A theatrical (dramatic) performance, besides being entertaining, is both an aesthetic and educational experience, for it is the result of the creative transformation of literary text into a performance text combining actors, visual arts, sonic orders, and kinetic energy. What transpires on stage engulfs the audience.
This is the concept of the mise-en-scene.
The mise-en-scene is a crucial part of a theatrical experience because it is a synergy between the performance and the audience. It is the combination of all the elements on stage – the settings/props, costumes, actors, lighting, and dialogue – that present the narrative (play text) and engage the spectator (audience). Without the spectator/audience, the mise-en-scene does not exist.
For the spectator, viewing the performance gives life to the mise-en-scene.
The mise-en-scene exists as a cerebral construct of the spectators, who exercise their imaginative faculties based on their previous experience and acquaintance with the text and previous performances, as well as their socio-cultural environment and dramatic orientation, to perceive the mise-en-scene. This theatrical experience is an exchange between the stage (mise-en-scene) and the audience that is not merely a receptor to receive the signals from the stage.
A performance (expression of the mise-en-scene) transmits meanings and narrative through verbal and non-verbal signs – iconic and textual – that could lead to a variety of spectator’s responses, such as catharsis (Aristotelian), alienation (Brecht), or empathy or, for some, a mere spectacle.
As such, theatre audiences can be divided into three categories. One is the general audience, who attend performances mainly for entertainment, and some due to curiosity or at the behest of friends. Two is the informed audience, who have read plays and have attended performances before. They view the performance to get a general impression of its acting, technical aspects like lighting, settings, costumes, and the dances and music. Third is the critical audience, who will deconstruct all facets of the performance like an autopsy. For example, if it is a classical play like Shakespeare’s, whether the performance is true to the text, period costumes or adapted, as well as acting styles, among other things.
Thus, a theatre, dramatic performance is more than a mere form of entertainment but one that invites you, the audience, to be involved in a critical appraisal – as an integral part of the mise-en-scene.
A dramatic performance combines the literary arts (text), the visual arts (settings, lightings, costumes, and all other technical elements), the kinetic arts (movements and dances), and the sonic orders (music, singing), and vocal interpretation (delivery of dialogue). It synergises these arts into an aesthetic composition that appeals to the senses and the intellect through forms, shapes, colours – to not only elicit emotions but provoke critical response and empathising. It provides a learning experience beyond the traditional formal context.
Such is the joyful, intellectual, educational, vicarious, and therapeutic involvement in attending a dramatic performance. It heightens the senses and sharpens the imaginative faculties, and encourages creative inputs.
The mise-en-scene is an educational concept beyond the rigidity of the formal learning experience, for it allows the exploratory process of creating dramatic illusion that may mirror life or challenges life’s norm.
Thus, theatre and dramatic performances should be an integral part of the educative process in schools and universities.
But our educationists, policy makers, and university’s managements, who are mainly from science backgrounds and lacking in the holistic spectrum of knowledge development, ignore this artistic facet that develops critical appraisals beyond the mundane textual inquiry.
This is the bane of our educational system that has been polluted with political expediency, inept academic management without an inkling of the crux of holistic universal education that develops the extrasensory perception of existentialism to perceive beyond the physical universe.
The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of Twentytwo13.
