Dramatic Theories of Voice in the Twentieth Century By Andrew Ki ...

thought. Given its preoccupation with synchrony and the semantic aspects of the voice, poststructuralism tends to ignore the specific, embodied, and sonorous characteristics of individual speaking voices. As such, poststructural theory led to the observation within theatre criticism of the difficulty, if not impossibility, of linguistic communication free of political and institutional pressures.

Chapter seven, “The Voice of the Postmodern Stage,” seeks the reflection of poststructural and postmodern theories of voice in the vocal practices of late twentieth-century performances labeled postmodern. It focuses on five performers or collectives that illustrate performance styles widely regarded as postmodern by theatre scholarship: Robert Wilson, Richard Foreman, Karen Finley, Laurie Anderson, and the Wooster Group. The chapter observes that whereas the use of the voice in some postmodern theatre reflects the status of the voice in poststructuralism, the presence of performers in command of their voices lends to the performances a modernist dimension. Based on a critique of the voice in postmodern performance and a view toward the practice as resistant to the textuality of modernist and classical theatre, this chapter argues against the critical consensus of the late twentieth century and proposes a reconsideration of the theoretical tenets of postmodern theatre.