Steadman, M.E (2025) Embodying the Eerie: an investigation of the Eerie as a dramaturgical concept in processes of directing devised performance. PhD thesis, Bath Spa University. doi: 10.17870/bathspa.00017139
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Abstract
'The Strange Geometry of Time', 'Dwelling', and 'This Is the Land' were three productions that formed the practice-based elements of a study exploring the Eerie as a dramaturgical concept in devised performance practice, through an emergent process that does not determine and outcome but extends dramaturgy beyond the known and knowable. The first of three devised performances, 'The Strange Geometry of Time', was presented at the University Theatre, Bath Spa University, in June 2018, before touring to the 'Dreams Before Dawn Festival' in Paris in July 2018 and returning to the University Theatre, Bath Spa, in November 2018. 'Dwelling', a site-specific intermedial performance, was presented at The Anglican Chapel, Arnos Vale Cemetery, Bristol, in October 2019. 'This Is The Land' was presented at The Rondo Theatre in Bath in 2022 and toured to the RITU festival in Liege that same year. It was also presented at The Anglican Chapel, Arnos Vale Cemetery, Bristol, in 2022, and The Network Theatre, part of the VAULT Festival, in London, in 2023. The productions were developed by a professional company, engaging public audiences in theatres and non-theatre sites in the South West, London, and Europe. The devising and directing practices are informed by a range of theoretical studies that consider theatre and performance from philosophical, historical, and theoretical perspectives. Central to the project is Mark Fisher's theoretical analysis of the Eerie, which provides a lens through which to explore the dramaturgy of the eerie in practice and contributes to an embodied knowledge of the eerie in performance practice. Alice Rayner's (2006) study of theatre as a memorial practice provides a lens through which to examine the materiality of the theatrical elements as eerie material doubles. Joslin McKinney's (2015) consideration of the agency of objects in the context of scenography and her analysis of the 'agential object' informs the agency of the materiality of objects, the performer's interactions with objects, and how objects interact as performative agents. Performance theory is brought into dialogue with theories of spectrality and hauntology, acknowledging Derrida (1994). It draws on Fisher's tradition of hauntology 92014), which Coverley (2020) expands upon, to explore hauntological time in performance. Fisher's concept of the eerie presence or absence of the past, as ghosts of the 'no longer' and ghosts of the future, 'not yet', and 'lost futures' (Fisher, 2014), frames the dramaturgy of time and space. The conceptualisation of time informs the dramaturgy of time and space in relation to abandoned sites, places, and landscapes, which are constructed through what Lehman (2006) defines as visual dramaturgy. Chapter 1 introduces these methods of practice and explores how the agential object interacts with the performers, drawing on Fisher's concept of the eerie outside and non-human agencies, which connect with theories of spectrality and hauntology. The chapter explores how the dramaturgy of the eerie materiality of stage objects and costumes expands the concept of agency in performance. Chapter 2 extends Fisher's ideas of the 'outside' to a site-specific intermedial process; the methodology is informed by Fisher's observations of the eeriness of abandoned sites and connects with spectrality theory's spatialisation of ghosts and hauntings. Heholt's (2016) 'affect of place' and Irwin's (2007) 'intangible presences) inform the ensemble's improvisations of place in eerie sites. Rayner's theory informs how the performance memorialises the spectral past as a site of unforgetting. Chapter 3 examines Fisher's observations of the eerie liminality of absence and presence as they inform performative ways of projecting ghostly figures and sound technologies in imagined landscapes. Macfarlane's observations of resurgence of the eerie in the contemporary moment inform the ensemble's improvisions of landscapes, as well as the directorial choices that reference eerie folk culture as spectral presences in the landscape. Lehmann's postdramatic theory offers an analysis of visual dramaturgy, which underpins the compositional techniques that defocalise theatrical elements through an assemblage of components. The nonlinear composition resists narrativising and a sequential progression of time to generate an eerie theatricality of the 'outside'; a site beyond the knowable.
| Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) |
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| Note: | The creative work referenced in the thesis text is available on BathSPAdata, the University's data repository, at the URL below. |
| Keywords: | PhD by practice; theatre; performance; visual dramaturgy; movement; imagery; eerie: agency; eerie materiality; |
| Divisions: | Bath School of Music and Performing Arts |
| Related URLs: | |
| Date Deposited: | 23 Jun 2025 11:59 |
| Last Modified: | 23 Jun 2025 11:59 |
| URI / Page ID: | https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/17139 |
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