At the crossroads between time and place: performing boxes in Priestley’s Dangerous Corner
In Dangerous Corner, one of J. B. Priestley’s “ time plays”, the playwright places an object, a musical cigarette box, at the centre of his experiment with time. The box is indeed the place where Priestley’s philosophy of time crystallizes out : as the plot unfolds and branches out from a whodunit i...
Kaydedildi:
| Yayımlandı: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ebc, |
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| Yazar: | |
| Materyal Türü: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Dil: | Anglais |
| Baskı/Yayın Bilgisi: |
Études britanniques contemporaines
2019
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| Online Erişim: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Özet: | In Dangerous Corner, one of J. B. Priestley’s “ time plays”, the playwright places an object, a musical cigarette box, at the centre of his experiment with time. The box is indeed the place where Priestley’s philosophy of time crystallizes out : as the plot unfolds and branches out from a whodunit into a metatheatre moment which deflates the whodunnit as pure fiction, the box is de-objectified, it becomes a fictitious thing, so that the spectator has to revise his judgement and consider it under a new angle. Thus, the box undergoes a process of becoming which makes it appear as anamorphic, moving in time rather than in space. As it is derealised and dematerialised, the box questions our assumptions about the capacity of theatrical representation to present reality on stage. Turned into a wavering signifier, the musical cigarette box leaves it open for the spectator to decide which is the real play, the whodunnit or the self- reflexive ending. Equally, the box makes it possible for us to experience two contradictory sequences of time simultaneously, and to enjoy the unique sensation of being immersed both in chronological objective time and in the intensive time of art. |
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