世界戏剧日，让我们来聊聊戏剧中的舞台指示（stage directions）

大家周五好呀~

上周五我们为新栏目准备了互动赠书活动，

获赠《什么是语料库语言学》1本的幸运读者是转发集满21个赞的：

Liberty 

请这位小伙伴后台私信小编寄送信息哦。

也感谢其他读者朋友的参与和支持，

往后我们还会不定期举行赠书活动，

欢迎继续关注！

WORLD THEATRE DAY

明天3月27日是“世界戏剧日”（World Theatre Day），它由国际戏剧协会（International Theatre Institute，ITI）于1961年创立，到今年正好60年。今天我们就借此机会来聊聊戏剧。

由于疫情影响，线下剧场近两年显得冷冷清清，不过如今大批的戏剧人正在小心寻求复苏，重新寻找戏剧带给人的力量。我们作为读者和观众，不妨也一同把目光投向那一方舞台。

图/世界戏剧日官网

利兹大学的Mick Wallis教授和伦敦大学的Simon Shepherd教授认为，阅读戏剧与阅读小说不同。小说直接向读者说话：打开它来，我们所需要的便全在眼前；但是戏剧文本则在间接地向最终的观众说话，它是一系列经过设计的指令，经过戏剧制作人的阐释后被搬上舞台，再在观众面前上演。

戏剧文本包含两个重要元素：对话和舞台指示。读者在阅读戏剧文本时，往往像阅读小说和杂志一样，着急想知道是什么故事，从故事中抽取出梗概，或者被主要角色的对话吸引，而对那些看起来不太重要的斜体部分则一扫而过。那些斜体字看起来只是对演员和设计者的指令。

但其实，对话中也常常包含指令，而那些斜体字的舞台指示本身对于塑造隐含舞台来说，和人物或故事的作用一样重要。

DRAMATIC TEXT

dialogue  

stage directions

THEATRICAL TEXT

character    dialogue   space    action   actor’s body

图/unsplash

接下来就让我们跟随两位学者一起来了解舞台指示。

What do stage directions do?

Stage directions script a variety of things. In the short extract from A Doll’s House, for instance, there are instructions regarding facial expression, vocal delivery, gesture and basic actions, costume, ‘kinesics’ (moving about the stage), ‘proxemics’ (blocking-positioning of characters), space and props.

Fig. 1.3 sets out the various functions of stage directions. You may want to adjust or add to it.

Fig. 1.3

What is the relationship between the stage directions and the dialogue?

Since dialogue not only contains a story but also makes directions for action, character and space, it is often assumed to be the most important of the two elements which comprise the dramatic text — it seems to have more bearing on the production. But this is actually a partial, and thus misleading, version of the relationship between stage directions and dialogue.

In many cases stage directions work in conjunction with dialogue, explaining it: such stage directions may be called conjunctive. But there are some plays, such as Beckett’s Acts Without Words 1 and 2 (1958, 1960), where stage directions have completely replaced dialogue. In other plays dialogue is suspended for long passages: thus, in all of Act 3 scene 3 of Galsworthy’s Justice (1910), the unjustly imprisoned Falder roams distractedly about his prison cell, the box-like proscenium stage transformed from familiar living space to a place of mute entrapment.

Stage directions can, then, take precedence over dialogue. But they can also act in tension with or against dialogue. These sorts of directions may be called disjunctive. Manfred Pfister (1988: 48) provides a good example, again from Beckett. Waiting for Godot (1955) ends with the following exchange:

VLADIMIR: Well? Shall we go?

ESTRAGON: Yes, let’s go.

(They do not move.)

The same contradiction between their intended actions and what they actually do is scripted to happen at each act end. Its repetition drives the point home: we assume in life that intention leads to action, and we expect to see this affirmed on stage, but Beckett refuses.

图/britannica

Implicit stage directions

We have already suggested that dialogue contains ‘implicit’ stage directions, and we have seen an example: when Shakespeare gives the actress Desdemona the line, ‘Here I kneel’, he indicates quite directly that the speech is to be played kneeling.

It was common practice in Renaissance plays to embed the stage directions in the speeches, to have people say how they were moving and where. With this in mind if you look at the opening of Hamlet (1601), you will observe that the characters tell us what the image is: ‘’Tis now struck twelve’, ‘’Tis bitter cold’, ‘Have you had quiet guard’, ‘good night’(1.1.7—11).

Once you get used to looking for the implicit directions in Renaissance plays, you will find them in many later sorts of drama. The custom of writing fairly full stage directions only began in the nineteenth century. And even since then, many directions are still embedded: in Libby Mason’s Doubt Vision by the Women’s Theatre Group (1982) this exchange takes place: ‘Shh, I’m watching. It’s educational. Leeds United.’ ‘Oh God, he’s so patronizing.’ (p. 37). The dialogue tells us not only that they are watching television, but also that, as it goes on, it is a quiz programme. There is no other stage direction.

图/pinterest&shakespearestudyguide

（本文内容选自《研习戏剧》（第三版）Chapter 1，略有删节。）

（点击上面小程序，查看详情页）

END

她们的故事：英美女性小说的起源 | 3·8特辑

2021-03-08

大盘点 | 外教社重点学术图书新年巡览（内含福利）

2021-01-08

学者观点 | 郑体武 马卫红：“白银时代”的俄罗斯诗歌

2020-11-27

新书推荐 | 美国文学专史系列研究：美国女性小说史

2020-10-30

思飞学术

上海外语教育出版社学术事业部

上海外语教育学术出版中心（上海市新闻出版局授牌运作）

欢迎留言

转一转赞一赞看一看