Conclusion

Abstract

Dramaturgy is a word for the principles of theatre’s spatio-temporal composition, and we have seen that there are other ways of thinking about such composition that tend to relate it more clearly to spatiality: as ‘building’; ‘chronotope’; ‘rhythmic production’; ‘construction’; ‘gestalt’; ‘situation’; ‘architecture’; or ‘deep map’. Juliet Rufford adds another useful term in her suggestion that ‘tectonics’ can be a way into discussing theatre (Rufford 2015: 73–5), using this term in its architectural, rather than geological, sense. It is not my intention to attempt to place ‘dramaturgy’ as the overarching concept here, but to position it alongside the others, and to suggest their similarity, as well as their differences. Important principles are at stake in the choice of terms, though, in each instance, the aim may be to articulate a way of thinking about the spatio-temporal organisation of a work.