Technical Properties

This paper takes up the question of “things” in contemporary English theatre by examining a trivial, even “banal” prop which appears in any number of plays: the stage telephone. After outlining the highly conventionalised function of the stage telephone as a pretext for exposition and a guarantee of...

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Vydáno v:URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ebc,
Hlavní autor: Buse, Peter
Médium: Article ou chapitre numérique
Jazyk:Anglais
Vydáno: Études britanniques contemporaines 2019
On-line přístup:Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
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Shrnutí:This paper takes up the question of “things” in contemporary English theatre by examining a trivial, even “banal” prop which appears in any number of plays: the stage telephone. After outlining the highly conventionalised function of the stage telephone as a pretext for exposition and a guarantee of the integrity of off-stage space, the paper examines a number of departures from the convention, including Tom Stoppard’s post-modern citation of the stage telephone in The Real Inspector Hound and Caryl Churchill’s exploitation of its sonic and visual properties in Serious Money. The paper concludes with a consideration of Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter, a play without telephones, but one which nonetheless reflects profoundly on what is at stake in the humble s tage telephone, that is, the status of telecommunications in the theatre.