Theater аs а Cultural System

The metod used here, namely, distinguishing the different cultural systems from one another by viewing them as respective opposites with regard to the special way in which they fulfill their general function of generating meaning, leads us to a second question. Does theater – quite aside from the fact that it, like all cultural systems, follows a specific internal code – contrast in principle with the other systems which generate meaning on the basis of aesthetic codes? This question cannot be answered by referring to individual, possibly distinguishing factors, but rather only by taking into account a whole complex of such factors which relate to one another in a particular way and are relevant only as a whole – as a bundle of factors, so to speak. These factors refer above all to two sets of problems: (1) the ontological state of the artwork; and (2) the conditions for its production and reception.
The major feature of the network of signs which the cultural system of “theater” respectively produces – the performance – is that it cannot be separated from its producers, the actors. The material artifact of theater does not – and here it is unlike a picture or the text of a poem – have an autonomous existence in isolation from its producers. The transitoriness of theater, as Lessing called it, is defined not only by its occurrence in time, like music or an oral reading, but also by the fact that its realization remains inextricably tied to its originator and has no transferable, repeatable autonomous existence.
A further important feature of theater arises from this, the specific ontological state of theatrical performance: namely, its complete contemporaneity. Whereas I can observe pictures that were painted many hundreds years ago, read novels that were written in times long past, I can only watch theater performances that occur today, in the present. I can, as Steinbeck fittingly puts it, only involve myself theoretically, and not aesthetically, with past theater performances. For the web of signs of the performance is indissolubly bound up with the actor who creates them, present only in the moment of their production. Nothing is changed by bearing in mind that some of the signs here – such as costumes, props, stage decor – outlast the process of performance. For what can endure are individual signs torn out of their context, but never the web of signs from which they originate. This cannot be handed down as tradition.
The specific conditions of theater production and reception are intimately connected with the special ontological state of theatrical performances as artworks. Given that the network of signs only exists in the process of its production, any reception of it has to occur at the same time: production and reception of a theater performance are synchronous. The moment an actor produces a sign by means of which he wishes to generate and communicate particular meanings, that sign is perceived by the audience who in turn produce meaning by attributing particular meanings to this sign. That is, in the case of a theater performance, we have to do with two aspects of the process of constituting meaning which occur simultaneously.
The synchronicity points not only to the specific ontological state of theater performances from which it derives; it also magnifies another essential feature of theater as a cultural system. For a theater performance does not just produce a web of signs that canalso be received in the process of its production. Rather, a theater performance that does not take place before an audience, i.e., cannot be received, is not a theater performance. The audience is in fact a constitutive part of theater – without an audience there can be no performance. In other words, in addition to its specific ontological state, performances are characterized substantively by their public nature. Even if they take place before only one spectator, they nevertheless occur in public, for this one spectator represents the public in his capacity as a spectator. Theater always occurs as a public event.
By virtue of these two features, each of which comprises quite specific factors determining the process of the constitution of meaning, theater as a cultural system contrasts fundamentally with all the other cultural systems which create meaning on the basis of an aesthetic code. For these two characteristics are not to be found in such a combination in any other acoustic genre.
It can be concluded, then, that the cultural system of theater is based on two constituent elements that must exist if it is to be theater: the actor and the spectator. These two constituent elements implicitly contain a third. For the actor is only an actor and not just person A, B or C to the extent that s/he portrays someone else, X, Y or Z, i.e., plays a role. In other words, the minimum preconditions for theater to be theater are that person A represents X while S looks on.
Now, in order to depict X, A (1) dons a particular external appearance, (2) acts in a certain way, and (3) does so in a certain space. Such a general description of the actor’s activity does not provide a clear account of the differences between his activity and that of all other members of the culture. For these three characteristics hold for all people in all cultures: every person prepares his/her external appearance in a particular way and acts in a certain way in a particular space. On the basis of this general distinction all that could be said would be that the difference between what person A does as person A and what s/he does when portraying X consists solely in his/her donning a different appearance and acting in a different way in a different space. There is, however, a fundamental, qualitative difference between the two processes.
If person A in her capacity as person A prepares her external appearance in a special way, for example by slipping on a fur coat, then she probably does this because she is cold and wishes to warm herself. The fur coat denotes a certain utility function in which it is also used de facto. Furthermore, A may, if she is meeting other people when wearing the coat, perhaps put it on in order to show that she belongs to a certain social stratum, has a certain income, has a particular taste, etc. Everything for which the person’s external appearance, in this case the fur coat, may be a sign is intended to be referred to the person himself: it is a sign for something that concerns person A as person A.
If A carries out an action as A, e.g., manufactures a jug, then she does so either because she wishes to use it herself or to sell it or give it to someone. She manufactures it for a specific purpose. If she has an audience while making it, then she may be manufacturing it in order to show how skilled, how fast, how diligent she, A, is. If A cries, then we can assume that a certain emotion may be the cause: she cries perhaps because she is sad. If she cries in the presence of others, then this is a sign for them that A is sad. If A seeks out a certain spatial location, then she does so for a concrete purpose. Every space specially prepared by humans denotes a utility function, be it a living room, a stable, a church, a town hall, an office, a restroom, etc. A acts in such a space because she wishes to attain a goal connected with this space. The same is true if she seeks out a space not prepared by humans, such as forests, meadows, river banks, etc. In addition to fulfilling such utilitarian functions, spending time in a particular space may also be meant as a sign that she has something to do there or belongs there – a sign that is intended to say something about person A. In other words, if person A prepares her external appearance in a certain way as person A and acts in particular way in a particular surrounding, then she does this either in order to attain a concrete end or in order to show others something about herself, person A.
If, by contrast, A prepares her external appearance in such a manner as to depict X – if, for example, she puts on a fur coat – then she does this quite clearly not because she is cold but in order to make a statement about X. Perhaps X is cold in this situation or – if X is Ferdinand in Schiller’s Love and Intrigue and wears a present-day fur coat – X is a person with characteristics similar to those who wear such coats today, etc. A, in other words, prepares her external appearance not to achieve a specific end, but in order to say something about X. If A produces a jug while depicting X, then this occurs not in order to use the jug for some express purpose, but to generate a sign of something that concerns X: her ability to manufacture a jug, her skill, or her dire situation which forces her to make jugs, etc. If A cries while depicting X, then she does not cry because she, A, is sad. Rather, she cries in order to show that X is sad or that X is someone who cannot control herself, or that X wishes to appear emotional in the eyes of others, etc.
Everything that A does while representing X is done not to achieve a specific end – because everything which she does in this case is done not for herself, but for others, for the spectators. Nor does she do something in order to say something about herself as person A, but exclusively in order to shows something that refers solely to X.
The space in which A acts when playing X is special space to the extent that it denotes a quite specific utility function, namely, that of being able to signify different spaces. It may, on the one hand, be a space expressly built or decorated for the purpose – whether a proper theater building or merely a simple wooden stage made of planks that can be assembled anywhere. On the other hand, this special space may be situated in a space that denotes another utility function, such as church, school, canteen, marketplace, fairground, meadow, railway station. Thus, that special space whose function consists of signifying a random number of other spaces can be realized in any space. For when A acts in order to portray X, then the space no longer denotes its original utility function, but rather the special space of the performance; in other words, it signifies whatever particular space X finds herself in.
A can act as A both in the presence of others and on her own. When A, by contrast, acts in order to portray X, then everything she does, the way she does it, and where she does it is related to the presence of spectators, for whom A‘s external appearance signifies that of X, her actions and behavior that of X, and the space in which she acts the space in which X acts.
To this extent the same underlying situation is to be encountered as is to be found in culture in general, in that both cases can be characterized globally as involving humans preparing their external appearances in a particular way and acting in certain way in a particular space. However, whereas in culture, meaning is generated in genera; as a whole by the cultural systems activated by this process creating primary signs, in theater meaning is produced by generating signs for the signs created by other cultural systems.
Thus, in a certain sense, theater involves the “doubling up” of the culture in which that theater is played: the signs engendered by theater respectively denote those signs produced by the corresponding cultural systems. Theatrical signs are therefore always signs of signs which are characterized by the fact that they may have the same material constitution as the primary signs which they signify – a crown can signify a crown, a nod of the head can mean a nod of the head, and a scream a scream, etc. It follows from this that an especially close connection must obtain between theater and culture. The signs of theater can only be understood by someone who is acquainted with the signs produced by the cultural systems in the surrounding culture and knows how to interpret them. Theater, in other words, reflects the reality of the culture in which it originates in a double sense of the word: it depicts that reality and presents it in such depiction for reflective thought.
Theater depicts culture to the extent that its signs signify those generated by the different cultural systems. It therefore places the culture at the scrutiny of a distanced and distancing gaze to the extent that the theatrical signs can only be generated with reference to the spectators. Culture is accordingly divided up in theater into a culture of those who depict it and culture of those who watch it. The audience as a public which represents the members of that culture as a whole can act as proxy for this overall number and thus, in the act of spectating, gain distance from the culture depicted and from itself. In this manner, theater becomes a model of cultural reality in which the spectators confront the meanings of that reality. In this sense, theater can be understood as an act of self-presentation and self-reflection on the part of the culture in question.
This specific characteristic of theater – which sets it off from all other cultural systems – may, from the viewpoint of cultural studies, be the reason for the widespread occurrence of the phenomenon of theater. For whenever a culture constitutes itself by generating meaning through the creation of signs with the help of various cultural systems, it has, in so doing, provided the signs which it needs to make theater possible. For theater does not require the invention of specifically theatrical signs if it is to come about, even if theater in various highly developed cultures deploys such inventions. Rather, theater resorts to signs that are already present in the culture anyway. It takes up these signs without making use of the primary functions for which they were produced by the respective cultural systems in the first place. The new function given these signs in theater, namely, that of being signs of signs, enables the culture in question to take a reflective stance on itself.
In other words, wherever culture constitutes itself, it creates the preconditions for the constitution of theater. For the signs that theater needs are always available in a culture; the moment they are used in the above-mentioned new function, theater can be deemed to have come into being.