مهسا مرآت

This thesis aims to draw an analogy between the Iranian performance (۲۰۱۳) and the Danish performance (۲۰۱۷) of Martin McDonagh’s play The Pillowman (۲۰۰۳). Both are neat efficient re-enactments loyal to the play’s original sense of aggression that complicates audience response and obstructs straightforward meaning-making. The Danish performance, en-acted by Leftfield theatre company, works upon a more freer cultural-based signs, however, it remains resolute to the original text of the play. Even though Iranian performance, performed in Iranshahr Theatre, is designed based on the more constrained cultural signs affecting both the events on the stage and the audience, the performance reveals creative techniques the directors and actors have applied to the work in order to convey the essential meanings in the best way appropriate for the Iranian audience. These two chosen performances are significant for semiotic analysis because of the differences and similarities in spacial, linguistic and somatic levels of semiotics. To analyze the visual plateau, which is the ground for conveying the text’s different layers of meaning, this thesis employs Elain Aston and George Savona and Kier Elam’s theories of theatrical semiotics. Also, it uses Charles Jenks’ theory of double-coding and Edward T. Hall’s theory of semiotics to delve into different semiotic dimensions of the two theatre staging to argue that the Iranian performance not only is not critically impoverished but also attains critical success by extending and substituting creative semiotic codes and meanings for the original text.

This thesis aims to draw an analogy between the Iranian performance (۲۰۱۳) and the Danish performance (۲۰۱۷) of Martin McDonagh’s play The Pillowman (۲۰۰۳). Both are neat efficient re-enactments loyal to the play’s original sense of aggression that complicates audience response and obstructs straightforward meaning-making. The Danish performance, en-acted by Leftfield theatre company, works upon a more freer cultural-based signs, however, it remains resolute to the original text of the play. Even though Iranian performance, performed in Iranshahr Theatre, is designed based on the more constrained cultural signs affecting both the events on the stage and the audience, the performance reveals creative techniques the directors and actors have applied to the work in order to convey the essential meanings in the best way appropriate for the Iranian audience. These two chosen performances are significant for semiotic analysis because of the differences and similarities in spacial, linguistic and somatic levels of semiotics. To analyze the visual plateau, which is the ground for conveying the text’s different layers of meaning, this thesis employs Elain Aston and George Savona and Kier Elam’s theories of theatrical semiotics. Also, it uses Charles Jenks’ theory of double-coding and Edward T. Hall’s theory of semiotics to delve into different semiotic dimensions of the two theatre staging to argue that the Iranian performance not only is not critically impoverished but also attains critical success by extending and substituting creative semiotic codes and meanings for the original text.