ABSTRACT

The relationship between dramaturgy and post-structuralism—the subject of this chapter—is an uneasy one. Goffman’s work to be sure has vastly appealed to both postmodernists and post-structuralists for various reasons—chiefly because of its emphasis on ephemeral appearances and its unique approach to signification, individual agency, and social structure (e.g. see Battershill 1990; Ticineto Clough 1990). Moreover, the performative dimensions of dramaturgy have long been congruent with other performative approaches, such as speech-act theory, long in vogue within post-structuralist theory. However, the true uneasiness arising from a combination of dramaturgy and post-structuralism today comes from the evolution of post-structuralism itself. Writing about post-structuralism in 2012, is infinitely more difficult than it already was at the time of the diffusion of post-structuralist ideas across the social sciences in the 1990s. Post-structuralism today is an amorphous creature which finds its home everywhere and nowhere in particular (see Davis 2007; Lechte 2009). It is also an eclectic being which derives its multifaceted identity—if it any longer finds one at all—by continuously reinventing itself through the theoretical flavor of the day. So, while dramaturgy has remained relatively stable, post-structuralism is more than ever before a schizoid, evanescent entity, and to talk about a “post-structuralist approach to dramaturgy” would mean, inevitably, to commit a sin of partiality.