Social Interaction and Dramatic Performance: Staging Conversation

At the heart of the dramatic arts lies a single phenomenon: human social interaction. The crux of the practitioner’s work involves knowing how interaction works: knowing what a pause does, or why a particular intonation contour changes a line from interrogative to accusative, or what goes into inferring something about a character. Social Interaction and Dramatic Performance uses case studies from dramatic performances and data from real-world interaction to present findings from interaction analytic research. Over ten chapters, Spencer Hazel illuminates the nuances that shape our everyday interactions, demonstrating how practitioners of the dramatic arts seek to develop and construct authentic representations of interaction. This book also explores the processes by which these representations of interaction are produced through interaction: between actors, between actor and director and between others in the creative team. It offers insights into the intricate ways people organise their interactions, their social affairs and their institutions, providing a toolkit for students and practitioners of the performing arts to embed the finer details of social interaction in their crafting of dramatic performance.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Part I: Studying interaction, in the Arts and in the Sciences 1. Introduction: A Tale of Two Social Sciences 2. The Art of People Watching 3. Staging the World Part II: Conversation Analysis and its Ethnomethodological Roots 4. An Empirical Approach in Social Interaction Research 5. Principles of CA and Ethnomethodology 6. Membership Categorisation Analysis Part III: The Art of Social Interaction 7. Dialogue: The Art of Talk-in-Interaction 8. The Building of a Character: Social Identities in Staged Narrative 9. Managing Stage Dynamics: Alignment and Affiliation in Performed Interaction 10. Triggering Laughter: Sequential Organisation and Misdirection in Comedy 11. Conjuring up Objects: Props and their Enactment 12. Concluding Remarks: Performance Practice as Analytic Tool References Index

About the Author :
Spencer Hazel is Reader in Applied Linguistics and Communication at Newcastle University, UK.

Review :
Spencer Hazel's “Social Interaction and Dramatic Performance” is a fascinating read to explore the relationship between interaction analysis and theater making. For practitioners it is a rich source of inspiration, for analysts a compelling insight into the way cultural artifacts emulate principles of social interaction. Above all, it offers a unique approach based on authentic interaction data in rehearsal studios. A must-read for anyone interested in theater and the intertwining of art and everyday life. This book opens an invitation to theatre-makers, screen actors and directors to make use of the tools of conversational analysis in their shared search for truth in interpersonal interactions. Hazel shows how the artist's instinct can be complemented by the scientist's attentiveness, and draws out interests common to both. Through analysis of screen performances, rehearsal room observations and more, this book shows how acting approaches might be interrogated and furthered through linguistic methods.