Le théâtre de Juan Mayorga: de la scène au monde à travers le prisme du langage

Abstract

In his plays, Juan Mayorga forcefully brings back the word in contemporary Spanish drama. This dissertation examines his works as a “world map” which mirrors and questions numerous aspects of reality through the prism of language. The study of language at play in the scenes and the dramatic language of the play appeals to the theories of pragmatic discourse. Analyses of the theatrical characteristics of the spoken word - the way words take shape and become meaningful on stage and in reality – show that, for this playwright, the image power of the spoken word is intrinsically connected to the language of the “fault”. The “fault” – which rests at the very core of Juan Mayorga’s works – underlines and prolongs the limits of language, unlocking a dialectical stage where it can be apprehended differently. Between the words, in the “faults” gical speech, the unuterrable arises, i.e. the Real in the Lacanian sense. The aporetic issue of seeing and telling unveils the decisive part of absence and want in the representation, which emanates from a theatrical, esthetic, but also ethical commitment. Choosing to study the stage as a map of the “faults” of discourse, the silence of history, and the absences of the world is a deliberate choice: analyzing the fragmentary characteristics of language is a way of thinking and questioning the world. This dissertation delves into the philosophical works which underlie Juan Mayorga's works: Walter Benjamin's thesis on history, the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Theodor Adorno, Giorgio Agamben, and Jean-Luc Nancy's works on the ability to utter and represent, as well as contemporaneous ontology - especially Jacques Derrida and Sören Kierkegaard´s theories, which divert the dichotomous logic that characterizes the Hegelian dialectics. Language itself weaves impassable dialectical relations which the playwright stages through tensions that can be multiplied indefinitely within aesthetics of discontinuity (keeping silent/telling; showing/hiding; showing/ telling, etc.). This dissertation draws attention to these tensions and questions their stakes. To that end, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's notions of “rhizome” and “the invisible scene” provide us with theoretical elements leading up to the same conclusion: meaning appears in interruptions. This dissertation is progressing through Juan Mayorga's plays to unveil its exits and entrances as they materialize the faults of language, so as to examine the junctions, ramifications, or entanglements where the stage crystallizes. In their rhizomatic and underground theatrical experience, Mayorga’s “specta-readers” are urged to be in-between, to become animal (Deleuze and GuattarI) and to question what is behind the scene.

Date of Award	9 Jul 2013
Original language	French
Supervisor	Begoña Saez Tajafuerce (Director)