonscientific (Stephen Hawking) (T. S. Eliot,William a pastiche of NewtonBlake) texts, ian,quantum and literary mechanical, utterances aboutthephysicalworldin its gross,subatomic, andpoetic As thedirector manifestations. TinaLandau remarks, in Bogart's work"themovement has been freed from thetextso thateach is informed totheother byandrelated without itbeing thesame as theother" of Going,Going, (25). The meaning Gone cannotbe ascribedto thetext;theperformancecannotbe understood-as productions of or Ibsenor Beckett Shakespeare are-as a usually realization, translation, interpretation, orcitation of (potentialities latent in) thetext. ButwhileGoing, Gonemight Going, tobe a specialcase,itis appear in fact thenormative case ofdramatic performance. Much as "I do" gainsitsforcefrom thecitational behaviors within whichitis performed, so too the dramatic text ofmoreconventional playsgainsits force in performance thebehaviors from that constitute itas meaningful. Thisinterrogation oftheworking oftexts relative toperformances is notmerely theprovince ofperformance studies orof avant-garde theater; itis the work-often onlytheimplicit work-of dramatic performance. Indeed,it impelstheactionof Baz Luhrmann's widely distributed film William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. To be sure,as a film, Luhrmann's work in a modeofsurrogation engages unlike that of theatrical performance. As a perforitis preoccupied mance, lesswith thetheatrical than with televisual citation, with theself-conscious ad-

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dressto an MTV audienceembodiedin itsurban andpop-music visualsaturation, setting, quickcuts, is also signaled in the soundtrack. Thisdimension ofthefilm, in which moments opening andclosing on a television screen a newscaster speakstheproof logue and epilogue,and by the superposition creditsovertheinitialappearancesof themajor Father" characters: "FulgensioCapuletas Juliet's in and andso on. Shakespeare's language performs so is constituted bysuchcitations: MTV; themadefor-TV ofClaireDanes andLeonardo acting styles in theopenthat DiCaprio;thespanoffilm history and ing scene alone encompasses1950s westerns like BoyzN theHood; thevoguing gangstafilms (reminiscent ofbothMadonna'svideoand Jennie film Paris Is Burning)thatsustains Livingston's lendsMercuMercutio's QueenMab sceneandthat as tio's entire performance meaningful specificity performance. Although Timothy Murray rightly sees thefilm's oftelevision as a surrogation citation oftheplayful feelofShakespeare's theater-"as the mechanism ofirony andhyperbole for destabilizing which rhetoric andperspective weretheplayful engineson theRenaissance stage"(2)-most critical reception ofthefilm haspaidonlypassing attention to thecitational oftheperformance, texture focusinginstead on therelation between these"effects" and theirputativecause in Shakespeare'stext. WhileStanley forinstance, Kauffmann, recognizes thefilm's in musicvideo("One visual implication cascade after one soundblast-mostlyof another, rock-afteranother" theperfor[40]), he regards mance'ssuccessorfailure as a function ofhowwell it reproduces thetext.Thoughfinally preferring Luhrmann's approach to Trevor Nunn's"fiddling" with decorin Twelfth Kauffmann sees LuhrNight, mannas "in effect doinga translation, almost as if he hadrendered thetext intoFinnish orBulgarian, with a fewEnglish wispsremaining as souvenirs of theorigin" (42). How doesWilliam Shakespeare's RomeoandJulietrepresent therelation between texts andperforThe film's mances? engagement with thedynamics of surrogation beginswith itstitle. The title I have usedabove,in accordance with MLA style for regularizing titles-Shakespeare's title, so to speakneverappearsin thefilm: Romeoand Juliet. The film's copyright title replacestheand with&, and thetitleshownin theopening andclosingtitle se-

and as well as in advertising quences of thefilm, a large that & within promotional material, frames the& alredcross(whenitdoes notdo awaywith Romeo+ Juliet. together): Evoking, recalling, yet of Shakespeare's title thecanonical replacing play, withthequestionsI have thefilm is preoccupied raisedhere,questionsthatapplyto anydramatic performance: How does performance interrogate itsrelation How does itmark thetext? to,itssurrogation (and so itsconstitution) of,thetext? Despite ofto distance effort itself thefilm's from-indeed, enin itsself-conscious tento repudiate-the text, witha Shakespearean it seems gagement "origin" in various theplace ofShakespeare waysto inspect in contemporary and Shakespearean texts culture, and reenactideas about Shaketo memorialize inperformance, andtoreflect on spearean authority therelation andcitation. among text, performance, film The texture of Luhrmann's is replete with visualallusions to,citations of,andstagings ofthe text.The film's itsflorid Cadense,vividpalette, and itshyped-up resonate tholicism, gangculture of Shakespeare's againstthebaroquecomplexity whileat thesametime thelocal jargon, language, marking theperformance's distance from theclassical sounds of "Shakespearean" Moreto the acting. words ofthetext arerepresented visupoint, many ally,as words,oftenas labels. For example,the "swords" that andBenvolio refer toin act 1, Tybalt scene 1 are elaborate, jeweled pistolsinlaidwith religious icons;whenBenvoliocries, "Putup your swords"(1.1.65), thecamerawork focuseson his pistoland-more important-on themanufacturer's label engraved on thebarrel: Sword9mmSeries 5. WhenCapuletcalls forhis "long sword" (1.1.75), he reachesabove thedoorofthelimoin whichhe is riding foran automatic rifle labeled Longsword. Luhrmann's film is fullofsuchtextsthePostHastemailing that gags,perhaps: company Friar Lawrence uses to contact Romeoin Mantua; theGroveof Sycamore, an abandoned movietheaterby thebeach whereRomeo lurksat theplay's In fact, thevisualtexture ofthefilm opening. is reallusions that extend pletewith beyond thelinesof of Shakespeare Shakespeare's playto thetexture theauthor and cultural icon: theMontague boys' nunswiththeline "bubble,bubble,toil taunting andtrouble" in theopening scene;theGlobe Theatrepool hall whereRomeo hangsout; a signfor

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"The Merchant of VeronaBeach"; thebillboard "origin" thetextin a specific byperforming citaslogan"I amthy Friend" tionalenvironment-the Pistolandthy IV verbal,visual,gestural, (2 Henry 5.3.93); "Prospero" scrawledon a fence;perhaps andbehavioral ofyouth ofMTV. dynamics culture, evenLadyCapulet's The textinserted into Luhrmann's filmfails to Elizabeth-Taylor-as-Cleopatra for costume theball. transform theimagesintoShakespearean properThe film setsthedramatic ties: like thewordswordand thepistolit labels, within performance a visibletexture ofverbal citation. andimagestand in a dialectical Yetwhileitstex- text relation ofdiftualliteralism a "neatconceitthat ference. Romeo"+" Juliet maybe merely citesthetextofRomeo getsridofanyhistorical in theverse" and Juliet, of Shakespeare, bumps onlyto dramatize that (Lane 66; see also Turan), performances Romeo "+" Julietseemsto ponever citetexts. sitionShakespeare'stextironically, thescript as a way of intothevisualtexture Writing of the a moveawayfrom marking whattheperformance performance, Luhrmann landsa palpablehitat the is not, whatno performance ofperformance can be: Shakespeare's practice analysisand at thedisciRomeoand Juliet. framing ofdrama One of themostsophisticated plinary andperformance studies. The film aspectsofthefilm is itsalertness dramatizes thelimitations to theprocessof ofconventional notions of dramatic its simultaneous surrogation, performance; invocation and disthe literalizing placement it showsthat ofthe"original." The film thetextcannot marks itsfi- textin performance, delityto Shakespeare'sRomeo and Juliet The dramacan be proat the be stagedas performance. a webofcitation-beitMTV,modem precisemoment it marks that itsdistance from it, ducedwithin realism, thepost-Brechtian-quasi-Method whenitcitesthetext compro(e.g.,"longsword")as texta text theauthentic that retoday, is instantly replaced byperformance; re- miseof mostShakespeare woolensofthenewGlobe-and itcan in an explicitly figured modem, non-Shakespearean constructed onlybyoras itssurrogates. The survisualregister; In Luhrmann's consumed. the be performed film, rogation of thedrama, theperforming of thetext is registered text bothas a cultural and commodity theregimesof contemporary behavior, is as an itemin commodity The Shakespear- within culture. of theplay; it marks theways-as ean text theactorsspeakis partof a widertexture nota betrayal Luhrmann's film demonstrates-that dramatic perthat blursintothe"Shakespearean" lexiconofadfarfrom formance, beingauthorized by itsscript, vertising and sutures thetext to theother mediaof of itsauthorization in perforitsperformance, the offilm, discourses music, video. producestheterms reiteration, To putShakespeareintotheplay is not,thefilm mance,raising(as all acts of citation, do) theseterms forinspection at seemsto argue, to stagetheplayin someimpossi- and surrogation itactsto concealthem. As a surrogate, blyliterary act ofreiteration. Instead itis to regis- themoment memorializes a past(that itpartly invents) terthewaysthat contemporary modesof cultural thefilm a newwork. Romeo "+" Juliet makes production can and do constitute theirauthority andconstitutes workto conceal: the surrogation through of Shakespeareand the visiblewhatmostperformances performance, like all other perforwaysthat Shakespearean drama, theShakespearean thatdramatic originating in thetext, can only text-which canbe performed onlyinthecitational mance,farfrom citeitstextual "origins" with an additive gesture, a regimes of contemporary performance behavioras theghostly emerges "origin" ofa contemporary kindof "+." process ofsurrogation. Citingthetext-the verbaltextof theplay,the cultural text ofShakespeare-Luhrmann's film undertakes a shrewd reflection oftherelation between classic textsand theirperformances, presenting Notes thisversion of Shakespeare's work notas a perforversions ofthis essaywerediscussed in a seminar atthe manceof thetextand notas a translation of the Earlier 1997 Shakespeare Associationannualconference and by the workbutas an iteration of thework, an iteration Performance Analysis working group oftheInternational Fedthatnecessarily invokesand displaces a textual eration forTheatre Research;I am grateful to bothgroups for

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Steenfor I am especiallygrateful to Shannon comments. their for hercomments Hodgdon andtoBarbara response herdetailed a copyofheressay mewith andfor providing draft on an earlier itspublication. before and (Dramatist through G. E. Bentley 'FromE. K. Chambers andShakespearean Stage), Gurr (Playgoing Player)to Andrew Louis Montrose,Jean Howard, StephenOrgel, and others, has longbeen occupiedwithinterpreting studies Shakespeare workings andideological professional, economic, thematerial, has coexisted-sometheater. This tradition of Shakespeare's to understand Shakespeare timesuneasily-alongside efforts ofperforForan overview ofperformance. themedium through andThompson; see Thompson of Shakespeare, mancecriticism and PerforTheory, fora critique, see Bulman,Shakespeare, The ApplauseShakespeare manceand "On BeingUnfaithful." thetext contains that enshrined thenotion has recently Library Each volumein theseperformances. all potential (legitimate) or on thetext" byan actor "a continuous commentary riesoffers actors-line by from director that"shows whatis demanded outwhatdecisionsaboutinlinewhere necessary-andpoints reading vi). Fora brilliant havetobe made"(Brown terpretation film and stage in Shakespearean ofembodiment ofthepolitics see Hodgdon. performance, formastudiesowes muchof itsinstitutional 2Performance thedepartment whoin 1980founded tionto Richard Schechner, moved having at New YorkUniversity, ofperformance studies in 1967,andwhorechristened the there from TulaneUniversity New Orto New Yorkfrom Drama Review(whichhe brought ofPerformance leans) TDR: TheDrama Review:TheJournal in thetheater, career esin 1988. Schechner's extensive Studies workwith thePerformance Groupin peciallyhis experimental involvedtheinterplay the 1960s and 1970s,has consistently Thisreandritual performance. nontheatrical, dramatic, among with theanthrois also central to hisfertile collaboration lation culminated inTurner's influential Victor which Turner, pologist Ritualto Theatre imporbookFrom (1982) andto Schechner's andon the andnontheatrical enactment tant essayson theatrical (see "Collecoftheatrical and social performance intersections see also Roach,"KinandPerformance Theory; tiveReflexivity" this"string Schechner has modified ship"218-20). Recently, intheTwenty-First Century"). position (see "Theatre quartet" simiSedgwick 3In an earlier article, "QueerPerformativity," to leveragetheperformative "the awayfrom larlyundertakes in thedefining (2) notion of a performance instance theatrical" a reading of through andto developthissenseofperformativity James's TheArt oftheNovel. Henry 4Likethetheater, "theperformative has thus beenfrom itsinandSedgwick infected with queerness" (Parker already ception as prejudice of antitheatrical a conventional strain 5), inspiring well(see Barish). as Judith Butler thecitation oflegalprecesuggests, 51ndeed, the dentsappears(evenmorethandramatic theater) to ground deterwhileitin fact text, ofa particular actin a prior meaning ofthejudge'sperformines theforce ofthat text in themoment ofthelaw thecitation "it is through mance,theact ofcitation: the'prithat thefigure ofthejudge's 'will' is produced andthat Queer"17). ("Critically oftextual authority is established" ority'

of Geertz,see G. E. Marcus; overviews 6Forusefulrecent Sewell. delicacy,it has becomecommon7DespiteConquergood's both with theusesof to writing place to associatean opposition the andwith ordominated groups bymarginalized performance As studies as an academicdiscipline. ofperformance practice to the1995Perin hisopening address remarked Conquergood studies is a border "Performance Conference, Studies formance tomove thecapacity that cultivates an interdiscipline, discipline, tospeak tosee together, toforge connections, structures, between Performance about orfor others. instead ofsimply speaking with and boundarythreshold-crossing, shape-shifting, privileges andjokers,who tricksters, suchas shamans, figures, violating thetransformative overthecanonical, value thecarnivalesque ("Carathemobileoverthemonumental" overthenormative, ofperformance vans"137-38).Thissenseoftheoppositionality is certainly (see Auslander)-howuseopentoquestion studies their andwhatis itthat as colleagues, fulis ittohavetricksters is always performance is thesensethat areresisting?-as tactics or evensociallyprogressive carnivalesque, abouta liberating, affiliasensethat performance's Conquergood's transgression. as "thenewfronstudies locateperformance tions with rhetoric pleasure forstaking tier jointclaimsto poeticsandpersuasion, solidarity andcritique, in theinterests ofcommunity andpower, Rhetoric"80) mightbe set and resistance"("Ethnography, alongsideGeorgeE. Marcus's readingof Douglas Holmes's far andofhis senseofthat fieldwork right amongtheEuropean discourse" (102-03). On perforof"illicit exploitation group's see Worthen, to texts, opposition "foundational" mancestudies' Dolan, Response;Roach,Response;Schechner, "Disciplines"; and see also Roach,"Economies," Zarrilli, Response; Response; Dolan,"Geographies." 81am adapting as a practice GaryTaylor'ssenseofeditorial an editedtextasserts scienceof proximity here,thesensethat we to be "[p]roximate to something itsauthority by claiming ofthe andcontent is articulated bytheform value,"a valuethat andperformance edition itself 129).On editorial ("Renaissance" Shakespeare 1-43. see Worthen, theory, toreveal: mem9"Texts what tends performance mayobscure in theconstruction of circum-Atlantic history orychallenges fabulous epic oftheir and itrevises theyetunwritten cultures, cocreation" (Cities286).

Works Cited
and Its "No MoreMasterpieces." TheTheater Antonin. Artaud, NewYork:Grove, Richards. Double.Trans. MaryCaroline 1958.74-83. TDR: TheDrama ReFervor." Auslander, Philip."Evangelical view: The Journal Studies39.4 (1995): ofPerformance 178-83. Words. Ed. MarinaSbisa with J.L. How to Do Things Austin, Harvard UP, 1975. andJ.0. Urmson. Cambridge: U ofCalJonas. TheAntitheatrical Berkeley: Prejudice. Barish, ifomia P, 1981.

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