Theory/Theatre Training

July 15th, 2006 Fred McVittie

One possible source of the sometimes uncomfortable relationship between theory and practice (specifically training for practice) in theatre is that training for practice utilises radically different (and possibly unfashionable) theories. Theory tends to be captivated by what Tooby and Cosmides refer to as the ’standard social science model’, in which the subject/person is a product of culture, with biology and evolutionary history playing little part in the construction of complex cultural behaviour. In this model the subject is constructed, fragmented, decentred, ‘hailed by a plethora of discourses’, mediated, screened out, and misrecognised even to itself. In stark contrast to this, the model of the subject, and their place in world, as implicit in the concepts and language of practical training, is vitalist, centered, dualist, a member of the ‘universal people’ (after D.E. Brown). It is interesting to note that no such disjunction exists in the training and education of athletes, who also require coaching to improve performance

Posted in Brown, D. E., Performance, Sport, Theatre, Theory, Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L., Training, Vitalism | No Comments »