Conclusion: Prop and Word

Abstract

In a discussion of ‘dramatic performativity’, W. B. Worthen draws on Judith Butler’s study of the relationship between language and enactment.¹ The text of the marriage service, ‘I do’, is shown not to be ‘under the sovereign control of the speakers or of their text’ but is spoken ‘within ceremonial and ritualized behaviors that cite and reiterate an entire range of heteronormative social institutions’.² Worthen argues that if the ‘performativity’ of a text is not under sovereign control then ‘dramatic writing alone cannot exert “sovereign” force on its performance’.³ Worthen seeks to ease performance — and the performance of Shakespeare particularly — out of its iterative relation in print culture (the idea that performance repeats the play that is written down). He argues for ‘a much more interactive, performative relation between writing and the spaces, places, and behaviors that give it meaning, force, as theatrical action’.⁴ This is a compelling argument and extends the scope of performance criticism considerably, taking the page/stage debate into new exciting areas of study.