Discourse as Performance Michael Issacharoff STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1989 Stanford, California‘Stanford University Press ‘Sanford, Caloris © 1o8pby the Board of Teustees ofthe Leland Stanford funior University Printed inthe United States of America CIP data appear atthe end ofthe book (riginslly published in Freed under heute LeSpecae "9 Librait fost Cort 198s Preface This book began life in another language—in the original French of Le Spectace du discours, published in Paris by José Corti in r98. Dis- ‘course as Performance started out as a straight translation. I soon re- alized that a more or less literal rendering would leave too many {questions unanswered for the reader unable to leaf through the French original. I have thus made numerous changes, cutting here and there, adding passages where clarification seemed necessary and ‘even an extended example of a play by Tom Stoppard. The advan- tage of translating one’s own prose isthe freedom infierent it sus a process. I have therefore not felt bound by the translator's normal code of fidelity to the original. Often, Isuccumbed to the temptation of reckoning with the thoughts expressed in the earlier volume, In- deed, as the translated pages gradually severed-their bond with the original, Discourse as Performance began to assume a life ofits own. ‘An independent voice began to emerge, or 50 I like to imagine, a8 tuted the French flavor and as my English prose began to sound less subservient to its French forebear. So Discourse as Performance is rather different from Le Spectacle du discours, if not a new book al- together. “Translating one’s own prose is an odd enterprise. Ithas been done before, of course—but usually by polyglot novelists or dramatists ‘more gifted and creative than myself. Yet the challenge was, per- hhaps, somewhat new in this case, seeing that my task was to render not fiction, not drama, but criticism and theory, which require me- diation in one's own yet in another voice. A French critical voice is {quite distinct from its English counterpart in tone, timbre, and as- sumptions. The reader will be the judge of how far Ihave succeeded.Part II Space and Discourse: Utterance Constrained| FIVE Space in Drama If, following Beckett’s example, one can banish from a play various elements, such as movement, gesture, or even dialogue, the element ‘that must remain constant and be retained in any script written for performance, is, of course, space. A performance requires a physi- «al, visible place. In other words, a play when enacted must take place somewhere. In narrative, space, in the geographical or topographical sense, cannot exist autonomously; itis contingent on the verbal signs that refer to it. Narrative space is thus one-dimensional, since itis nec- cssarily mediated by a single (verbal) channel, Space in the theater, on the other hand, is a more complex phenomenon, embracing sev- ‘eral distinct theatrical areas—architectural, scenographic, and dea matic. A first distinction is in order between what is shown to an audience and what is not, between space onstage and space offstage ‘The visible versus the invisible—this dichotomy is the epitome of aesthetic controversy spanning some three hundred years of French dramatic theory. The distinction, at any rate, is between what can be perceived and what cannot, for which I shall use the terms mi- ‘metic and diegetic.* Mimetic space does not require mediation; in ‘Lam using these terms in thei (guas-) Aristotelian sense, and notin the way {ey ate commonly used by film eheorsts, for whom diegti means the charater- Jstus of whats recounted, See, for example, Jean Collect al, Lee: du ne (Pat: Editions Albatros, 1977), pp. 74-7. lake a distinction between what made vit- ibe onstage, the mime, and whats only described and not visible the diegte se bot terms foe persons, places, and things. A disonction sich as this is racial in the “dramatic medium, whose mechanisms ae often contingent on the varying balance between hae ts visible onstage and what i testriced toa verbal existence. (Seo pecially Chapters 6 and 7)36 Space and Discourse contrast, diegetic space is mediated by verbal signs (the dialogue), communicated verbally and not visually. There is also a third pos- sibility: a character onstage speaks of the visible, thereby referring explicitly to decor, furniture, and properties. As we shall see, this is precisely what occurs in Sartre's Huis clos and Les Séquestrés d’Altona and in Genet’s Les Bonnes. In much contemporary drama, dramatic tension stems from the antinomy between visible space represented and invisible space described. Unlike narrative space, theatrical space is multilayered; if we are to take account of its specificity we ‘must consider both its mode of transmission and its mode of per- ception, “Types of Space: Architectural, Scenographic, Dramatic “The concept of theatrical space requires some clarification; itis essential to realize that there are a least three distinct areas that may be so designated: (1) theater space (that is, architectural design}; (2) stage space (tha is, the stage and set design); and (3) dramatic space (chat is, space as used by a particular dramatist). The first two are relatively fixed; the third, which is dynamicand unpredictable, isthe must elusive, since itis concerned with individual dramatic practice and creativity. Architecture and scenography belong to the history of the theater and thus do not concern us directly here! Scenography covers a number of distinct problems, including performance space, decor, and theories of decor. The history of the (French) stage and of decor is, of course, well known and does not require rehearsing again here; in France, the question of space goes back particularly to seventeenth-century aesthetics, with its insistence on the unity of place? But a discussion of theatrical space needs to take account of the various aesthetic codes underlying dramatic practice, not least of all in the case of those who managed to free themselves from such constraints, starting with Vietor Hugo (in La Préface de Cromwell) and including Jarry’s whimsical comments in Ubu roi, the action of ‘which “takes place in Poland, that is, Nowhere”; later we reach the ‘more subversive notions of Antonin Artaud in Le Thédte et son dow- ble (The Theatre and Its Double). The ideas of Artaud and his follow- cers were no less than aesthetic revolutions, and their influence is still apparent in many present-day productions. ‘A study of space in the (French) theater must thus take account Space in Drama $7 of these and other major landmarks in the history of aesthetics, in- cluding the tradition of French Classicism with its emphasis on the unity of place, the Romantic revolution and Hugo's plea for spatial realism and for an end to the unity of place, the Naturalists’ (espe~ cially Zola and André Antoine's) insistence on realistic decor, the modern reaction (starting with Jarry and Guillaume Apollinaire, and continuing with Artaud) against realistic decor, and finally the con= temporary (Artaudian) concept of the use of space inside the theater itself. Research on theater architecture and scenogeaphy, on the other hand, tends to be of an historical, sociological bent, with emphasis ‘on the tangible and permanent: theater buildings, decor, stage de- sign, whatever can be permanently recorded, The focus of such re- searchis thus the context of the literary work rather than its mechanics? DRAMATIC SPACE Dramatic space, our principal concern here, is the least tangible of the three kinds. Itis the study of space asa semiotic system in a given playscript. It requires a synchronic and chus dynamic ap- proach: synchronic, since it specifically excludes from consideration the history and sociology of previous performances: and dynamic, since it entails studying the mechanism of space, from one scene to the next, as well as the links between space and the other constituent clements of performance. The crucial problem is how to approach the study of this most clusive spatial form. Unlike buildings and decor that can be visited and viewed, photographed, filmed, and thus studied at leisure, se- ‘miotic space in the theater is by definition ephemeral. Even photo- ‘graphs or other visual records of a performance can only provide disparate, incomplete data; their effect is normally to render static a dynamic reality The semiologistof the theater has no option but to fall back on the written documents we usually have for most (though bby no means forall) productions: the script—the only constant cle- ment Let us now examine the various types of dramatic space and their mode of operation. Since the playscript precedes performance, itis language that creates and focuses space in the theater, or at least any functional stage space. In playscripts, language can take two forms: Spoken (that is, dialogue), or not spoken onstage (stage directions).58 Space and Discourse Both discursive channels can refer to dramatic space, but they differ in their respective functions. The function of metadiscourse (L use this term because there is normally a discursive hierarchy; see Chap- ter 3) isto refer to what is visible or audible—that is, what is sup- posed to be noticed or emphasized. The role of discourse (that is, dialogue), on the other hand, is to refer both to what is visible and to what isnot, and hence, for example, to what is described but not shown onstage. Stage directions (or metadiscourse), in ther refer= ential famction, thus guide the activity of the producer, whereas dis- ‘course (dialogue) channels the perception of the audience. MIMBTIC AND DIEGETIC SPACE ‘There are two major forms of dramatic space: onstage and off- stage (mimetic and diegetic), the theatrical equivalent of the narra~ tologists’ showing-versus-telling dichotomy’ Mimetic space is rep- resented onstage and made visible to an audience. Diegetie space is described, that is, referred to in the dialogue, and therefore confined toa merely verbal existence. In other words, mimetic space is trans- ‘mitced directly, whereas diegetic space is mediated by language and thus communicated verbally and not visually. Another form of die- igetic space is the explicit relerence to the visible (decor or proper- ties), which is quite common in plays by such authors as Sartre, Beckett, and Genet. In Classical French theater, diegetic space (in the sense of reference to the nonvisible) enjoyed a privileged status. Seventeenth-century productions of Racine, for example, in keep ing with Classical aesthetics, valorized the diegeticand hence the mi~ ‘merous allusions to places (and actions) that could not be shown on stage without compromising the unity of place. In modern drama, however, where no such representational restrictions apply, dra- ‘matic tension (as in Genet’s Les Bones) can stem from the interplay ‘between mimetic and diegetic space. In Les Bonnes the mimetic space is Madame’s bedroom, in co trast to the maids’ (Claire and Solange’s) space, which remains die~ getic, Several diegetic spaces are mentioned in the play: the maids’ garret (their place of rest) the kitchen (ther place of work), and ‘Monsieur’ arcas—the prison and the Café Bilboquet. The space of ‘Monsieur is consistent with his role, since throughout the play, with the exception of his telephone cal (when Claire speaks ro him), he remains diegetic character, never appearing onstage. Claire and So- — | Spacein Drama 59 lange are supposedly no more than a mere reflection of Madame their employer; their space is consequently never dignified with mi- mesis. Though their garret is frequently referred to and described, it becomes rapidly apparent that in every respect it serves as the an- tithesis of visible space—Madame’s room. Ie follows that dramatic space (mimetic or diegetic) is ontologi- «ally dependent on reference? Diegetic space (when not made visible) is entirely so dependent, of course; mimetic space, if referred to in the dialogue, is dramatically valorized. The referent itself can take cone of four possible forms in a play: nonvisible (when referred to in the dialogue); partly visible (synecdochical or metonymic, as we shall see in Chapter 10); visible (referred to in the didascalia); and visible and mentioned in the dialogue. If the referent is nonvisible, it exists on the verbal plane exchi~ sively; if partly visible, itis usually a costume or scenographic item that represents a whole not entirely shown; if visible, it is pro- grammed in the didascalia in the same way as anything else that is supposed to be shown onstage; whereas itis simultaneously visible and mentioned in the dialogue, its stage presence is foregrounded, thereby acquiring central importance. Obviously, the range of pos- sibilities of mimetic representation 1s tar broader than those of the dicgetic, the latter being restricted to the verbal channel. Itis essen= tial to realize that (mimetic) “space” can include decor, props, cos- tumes, and even the players’ bodies, since che latter can interact physically with other elements of the set. This occurs in Beckett's Happy Days, in which Winnie is buried up to her middle a the be- ‘ginning of the play. In Sartre's Huis clos, ikewise, there is an explicit link between Estelle’s blue dress and the color of the couch she chooses to sit on, The interaction can be comic, too, as we find in Shaw's Passion, Poison and Petrifcton, in which a character eats the decor (huge lumps of plaster from the ceiling, supposedly as an an tidote for the poison he has swallowed) and, as the plaster becomes stiff inside him, he turns into decor himself—a living statue. In the case of the theatrical sign, a distinction must be made be~ ‘ween the signified and the referent. The theater is probably the only artform in which we find simultaneously present, in time and space, the three components of the semiotic triad: signifier, signified, and referent, Manifestly, the signified and referent are not interchange- able, although they are often confused. A given referent can change60 Space and Discourse meaning quite unexpectedly in the same play. Props can acquire the ‘most surprising functions onstage. In lonesco’s Les Chases, chairs represent chatacters; in Sartre's Huis cles, 2 paper-knife, deprived of its normal function, is turned into an abortive murder weapon; in ‘Marcel Aymé’s Lucienne et le boucher, the bracelets, which 2t first serve as a socioeconomic sign of Moreau’ trade, are transformed at the end of the play into symbolic handcuffs, when Duxin, the butcher, forces Lucienne the murderess to put them on.* From the theoretical perspective, the most significant case is where there is breakdown of the regular semiotic triad, This is pre~ cisely what oceurs in Les Chaises, whose meaning is contingent, at least in pare, on its curious referential status. The play exemplifies a linguistic phenomenon, unusual in traditional theater, but relatively ‘common in absurdist drama, of utterances seemingly severed from their referents. Reference is made to characters and objects suppos- ccly present onstage, yet invisible to the audience. Thus we hear the ‘Old Man saying to his wife, “Drink your tea, Semiramis,” where- upon the stage directions immediately specify, "There is no tea, of course” (p. 133). It becomes apparent that the stage directions re- spect one mode of reference, while the dialogue follows another. In fact, the didascalia, in keeping with cheir normal funetion, refer w the visual, whereas the dialogue refers at times to mimetic space (when, for instance, the Old Man asks his wife to fetch a chair) and at times to nonvisible entities. In the latter case, utterances such as “What a fine uniform! What beautiful medals!,” whose function is indexical (in Yehoshuah Bar-Hillel’s terminology)’ lose their mean- ing, their referents being absent. Finally, Les Chaises also reveals an instance of the manipulation of reference, entailing the transfor- mation of mimetic space. When most of the “guests” have arrived, the Old Woman suddenly exclaims: “Program ... Would anyone like «a program? Chocolate ices, toffces” (p. 162). In France, traditionally, these utterances belong to the auditorium, where the audience is seated. By uttering these phrases, therefore, and thereby misappro- priating them, the Old Woman turns the theater where she is per~ forming inside out. She transforms the stage into an auditorium and the empty chairs onstage into the stalls. By manipulating reference, Tonesco’s character thus manipulates space. (Outside space surrounding the lighthouse acts as an invisible ex tension of the mimetic in Ionesco’s play; itis conveyed through the Space in Drama 61 sound channel (such as sound effects of boats arriving). This audi- tory space invades the inner, mimetic space. The invisible thus in— vades and finally overcomes the visible. Similarly, the arrival ofthe character who is supposed to be invisible like all the others (¢he Or- ator) causes the immediate exit of the old couple who are visible. Consequently, there is a systematic manipulation of the mimetic, ‘whether it be characters, props, or places. lonesco's play thus short- circuits the referential function of language. We have been exploring the mimetie/diegetic space distinction and its relation to the problem of reference. One last point needs to bbe made about mimetic space, which can be transmitted in ways other than visual. We have seen in Les Chaiss how sound can be used to represent offstage space that isan extension of space shown. The extreme case is radio drama. It presupposes the elimination of visual mimetic space, which is replaced by auditory mimetic space. Yet de- spite the elimination of the visual, the mimeti/diegetic dichotomy is still present, since the mimetic is transmitted through a different channel. Beckett's All That Fall exemplifies this acoustic variety: Mrz. Rooney Allis sill. Na ving svt in sight Theres no one to ak The Sot ening The wind ewe sly eee te eds (rie hry) are tired singing. The cows (bi moo) and sheep (bi Sas) nate lence. The dos i bu) ae sheds hes (Brig acl) sprawl vorpd in the dust. Weare alone. There is wo one fo ask. [p23] Diegetic space in radio drama functions in the same way asin reg ular drama and isillustrated by the following example from the same Beckett play:* ‘Alone in the compartment, my mind began to work sso offen after office tours, on the way home, inthe train, tote tof thc bogeys. Your season ticket, [said cost you twelve pounds year and you eam, onavcrage, seven tnd sia day, that to say, barely enough to keep you ve and ewe ‘vith the help of food, drink, tobaceo and periods unl you finaly reach home and fall nto bed. Add to this—or subtract fom trent, stationery ‘rious subscriptions, eramfires te and toy ight and heat pei and enses,hattims and shaves, tips to escorts, upkeep of appearances and 9 ‘cis significant chat his degeic space i described by a ind character, teminse cen, i his respect, ofthe radio listener who is unable to perceive the (mete) pace evoked by Mrz: Rooney. Dylan Thomas in Under Milk Hood and Ren€ de Obaldis in Les Larme: de Vavenple make similar use of blind characters in tei uo plays62 Space and Discourse ‘thousand unspecifiable sundries, and iis lear chat by lying at home in bed, clay and night, winter and summer, with a change of pyjamas once a fort night, you would add very considerably to your income. [p. 33] Mimetie acoustic space (Text 1) is created by language and ex- tended by sound effects, which are anchored by the verbal channel, since they might otherwise be incomprehensible. Sound effec “decorate” Mrs. Rooney's lines, adding to them a touch of realise. (Of course the verbal channel can be dispensed with, since one can create the illusion of mimetic space by using sound effects alone as Beckett does in All That Fal: Rural sounds. Sheep, bid. cows, cock, severally, then together... Mrs Rooney advances along country toad cowards railway station. Sound of her dragging fect. Sound of approaching carwhecls. The cat stops. The steps slow down, stop. [P. 7] In both instances the audience's perception, which is linear and dy- namic, is akin 0 a reader's experience of diegetic space in fiction. Radio drama thus has mimetic possibilities, but they never entail ‘multichannel perception by the audience. Diegetic space in radio drama (Text 2) is not much different from its equivalent in regular plays or in narrative. Cn the radio, the cole Of diegetic space isto extend onstage space—usually into the past— whereas mimetic space must correspond to what is perceived by characters in the present. Furthermore, itis apparent from the ex- amples cited that characters in a radio play tend to refer more ex- plicitly to the space they see, since a listener must rely on their veges ‘A final distinction may be made between two types of radio drama space: the kind represented solely by sound effects, and the kind ehat is transmitted by verbal language alone. In regular plays, ‘mimetic space is not contingent on language—it needs merely to be visible onstage. Ifitis referred to, itis ether anchored or focused by the references in the dialogue. Language in radio drama thus has a twofold role: creating space and anchoring or focusing it Space as Semiotic System. A central issue must now be addressed. If we accept the signifi- cance of the mimetic/diegetic distinction, one might wonder Space in Drama 63 whether the domain under consideration is necessarily a semiotic system. To determine whether or not this is so, Benveniste's criteria can be helpful." According to him, all semiotic systems are predi- «ated on four requirements: (1) a mode of operation; (2) a domain of validity; (3) a limited number of signs; and (4) a relation between the signs, giving each a distinct function. The mode of operation is the sense channel (visual or otherwise) used by the particular system, ‘The domain of validity isthe one in which the system must be rec- ognized or obeyed. The relation between the signs is the way in which the system works. A concrete example isthe color system in Sartre’s His clos. The colors form a tripartite scheme—blue, red, and green—that corresponds to the colors ofthe three sofas and that represents the three characters: blue for Estelle (the color of her dress), green for Garcin, and red for Inés. Estelle uses all three colors (part of her stage presence); her dress is blue, her eyes are green, and hier lips are red. Her movements on stage are explicitly linked to the colors. She puts on the lipstick when she is sitting on Inés’ red sofa; ‘when she is on Garcin’s green sofa, he remarks upon her green eyes; and finally, when she comes onstage in her blue dress, she requests the blue sofa. Sartre's ultimate ironical touch is Estelle’s reference, toward the end of the play, to “Saint Louis blues,” a jazz piece by U.S. composer W. C, Handy. In this example, the mode of operation is visual (since weare deal- ing with colors seen by the audience and by characters on stage). The domain of validity is twofold, since it is both a stage and a costume code. As for the type of system, itis always binary and is se in mo~ tion on Estelle’ initiative, since she is the mobile chromatic element that creates three possible combinations: blue-blue, bluc-red, and blue-green. These color combinations are akin to the transitory en= tentes between the characters (Estelle-Inés, Estelle-Garcin) as well as to Estelle’s narcissism: her dress matches the sofa, her lipstick is reflected in the eyes of Inés, and her eyes are misrored in the gaze of Garcin Huis cos thus has a range of semiotic systems, including a conflict between mimetic and diegetic, between the realm of the visible the Second Empire drawing room) and the realm of the invisible (Gar- cin, Inés, and Estelle’ places on carth), between present and past, between showing and telling. (For a closer analysis of this play, see Chapter 6.)64 Space and Discourse A far more complex illustration of space as semiotic system is provided by Genet’s Les Bonnes. Whereas in Huis cos the mimetic and diegetic are in conflict, in Les Bonnes space shown is the opposite Of space described. Schematically, space in Genet’s play can be rep- resented thus: Mimetie Space Diegeti Space ‘Mado room Maide areas French window Garret: iron beds, paper Balcony flowers, skylight Door {no mirror, carpet, furnishing, or balcony) Kitchen: sink Furniture: dressing table, ‘bed (Louis XV), mirror, armchair, wardrobe, desk, commode Properties: curtains, lace Prison bedspread, flowers, Café Blboquet fan, necklace, patent leather shoes, carpet, Properties mirror, rubber gloves, ea telephone, desk key, ae alarm clock apo, Contes re dress, black ‘dress, white dress, far cape, fr coat Monsew's areas Clearly, the room is the antithesis of the garret. Numerous ref= erences in the dialogue confirm this: for example, the comfort and opulence of the Louis XV furniture are contrasted with the lack of furniture in the garret, the Louis XV bed with its lace bedspread ver- sus the iron beds; the real flowers versus the paper ones; and the french window versus the skylight. In the diegetic category, there are two subsystems: garret versus kitchen, prison versus café. The garret is the maids’ place of rest, the kitchen," their place of work. For Monsieur, the prison constitutes freedom denied, whereas the caféis freedom restored. The two diegetic characters, Monsieur and ‘Mario the milkman, are social opposites. ‘Within the mimetic zone there are several sign systems, the most apparent of which is the tripartite scheme of the red, white, and black dresses. The properties form several combinatory schemes— in particular, the telephone, the alarm clock, and the desk key—all Space in Drama 65 of which signal the maids’ guilt to their mistress, The telephone re- ceiver left off the hook, and the alarm clock, the key, and the rubber gloves all moved and discovered in the wrong place, give Claire and Solange away. But if the telephone, alarm clock, and key are later to become clues to guilt, they enable the maids to deceive their mistress and conceal their strategy. The telephone links the room to the café; the key provides access to information in the desk that enables the ‘maids to denounce Monsieur and have him put in prison; the alarm clock helps the maids enact their ritual and escape detection. Initially aids to concealment, however, the function ofthe three props is rad~ ically transformed when they become clues to guilt, Dramatically, what is crucial in Les Bonnes is changing places—whether it be ob Jjects or characters. Thus, the rubber gloves and the alarm clock that ‘belong in the kitchen end up in the room; the telephone receiver is left off its hook; Monsieur, freed from prison, moves from the prison to the café; and Claire lies on the Louis XV bed, thus assum- ing Madame's place and role by drinking the poisoned tea from her cup. This spatial scheme is paralleled by a sound system: the clock, the telephone, and the doorbell. The net result ofthe later is that outer reality, which is increasingly threatening, gradually invades the ar- tificial inner scene (the room). The first ing (the alarm clock) brings Claire and Solange back to reality and halts thei rtual;* the second (the telephone) is a tangible intrusion of the real, signaling to the maids that because Monsicur has been set free, they are automati- cally in danger; the third ring (the doorbell) marks the arrival of Ma- dame. Genet’ space is thus packed with surprises, twists, and reversals; things are very far from what they seem. The apparently insignifi- ‘ant outside invades inside space, destroying the maids’ universe. Claire and Solange barely fit the French word (bonne) describing their profession; after successfully denouncing Monsieur and having him put in prison, they plan to assassinate their mistress (“au clair de lune nous la découperons” [we'll dismember her by moonlight). “The slam clock sign with several meanings. ts ing (p26) sgnalsa change of discursive level (Irom the ceremonial 1 the real a wall the end of quae inermission, thereby transforming dhe sage (the pesformanee are) into the sd forium (and vie versa). This is sub referential device thats comparable to What fonesco does in Les Chase: withthe Old Womans ine, "Program. Would anyone [ikea program?”66 Space and Discourse (Claire is more obscure than her name would suggest, and Solange is far from angelic, despite her name. ‘They both attempt to upset the social order. Theie space seems symbolically promising, since their proletarian garzet is located above the bourgeois room of their mis~ tress. The class struggle thus underscores the play, yet the revolution planned is aborted; after their conspiracy fails, the would-be mur- dleress kills herself, In this chapter we have been exploring theatrical space, the mi ‘etic/diegetic distinction, and space as semiotic system. In the light of the preceding discussion, a few generalizations are now in order. ‘The mimetic/diegetic distinction is fundamental for the study of most forms of Western drama. When both modes are present, the diegetic complements the mimetic. When the mimetic is fixed (that is, when a single set is used), the diegetic tends to be nonfixed (that is, manifold). Claustrophile dramas such as Sartre's Hus clos, Gene's ‘Les Bonnes, and Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker exemplify this. Con versely, in plays with multiple st changes, diegetic space, if present, normally has a minor role, being generally restricted toa single area Plays such as Jarry’s Ubu roi, Labiche's Un chapeau de paille Tlie (An lualian Straw Het), and Sartre's Les Mouches and Nekrassov bear this out. One might wonder, though, whether all plays necessarily have both mimetic and diegetie space. To put it differently, can drama be spatially nondiegetie? And could there be such a thing as nonmimetic theater? Obviously both theatrical forms, if they exist, -must be extreme cases. For a play to be nondiegetic, one would have to virtually elimi~ nate the sole channel of the diegetic, namely the dialogue. Similatly, rnonmimetic theater would require the elimination of the visual cle- iment. The first type exists in such cases as Beckett's Act Without Words (Land 11), in which there is no dialogue and in which, con sequently, space is exclusively mimetic. On the other hand, totally nonmimetic theater is barely conceivable; it would be a contradic- tion in terms. We have thus come full circle—if all plays must be performed somewhere, the somewhere is necessary visible. Yet our hypothetical theatrical form is in fact illustrated by radio drama, from which visible space is entirely banished, However, this mini- rmalist theatrical mode can have a form of the mimetic through the "use of the auditory channel—Beckett isa case in point. The mimetic Space in Drama 67 is thus not necessarily visual. We can conclude that, with the excep- tion of radio drama, all plays are mimetic by definition given the fact ‘of their tangible performance. But of course the mimetic may well bbe subordinate to the diegetic, asin Racine, in whose plays there is virtually no interaction between space and reference, and in which decors of little consequence. Racine would no doubt have approved of radio broadcasts of his plays. Modern theater provides examples of quasi-nonmimetic plays in which the mimetic is overshadowed by the diegetic. In such plays the verbal element is predominant, with the visual taking second place, [am thinking of Cocteau’ La Voix humaine (The Human Voce) and Beckett's Not J. In Cocteau’s play there is a single set (a bed= room), a single character (a woman), and a single act. Action is con- fined to a conversation between the woman and her lover. Only the woman is scen onstage; the decor is of litele consequence. Dramat- ically the only crucial element is an object, the auditory channel that ‘makes the conversation possible: the telephone. This object plays a ‘major role due to its constant intrusiveness, providing interruptions, interference, crossed lines, and the like. Beckett, as one might ex. pect, takes matters somewhat further. In eater plays his specialty hhad been eliminating entire sign systems, supposedly to see what was left—for example, movement in Happy Days, dialogue in Act Without Words (and I), and almost everything bar a gaping mouth and a few gestures in Nor J. Beckett's theater thus exemplifies both extremes we have been considering: totally mimetic theater and al- most totally diegetic theater. Both constitute, no doubt, the ne plus ultra in their respective modes and are thus indispensable points of reference for our present purpose. Most other plays are located somewhere on a contintnim between these two extremes. Their dra- ‘matic interest and the complexity of theie sign systems stem from the interplay between thir eofoldspatiaity andthe problem ofsix The Visible and the Invisible: Huis clos Space has a privileged status in the theater and a complex mode of, iatnce in woth writen fo the tage In contat othe space of narrative, theatrical space is twofold, at once verbal and visual. Vie sital insofar as the Word becomes flesh: the discourse becomes spec- tacle in the shape of decor, propertis, lighting, and actors’ bodies. It is verbal too, since there isa space or spaces explicitly referred to bby characters onstage. Stage space or mimetic space that is directly perceived by the audience is static and thus comparable to space in painting.’ Ofstage space, on the other hand, since itis screened by language, is dynamic. Itis dynamic because the audience’s visual per- ‘ception is contingent on time (that of the text) as itis spoken by the actors, Onstage spac dsc) prev smultansouy offtage space, transmitted by language, is perceived consecutively? "zat complicates the visual clement in theater the word that creates it: verbal language. The latter has three functions. It can act as a metadiscourse focusing on space (in the form of stage direc- tions); it can have a metatheatrical* function, when the verbal code (che dialogue) refers to the visual code (in which case it tends to an- chor the visual! that is, co channel the manner in which we perceive decor and its meaning); and finally, it can stand for offstage space whose mode of existence is solely verbal. ‘By using chi erm I mean she eype of eference, peculiar to theste, that is. ex- ene by mos very pe of Fs do at cont othe ae the Teas ographcsode ct props righting oon esimenary coe eo ‘tine snlcop Siero OF cousin tcadsmedchncon ai wd es may include reference to other theatrical codes. | | | The Visible and the Invisible 69 Whether it be onstage or offstage, theatrical space is a series of systems of visual communication’ Decor, properties, lighting, cos- tumes, hairstyles, makeup, gestures, and movements convey infor- mation during a performance. The elements of stage space corre- spond to codes, Offstage (or diegetic) space works in a similar way. The author of Huis clos, like Beckett, Pinter, Boris Vian, and many others in contemporary theater, attaches particular importance to the two forms of theatrical space. This chapter will be concerned with space as system, with Sartre's play taken as an example. In another study" I have explored the codes of onstage space in Huis cls, focusing on the furniture and relations such as space/look, «eye/look/mirror/ window, and language/costume as wel as the se- :iotic function of the colors? The play has a tripartite system: blue, red, and green (see Chapter 5). The purpose of this chapter will be to explore the dynamics of space. If onstage space has a privileged status in Huis clos, offstage space (the kind referred to rather than shown) is no less important. In examining its role, several emphases will be examined, including space/time, space/action, and offstage versus onstage space. The space/time dimension of any play corresponds to two dis. tinet time schemes: audience time and characters’ time. Audience time coincides with the performance of the script. Wolfgang, Ise's observation, though not concerned with the theater, can be applied to the audience's perceptual experience: ‘As the literary text involves the reader in the formation of illusion and the simultaneous formation of the means whereby the illsion is punctuted, reading reflects the process by which we gain experience. Once the reader is entangled, his own preconceptions are continually overtaken, s0 that the text becomes his “present” whilst his own ideas fade nto the “past”; as soon as this happens, he is open to the immediate experience of the text, which ‘was impossible so long as his preconceptions were his" present."™ (One can conclude that the spectator, like the reader, replaces his ‘own temporality with that of the characters onstage, The characters’ time, especially ina play like Huis clos, is ewofold, since Estelle, Gar- cin, and Inés evoke the actions of their past that occurred in various lived spaces and, in addition, undergo those that occur during the performance of the play. Thus offstage space falls into two distinct, categories: the space of the past and the space of the present. The