Juan F. CERDÁ - Malleable Shakespeare : Reformulating Schechner’s Efficacy-Entertainment Braid (pag. 181-188)
In his book from 1988, Performance Theory, Richard Schechner described performance as a dialectical negotiation of two axes functioning as poles of a continuum. This ‘basic polarity’, which Schechner termed the efficacy-entertainment braid, is epitomised in medieval cycle plays, church rituals and court ceremonies (efficacy pole) and bards, troubadours and fairs (entertainment pole).While Schechner privileged aspects closer to the efficacy pole as responsible for a play’s universality,this paper oppositely suggests a balanced distribution of performative elements in the efficacy and the entertainment axes both to move away from the notion of universality and to account for at least part of Shakespeare’s dramatic potential to appeal audiences through consecutive historical scenarios. Thus,by using examples from Titus Andronicus and The Comedy of Errors, this essay illustrates how Shakespeare’s dramatic malleability can be seen to emerge from both poles of Schechner’s braid.