Original scientific paper
CROATIAN LAY THEATER: THE NECESSITY OF AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH
Lada Čale Feldman
; Institut za etnologiju, Zagreb
Abstract
The aim of this study is to offer a research paradigm for a phenomenon that has been rather neglected both in Croatian theater studies and in Croatian folkloristics, that conceived of ethnotheatrology as of a domain which should deal only with the so-called "authentic” folk mimetic representations, i.e. those inextricably interwoven with rituals and customs. As a phenomenon which borders, on one hand, with folk theater in this restricted sense, and on the other, with professional theater, borrowing from it certain aspects of its organization, modes of procedure and presentational forms, lay theater is generally considered as being the awkward distortion of both the authentic, dynamic and living quality of folklore, and of aesthetic scopes of professional theater. However, lay acting has a history of equal importance, although governed by somewhat different rules and aims. It is an attempt to merge the popular and the sophisticated culture, and has contributed to the preservation of ethnic identity, language, and “high” cultural heritage in a comparable amount to the previously mentioned phenomena, which alredy share the status of legitimate academic subject. The analysis of lay theater should embrace not only the traditional description of parts of its theatrical process (repertoire, rehearsals, the quality of performances, etc.) but should also search for its specificity, its embeddedness in the everyday living pratice in a given community as well as deal with its particular social and cultural function which can only be defined within the frame of an interdisciplinary research.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
214744
URI
Publication date:
10.10.1998.
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