Semiotics of Theater

ERIKA FISCHER-LICHTE is Director of the Institute of Theater Research at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz.

• IntroductionTheater as a Cultural SystemThe Theatrical CodeI. The Theatrical Code as a System1. The Actor's Activities as a SignLanguage-based SignsLinguistic SignsParalinguistic SignsKinesic SignsMimic SignsGestural SignsProxemic Signs2. The Actor's Appearance as a SignMaskHairstyleCostume3. Spatial SignsTheatrical SpaceStage SpaceDecorationPropsLighting4. Nonverbal Acoustic SignsSoundsMusic5. Theater as a Semiotic SystemThe Specificity of the Theatrical SignStructure and HierarchyTheatrical Communication"Theatriciality"II. The Theatrical Gesture as a Norm6. The Gesture in Eighteenth-Century German TheaterFrom System to NormProblems of a Semiotic Historical ReconstructionThe Gestural Code in Eighteenth-Century German TheaterPreconditions: The Gestural Code of Baroque TheaterChanges in the Baroque Gestural Code during the Early EnlightenmentThe Genesis of a Gestural Code for Bourgeois Illusionist TheaterGestures in Theater as a Representational System of Meaning in the Discourse of the EpochIII. The Theatrical Code as Speech7. Performance as Theatrical TextThe Concept of the Theatrical TextOn the Constitution of the Theatrical TextThe Transformation of the Drama's Literary Text into the Theatrical Text of the PerformanceThe Hermeneutics of the Theatrical Text8. The Process of Constituting Meaning and Sense as a Method of Analyzing Theatrical TextsTheory and MethodIndividual Analytic ProceduresRecourse to the Theatrical Code as a System and a NormSegmentationSelection and CombinationInternal and External RecodingOn Applying the MethodProblems of NotationConcluding Remarks on the Kinesic Code of the German Theater of the 1970sNotesBibliographyIndex of NamesIndex of Terms