“Third-class humanˮ: On representation of the image of ethnic migrant in modern Russian drama (on the example of the play “Khach” by U. B. Gitsareva)

The paper discusses artistic portrayal of an ethnic migrant in the modern Russian drama on the example of the play “Khach” (2014) by U. B. Gitsareva. The author focuses on the way migration is described and what are the meanings that inform this social phenomenon in the play. The play`s poetics is about giving a voice to migrants and distinguishing them from the mute mass, which organically fits into general tendency of Documentary Theater. The study highlights the concept of “strangeness” (“Otherness”), which is realized here both through a spatial chronotope and artistic objectivity; identifies and systematizes discursive means and mechanisms for constructing the image of an ethnic migrant, reveals perception and attitude of the host community towards the ethnic migrants, explores characteristics attributed to him in the host environment, analyzes how the topic of public recognition is embodied in everyday language and indicates strategies for migrants to overcoming “strangeness” (“otherness”). The author also substantiates the issue`s relevance for literary research. The choice of the paper`s subject is determined by the lack of studies of the given issue in terms of the modern Russian literature. As the analysis shows the play “Khach” is a comprehensive attempt at generalization, built into both the socio-psychological and ideological context.

The Power of Documentary Theatre to Promote Cross-National Understanding: Personal Impact of Performing With Their Voices Raised by Japanese and American Youth Actors

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to share descriptions of the personal impact for cross-national youth actors (Japanese, American) who performed With Their Voices Raised ( Voices), a documentary theater script that shares the stories of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima survivors who lived through the bombings of December 7, 1941, and August 6, 1945, respectively. Design/Methods: This was a descriptive exploratory focus group study conducted immediately after student-actors from Funairi High School in Hiroshima ( n = 15) and Farrington High School in Oahu, Hawaii ( n = 8), performed Voices. Data were content analyzed by a cross-national research team to address the question “What was the personal impact of performing Voices for Japanese and American youth actors?” Findings: There were three themes that crossed national boundaries: sense of power of the message from real-life people, new cross-national awareness, and moving beyond familiar history to engage and learn. The fourth theme distinguished the youth groups: for Japanese youth, performing Voices inspired an awareness of their local focus; for American youth, it enlivened youth-to-youth engagement as a learning approach. Conclusions: Documentary theater script is a creative, holistic approach with the potential to bridge divisiveness and promote cross-national understanding.

Scripting the Ethnodrama

This chapter defines ethnodrama as a qualitative research methodology and then introduces a subgenre of the form known as verbatim documentary theater. The chapter introduces the terms flat transcript and scored transcript and describes the differences between the two formats. The chapter provides an overview of the scripting process for an original ethnodrama called Of a Certain Age that used verbatim documentary theater techniques to explore the experiences of performing arts professionals over the age of 65. The overview identifies five major scripting conventions, including monologue, duet, trio, quartet, and montage, and then uses extensive samples from Of a Certain Age to illustrate each one. The chapter concludes with insights about the rehearsal process and key takeaways from the production’s performance run.

DISCURSIVE AND GENRE EXPERIMENTS IN THE CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN DRAMA

The article considers an influence of the genre traditions and discurses on Russian drama of the late 20th and early 21st century. The influence of documentary theater and the illusion of non-fictional speech created in G. Sinkina, A. Rodinov, Yu. Klavdiev, L. Mulmenko drama is noted. Pedaling the authenticity of character’s word is manifested by the verbatim technique – and at the same time returns the drama to the strivings of the early Soviet theater. The article also considers a correlation of the verbal and written discourses, their genre diversity as well as the ratio of the monologue – and dialogic potential of the texts written by N. Kolyada, A. Slapovsky, V. Levanov, V. Zueva, Ya. Pulinovich, E. Grishkovets, I. Vyrypaev, E. Isaeva, N. Vorozhbit, S. Reshetnikov. It takes into consideration the genre forms mixing what determines the structure of the play and its perception by reader-spectator. In particular, the research focuses on the literary and stage manifestations of the diptych – play in works of A. Zenzinov and V. Zabaluev, S. Zlotnikov, D. Gumenniy . The author of the article refers to the interaction of drama with other arts, both the visual (O. Mukhina’s plays) and sounding (I. Vyrypayev “Oxygen”), as well as modern media formats that determine the genre nature of the latest works for the stage (plays by A. Vartanov, R. Malikov). Special attention is paid to “network drama”, which qualitatively changes the structural principles for works in that kind of literature and motivates to rethink the categories of “drama world”, “character”, “conflict”, “plot”.

Произведения Александра Марданя в контексте „новой драмы”

The article attempts to allocate and analyze the most essential characteristics of plays by A. Mardan's, a popular Russian-speaking Ukrainian playwright, and to inscribe his work in the context of the dynamics of the phenomenon of the new drama. The attempt of the author is to understand a complex post-Soviet reality in order to reflect it in the artistic space of the drama. The plays demonstrate the destruction of habitual human values, including moral, ethical, aesthetic, and other norms that guide people in life. At the same time, his plays exploit the techniques and elements of various genres of mass culture. One may say that certain principles have become an integral quality of Mardan's plays such as the approach of the plays to the truth of life, the external everydayness, the use of elements of documentary theater and the theater of absurd, the construction of the plot with an eye for entertainment or scandalous intrigue, philosophical overtones and the author's attitude to the depicted world. This indicates that his plays may be regarded as works of ‘the new drama’ that occupy a worthy place in the contemporary Russian-language drama of the post-Soviet period.

Shinpa

Shinpa, the shortened version of the Japanese word shinpageki, or new school drama, was an early Japanese attempt at reforming the theater along modernist lines. The plays featured flamboyant kabuki performance styles and modern realistic dialog; they were a mélange of plays from domestic dramas, to documentary theater to the early Japanese adaptations of Shakespeare. Shinpa dramas were generally based on stories of contemporary domestic life instead of historical dramas. Its plays often exploited the traditional kabuki devices of social obligations conflicting with love or other emotions (giri vs. ninjō). Initially, plays were composed by company actors and modified during performance runs. Many shinpa playwrights were essentially adapters who took serialized fiction novels and rewrote them for the stage. Shinpa also staged adaptations of Western drama including works of Shakespeare, Maeterlinck, and Sardou. These plays were often heavily adapted attempts at interweaving classical Japanese performance forms with Western texts. Other authors focused on the creation of gendaigeki [contemporary plays], which were about domestic problems among Japan’s growing middle class.