Theatre Topics

Dramaturgs are among the most talkative of theatre makers. To the extent that language and conversation are central tools both of theatre and theatre making, the dramaturg's volubility is an asset. And yet, in rehearsal it is traditionally the director or actor who has the floor and so it is that a legion of talkative dramaturgs has had to learn a discipline of silences: silence as frustration, as power, as pleasure, as necessity, and more. Proehl's essay uses silence as a synecdoche, as the part that opens on the whole of language and relationship in rehearsal.