Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 8 Number 1, April 2007
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Bruce McConachie & Elizabeth Hart (Eds.) Performance and Cognition: Theatre Studies and the Cognitive Turn. London: Routledge 2006. ISBN 9780415763844, £ 65;
Reviewed by
University of Portsmouth, UK
McConachie & Hart’s anthology effectively makes the case for the application of cognitive science to performance and theatre studies. This is predicated upon the core argument that some of the dominant systems of analysis within the field are problematic, founded on incomplete or overturned knowledge, or just plain erroneous. A perspective drawn from cognitive science, particularly the more or less ubiquitously approved idea of embodiment, is offered as either a replacement or supplement to current thinking. Although focusing upon providing both an introduction to some key concepts and demonstrating their applicability, in their introduction, McConachie & Hart also claim that their approach has the capacity to bridge both the theatre / performance studies schism and, indeed, reach out across the rather more substantial science / humanities divide.
The book is divided into four sections, the first comprising roughly the half the book and introducing the key principles and concepts to be extrapolated in specific regard to drama, acting and audience in the following three. In the opening essay, Hart focuses upon the divide between semantics and phenomenology, offering new groundings for each that demonstrate their continuity. Of the former, she offers evidence from cognitive science that the notion of an unembodied language is flawed and that, in fact, one should consider all aspects of language as fundamentally mediated by the body, and the brain as a biological organ. In other words, whilst recognising the cultural and social constructedness of language, symbol, and self, these rest inescapably upon the condition of being-in-the-world, via both sensorimotor data and embodied memory. Arguing that Merleau-Ponty’s embodied consciousness was a highly intuitive model that finds much support in contemporary cognitive science, Hart convincingly makes the case that biological structures create the cognitive apparatus upon which culture acts and through which culture, including or comprised of signs and language, may form. Image schema, “gestalt-like abstractions of sensorimotor experience” (p37), are the building blocks of this process, and are returned to time and again by other contributors. Thus, it is Hart’s contention that an understanding of the act of performance or theatre rests upon the highly particular combination of space and text in that it returns language to its original founding filter, so to speak. In one sense, Hart almost seems to be attempting to rescue concepts such as Butler’s performativity from the epistemic quicksand on which they have been constructed, offering them a lifeline from cognitive science.
If Hart opens with an attack on Saussarian linguistics, McConachie goes straight for the jugular of psychoanalysis, and Lacan in particular, in his essay. As a presence researcher with a background that roams from performance to psychology, I must admit to some incredulity at the continued wheeling-out of Freud and Lacan given we have decades of proper empirical, valid evidence which exposes much of their work as a strange cocktail of common-sense, folk psychology and over-extended theorising (not to mention doctored results, in Freud’s case). McConachie offers a case study of wench acts, summarising a number of psychoanalytical treatises on them, and then drawing attention to the shortfalls of each. This is bookended by a discussion of Henderson & Horgan’s work on epistemic truth, which McConachie uses this to argue for a mode of analysis based both upon ‘cold’ theory and ‘hot’ simulation. Even the simplest act of putting oneself in the audience’s shoes, he states, undercuts much of the psychoanalytical scaffolding and intuitively provides a simpler explanation that finds support in a proper, empirically supported body of knowledge. Now, that’s not to suggest that empiricism is the only, or a priori most appropriate methodological approach, but to carefully point out that where it exists, one should respect its dominance over theory, with the caveat of interpretation, of course.
The third essay calls for the siting of cognitive science within a larger social model, drawing attention to the gap at the bottom of Lakoff & Johnson’s image schemas: the question of just how the particularities of these schema are generated. Nellhaus argues that the surrounding communications framework – or the practice of communication through various natural and artificial channels – acts as a powerful context. He draws attention to sudden shifts in theatrical practice that may expose this process at work, particularly how the shift in printing practice from book to periodical may be traced in a shift in dramaturgy. Thus, he argues, “the communication framework… involves embodied experiences that generate image schema” (p91). In other words, social practice shifts the cognitive constructs used to generate the schema through which further social practice is mediated. This is a fascinating essay and offers another clear demonstration that the relationship between science and humanities is both bi-directional and not simply an ongoing case of trading metaphors.
The section on drama and cognition comprises of two pieces. Zunshine examines the cognitive basis of essentialism, identifying its roots as a combination of core perceptual and conceptual activities. She then uses this to examine the recurring twin motif from Plautus to Shakespeare and suggests that the enduring fascination may be based upon both the delight of watching an artificial failure to undertake a basic cognitive activity and the more serious questions provoked by attacking the assumed platforms of identification agents use to construct their sense of self. Although this, like some of the other essays, is based upon a rather narrow set of citations from the scientific literature – of which, more later – it is nevertheless a good example of how a defined concept from the latter may be used to elucidate consistent constructs in theatre. The following essay, in which Rokonitz discusses Leontes’ psychological disintegration and rebirth is altogether more problematic. Taking as a departure Damasio’s oft-quoted model of cognition which underpins reason with emotion and demonstrates the fundamental link between the two, she argues that it is a loss of trust in his body and a radical over-reliance upon the flawed system of rationality, culminating in a cycle of radical scepticism which drives Leontes’ madness. The problem I have with this piece is it seems to set this extremism up as a kind of wolf at the door, to be kept at bay by trusting embodiment to a greater extent, which is just not particularly convincing. The root of Leontes’ descent is accurate enough, but his is also an aberrant psychology, a breakdown of the norm – a mental illness – and its important to not generalise too much about the generic function of cognitive apparatus from this, perhaps. Equally, the re-definition of faith as “the possibility of achieving satisfying knowledge and the possibility of fostering trust-relations among people as opposed to doubt, suspicion and hate” (p129) seems rather spurious - I’m not at all sure this total re-invention of a concept is justifiable. Rokonitz does have some interesting things to say: that a breakdown of collaboration between embodied, emotional experience and decision-making leads to impairments of cognitive ability, but one feels that she arrived at this investigation with a firm, pre-existing opinion regarding scepticism and has wrapped cognitive science around it. It is not always a good fit. Finally, I recognise I am an old grouch, but inclusion of sentences like “I am convinced that were he alive today, Shakespeare would…” (p132) have no place in serious academic writing; their subtextual completion being, of course, “…agree with me.”
Lutterbie’s contribution investigates the underlying motivation behind the drive to get ‘away from the head and towards to soul’ of acting that he identifies in practitioners from Brecht to Grotowski. Once again noting Damasio’s proposed interconnection between intellect and emotion, he examines two very different techniques, concluding that what is shared is perhaps more suitably considered a common recourse to two of Lakoff & Johnson’s primary metaphors. Indeed, he argues, what we are really talking about are different notions of attention, perhaps underpinned by alternate means of forming patterns of neural connectivity, leading to a distinction between types of associative practice. He concludes with an important observation that perhaps best summarises what is best about this book: “It is true that I am merely replacing one metaphor with another. The question is whether or not this succession enhances our understanding of the creative process” (pg 165). I would think in this case, it clearly does.
In a way, Blair’s essay attacks this question head on; firstly providing an overview of some key areas within cognitive science and then attempting to illustrate their application to acting via the concept of ‘image streams’. In essence, this is a call for a more integrated approach to body state and psychological state: arguing that, given the mounting body of evidence that leads us towards embodiment as a central aspect of being, any emotional response must be considered as a physiological one too. She quotes acting teacher Michael Connolly as suggesting that the difficult issue of what an actor’s ‘talent’ is, may be thought of as “the ability to embody what is imagined”. Indeed, this returns us once again to the central defining feature of mimesis against diegesis – the showing, in the world, not the telling, of the world. Together, these essays clearly demonstrate, even if just at a metaphoric level, the use of cognitive science in the practical business of theatre, though I’m not sure that Blair’s insistence that her “use of the science is integrative, rather than reductive or essentialist” (pg 170) casts an fair aspersion upon the majority of cognitive scientists. Let us remember that it is, after all, a highly interdisciplinary field that, as this book reminds us again and again, is driving fluidity and interconnectivity back home with empirical support. Good science is reductionist and essentialist when it needs to be, integrative when it needs to be. It is bad science that cannot see the wood for the leaves.
The final section, considering audiences, is opened by a short and direct piece by Mancing who finds a good, protruding nail and gives it a solid and well targeted whack. Reading a text and seeing a performance are fundamentally different because they involve different cognitive mechanisms at different levels. Job done. It sounds straightforward, but this is a case where the science can put itself directly in the path of a long running issue and offer up direct evidence for its resolution. Although Mancing does introduce Gibson’s ecological perception theory, which is surprisingly absent elsewhere in the book, it would probably have been worth mentioning that although it remains useful, it has been more than convincingly dismantled (Fodor & Pylyshn 1981, Marr 1982). Having said that, this is clear, concise and well-argued. Swettenham rounds up the essays with an attempt to deconstruct the dramatic reaction of a 1907 audience to The Playboy of the Western World. Using Lakoff’s model of category construction, Swettenham argues that underlying the stereotyping and generally insulting portrayal of the Irish in the play is the setting in motion of cognitive dissonance; that is, a destablising attack upon the audience’s conceptual structures, and it is this that caused such uproar. It’s an interesting idea, and a good introduction to one model of how we may generate concepts, but I must admit to be left wondering whether it is really necessary to see this as a kind of psychological turmoil. Swettenham does make the case that our concepts are formed from contact with individual instances, rather than abstract notions, though he really should have widened his citations beyond Lakoff and Rosch to back this up, but one can address the entire Playboy debacle from a less psychological level and I don’t think he really offers any rebuttal to the argument that the play was offensively racist and that is probably enough in itself to get an audience going, especially when they are the group being targeted by the racism. There may well be a dissonance between their concept of their identity and the one presented by the play, but I think it’s likely that the turmoil is occurring at a more superficial level than Swettenham suggests. It’s an interesting application though, and I’m probably being rather hard in this criticism.
The book rounds up with a glossary assembled by Ewing Pierce. This is well put together and concise – a good introduction for those new to the field – and I already use it when introducing concepts to undergraduates, which can only be a compliment. My only criticism, which is not down to Ewing Pierce, is that rather than a reference list, it would perhaps have been the ideal place for a categorised further reading list for those using the book as a way into the field.
Overall, this is a timely and well-executed anthology. On the whole the contributions are well written and have been organised to provide a solid overview of the emergent relationship between theatre (and performance) and cognitive science. Where the essays are weaker, they still illustrate the potency of the relationship and how these new ideas can by applied to theory and practice. This is a little too much of too few theorists for my liking. This is not to underestimate the importance of Damasio or Lakoff & Johnson, but there are many other important scientists out in the field. I do feel that more than fleeting mentions of Zeki, Gibson, Marr, Fodor, Pylyshyn, Dennett and Minsky are appropriate, rather than citing academics who have already mediated these primary sources for their own ends. Equally, some of the older founding works of cognitive science are missing; to me, Neisser’s seminal 1976 work is simply required reading, especially as it posits a dynamic cycle of interaction between perception, schema and action. Tulving’s split of semantic and episodic memory is, as Blair recognises, absolutely fundamental to the notion of embodied representation, and connectionism simply must be considered alongside any discussion of theory of mind and cognitive architecture, as should presence research’s exploration of how the self understands itself within a reality. But, it should be remembered that this is relatively new ground and as such, this book is a start, and it’s a good one. Cognitive science so clearly has so much to offer scholars working in the theatre, performance and the humanities in general, and McConachie & Hart have done an excellent job of making this case.