HAMLET TO HAMILTON
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    • Seasons >
      • Season One >
        • S1 E1: Defining Verse Drama
        • S1 E2: Content Dictates Form
        • S1 E3: Schwumpf, There It Is
        • S1 E4: Heresy!
        • S1 E5: So You Think You Know Scansion?
        • S1 E6: Whose Line (Ending) Is It Anyway?
        • S1 E7: What's My Line (Ending)?
        • S1 E8: First Folio and Emotive Formatting
        • S1 E9: The Rules of Emotive Formatting
        • S1 E10: Silences, Spacing, Stage Directions & Shared Lines
      • Season Two >
        • S2 E1: The Earliest Arthur: Thomas Hughes
        • S2 E2: Verse Drama Meets Opera: John Dryden
        • S2 E3: Burlesque and Verse Drama: Henry Fielding's "Tom Thumb"
        • S2 E4: Defenestrating Lancelot!
        • S2 E5: Empowering Guinevere
        • S2 E6: More Hovey, More Honey
        • S2 E7: Melodrama!
        • S2 E8: Gilbert and Sullivan Do King Arthur...Kinda
        • S2 E9: King Arthur and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Play
        • S2 E10: New Arthur, New Millennia
        • S2 E11: A Philosophical "King Arthur" by Lucy Nordberg
        • S2 E12: The First Folio in the 21st Century: Daniel James Roth's "The Tragedy of King Arthur"
        • S2 E13: Stage Violence and Verse: "The Table Round" & "The Siege Perilous" by Emily C. A. Snyder (2019)
      • Season Three >
        • S3 E1: So You Think You Know Soliloquies?
        • S3 E2: Redefining Verse Drama, Pt. 1 - Four Types of Verse
        • S3 E3: Deep Dive: Exploring Hamlet's Seven Soliloquies
        • S3 E4: Deep Dive: Exploring Macbeth's Soliloquies
        • S3 E5: The Villain Soliloquies: Richard III, Iago, Edmund Don John...and Petruchio?
        • S3 E6: "Madness" in Soliloquy:- Re-examining King Lear, Lady Macbeth and Ophelia
        • S3 15: Discovering Character Through Line Breaks - Part 3
    • Bonus Episodes >
      • Interviews >
        • Interview: Tim Carroll
        • Interview: Peter Oswald
        • Interview: Glyn Maxwell
        • Interview: Kasia Lech
        • Interview: Caeden Musser
        • Interview: Deb Victoroff
      • Round Tables >
        • Round Table of the Round Table: Lucy Nordberg, Daniel James Roth, Emily C. A. Snyder
        • Round Table: Daniel James Roth, Grace Bardsley, Benedetto Robinson
      • BAR(D) TALKS
      • Unhinged Rants
  • Additional Resources
    • Types of Verse >
      • What is Verse?
      • Prose vs. Poetry
    • Meter and Scansion >
      • What is Meter?
      • Rhythm and Prosody
      • Stressed and Unstressed Syllables
      • Prosody (Wikipedia)
    • Contemporary Verse Dramatists >
      • 18th Century
      • 19th Century
      • 20th Century
      • 21st Century
    • Timeline of Arthurian Verse Drama
  • Patreon
    • Fractured Atlas

Introduction to the

Taxonomy of Performance

Introduction

In looking at different types of performance, it's important to give credit to all its many forms.  From the actor enacting text on the stage, to the politician stumping for election, to the best friend performing an act of service, daily life is full of different types and levels of performance.  So how can we tell one from another?

This Taxonomy of Performance offers the beginning means of classifying types of performance.  Of necessity, much of this hierarchy will focus on Theatrical Performance.  However, it the hope that this may prove useful and a beginning that others may refine.

Please note that the Taxonomy of Performance is the intellectual property of Emily C. A. Snyder.

Taxonomy of Performance

Each classification will be explicated in greater detail on separate pages.  The ordering of the following classifications may be refined over time. 

With all of these, though, it's worth remembering that Content Dictates Form.  That is, all of your choices should flow from what story you are expressing, and how best to express it.
  • VERISIMILITUDE: The degree of closeness to reality.  The difference between "Performing" and "Being."
  • EXPRESSION: The sensory means by which the Performance Text is generated, expressed and received
  • EMBODIMENT: The relationship between the Performer, Script, and Audience
  • FUNCTION: Which Elements of Theatre are emphasized in a script
  • FORM: The formatting of the Performance Text
  • STYLE: The types of ornamentation in the Performance Text

Additional Vocabulary

  • PERFORMER: The person who is presenting the Performance Text to an Audience
  • AUDIENCE: The person or persons who are receiving the Performance Text from the Performer
  • PERFORMANCE TEXT or SCRIPT: The "script," written or not, which proscribes the content of the Performance
  • ELEMENTS OF PERFORMANCE: The elements that go into the creation of the Performance Text

Example: Hamlet

So, the question might be...how does this thing work?  Let's see how we get to, let's say, Shakespeare's Hamlet from our list.
  1. VERISIMILITUDE: Theatrical - We clearly understand the Performer is performing, not being
  2. EXPRESSION: Verbal: The primary expression of the Performance Text is generated through language
  3. EMBODIMENT: Enacted: The primary way the Performance Text is embodied through characters acting in scene
  4. FUNCTION: Narrative: The Elements of Theatre which are prioritized are plot and character
  5. FORM: Verse: The primary formatting of the Performance Text is through verse formatting
  6. STYLE: Poetic: The primary style of the language in the Performance Text is poetic
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It should be noted that, rather like with the platypus, most performances will borrow different elements from various classifications.  For example, while the Performance Text of Hamlet is largely verbal, it also employs song in Ophelia's mad scene, and kinaesthetic elements, such as the final sword duel.  Similarly, not every line is in verse or poetic.  

And although the character of Hamlet ponders what it means "to be," we understand that whoever's playing Hamlet isn't Hamlet himself, but is performing Hamlet.

It may seem ridiculous to have to point this out, but far too many people seem to have difficulty separating out performance from reality.  Which is where you get such biases as the "anti-theatrical tradition" which goes all the way back to Greek theatre.  This is when audience members convince themselves that if, say, the Performer enacting Hamlet stabs his fellow performer...then the person enacting Hamlet is in danger of becoming, in Reality, someone who goes around stabbing everyone.

So, no.  Performers who are enacting even hot-headed father-stabbers are...well...performing.  So, unclutch your pearls, friends.  It's only pretend.
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Next

RELATED EPISODE: Content Dictates Form

Intellectual property of Emily C. A. Snyder
© 2022

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  • Home
    • Team
    • Turn to Flesh Productions
    • DM Me Podcast
  • Episode Guide
    • Seasons >
      • Season One >
        • S1 E1: Defining Verse Drama
        • S1 E2: Content Dictates Form
        • S1 E3: Schwumpf, There It Is
        • S1 E4: Heresy!
        • S1 E5: So You Think You Know Scansion?
        • S1 E6: Whose Line (Ending) Is It Anyway?
        • S1 E7: What's My Line (Ending)?
        • S1 E8: First Folio and Emotive Formatting
        • S1 E9: The Rules of Emotive Formatting
        • S1 E10: Silences, Spacing, Stage Directions & Shared Lines
      • Season Two >
        • S2 E1: The Earliest Arthur: Thomas Hughes
        • S2 E2: Verse Drama Meets Opera: John Dryden
        • S2 E3: Burlesque and Verse Drama: Henry Fielding's "Tom Thumb"
        • S2 E4: Defenestrating Lancelot!
        • S2 E5: Empowering Guinevere
        • S2 E6: More Hovey, More Honey
        • S2 E7: Melodrama!
        • S2 E8: Gilbert and Sullivan Do King Arthur...Kinda
        • S2 E9: King Arthur and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Play
        • S2 E10: New Arthur, New Millennia
        • S2 E11: A Philosophical "King Arthur" by Lucy Nordberg
        • S2 E12: The First Folio in the 21st Century: Daniel James Roth's "The Tragedy of King Arthur"
        • S2 E13: Stage Violence and Verse: "The Table Round" & "The Siege Perilous" by Emily C. A. Snyder (2019)
      • Season Three >
        • S3 E1: So You Think You Know Soliloquies?
        • S3 E2: Redefining Verse Drama, Pt. 1 - Four Types of Verse
        • S3 E3: Deep Dive: Exploring Hamlet's Seven Soliloquies
        • S3 E4: Deep Dive: Exploring Macbeth's Soliloquies
        • S3 E5: The Villain Soliloquies: Richard III, Iago, Edmund Don John...and Petruchio?
        • S3 E6: "Madness" in Soliloquy:- Re-examining King Lear, Lady Macbeth and Ophelia
        • S3 15: Discovering Character Through Line Breaks - Part 3
    • Bonus Episodes >
      • Interviews >
        • Interview: Tim Carroll
        • Interview: Peter Oswald
        • Interview: Glyn Maxwell
        • Interview: Kasia Lech
        • Interview: Caeden Musser
        • Interview: Deb Victoroff
      • Round Tables >
        • Round Table of the Round Table: Lucy Nordberg, Daniel James Roth, Emily C. A. Snyder
        • Round Table: Daniel James Roth, Grace Bardsley, Benedetto Robinson
      • BAR(D) TALKS
      • Unhinged Rants
  • Additional Resources
    • Types of Verse >
      • What is Verse?
      • Prose vs. Poetry
    • Meter and Scansion >
      • What is Meter?
      • Rhythm and Prosody
      • Stressed and Unstressed Syllables
      • Prosody (Wikipedia)
    • Contemporary Verse Dramatists >
      • 18th Century
      • 19th Century
      • 20th Century
      • 21st Century
    • Timeline of Arthurian Verse Drama
  • Patreon
    • Fractured Atlas