Sculpting the Time, or the Magical Binder

Abstract

For reasons given in the previous chapters, we may treat the theatre stage as an almost miraculous space, a translucent chemical retort, in which – during the process of semiosis – the physical laws of our world are suspended and everything that can be seen or heard is engaged in all sorts of reactions and, consequently, is converted into specific signifiers of a fictional world that, in point of fact, cannot be seen or heard. Semiosis needs a binder for a multitude of chemical “reactions” of which every production is composed, and it seems that the special kind of time, unknown in the world outside theatre, that appears on the stage plays that function.¹ This explains why the director’s task is “to sculpt the time”.² Naturally, time does not exist in any material sense, and in its cognition humans employ metaphors, usually linked to the movement through space. Generally, it may be said that time is a relationship between events (consciousness of the act of perception of the world around us can also be treated as an “event”). Since in theatre the occurring events are preordained, so are the temporal relations between them. In theatre there is no future as we know it, there is no past as we know it, there is only continuous, evolving present. This has significant consequences when we consider the differences between the two worlds.