Deborah Fronko

DR 1310 HT 2009

1

Baby Drama at Unga Klara, Stockholm 2006: The spectator aged 6 to 12 months

and the sign system of the performance context

University of Gothenburg

Department of Literature

The History of Ideas and

Religion

Drama Division

Research Paper DR 1310

Advisor: Robert Lyons

Deborah Fronko

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Contents

1. Introduction 3

2. Semiotics and The Imagination 4

2 a. Structuralism in brief 4

2. b. Roland Barthes 5

2. c. Classification of sign systems according to Kowzan 8

2. c. 1. Sign systems of the actor 9

2. c. 2. Sign systems outside the actor 9

3. Background 9

4. The Story 13

4. a. Improvising the story 14

4. b. The scenes 14

5. The Sign Systems of Baby Drama 15

5. a. Visual signs, auditive signs and movement 15

5. b. Masks 24

6. Final Discussion 26

7. Conclusion 27

8. Bibliography and Other Sources 29

Acknowledgements

Anne Fredriksson, archivist at Stockholms Stadsteater and Stina Wikström at

Unga Klara are gratefully acknowledged for their kind assistance. Suzanne Osten is also

gratefully acknowledged for prompt response to my questions and for supplying names,

email addresses and phone numbers to people who could provide information.

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1. Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to examine how spectators between the ages of 6 to

12 months may perceive a drama by means of traditional sign systems of the theater in

relation to adult spectators. Baby Drama1 had spectators that were between the ages of 6

to 12 months along with attending caregivers or parents. Critics of theater for children

maintain that children do not have the capability to understand adult intentions behind

written drama.

A performance of Baby Drama is explored from a semiotic approach in this paper.

The performance analyzed here was from March 15, 2006 and was viewed as a VHS

recording in the archive at Stockholms Stadsteater. The analysis section applies the

ideas of Roland Barthes on the symbolic imagination, the formal imagination and the

functional imagination to selected signs of the theater as used in Baby Drama. These

ideas are applied to see whether the experience of art stimuli is equally as valid for the

young age group as for any age group if we see to the nonanalogical character of

traditional signs of the theater. I speculate that the communication of a drama may be

perceived by the infant spectator in what Barthes describes as the symbolic imagination,

while the adult spectator with their organized reservoir of knowledge prestructured by

the brain, may rely more on a formal imagination. Additionally, ambiguity and the

nonanalogical character of sign systems are proposed to enhance the communication of

the esthetic experience of a drama to the youngest spectator. In contrast, requiring that

the young spectator be able to understand adult intentions with spoken words would

restrict ambiguity and limit the infant’s experience of the performance.

The play has not been translated into English as of this date. All translations here

are literal and the author’s own and appear before the Swedish original to facilitate

reading in English.

1 Babydrama. By Ann-Sofie Bárány. Dir. Suzanne Osten. Per. Malin Cederbladh, Clara Norman, Stephen

Rappaport, Torbjörn Svedberg, Danilo Bejarano, Claire Wikholm. Unga Klara, Stockholm, Sweden.

March 15, 2006

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2. Semiotics and the Imagination

Semiotics will be applied practically as a methodology for approaching the

performance context of Baby Drama. Semiotics can be used to see how meaning is

created in elements of the play script and how meaning is created in the performance

context2. An analysis of the how of the play script as literature is beyond the scope of

this paper. Here I will study how meaning is generated in the sign system of Baby

Drama by examining the performance context. To the extent that I refer to the play

script, it will be in relation to the performance and not as confined to the world of

literature.

To establish common ground with the reader I will give a brief description of

semiotics as the methodology will be applied here.

2. a. Structuralism in brief

It may be easier for us to understand theater semiotics if we also understand that

semiotics originate in structuralism which is a method for examining language; i.e. there

is a signifier, or sound-image, and the signified, a concept.3 In structuralism, it is

assumed that meaning is created in the interplay of similarities and differences of

signifiers. In the same sense that language is the sign system by which people mediate

and organize the world,4 we can say that the interplay of similarities and differences of

signifiers is a way, to borrow words from Aston, to mediate and organize a dramatic

performance.

Many theoreticians have contributed to the field of theater semiotics. For

example, Charles S. Pierce contributed with his trichotomy of signs. This system

includes an icon, a sign linked by similarity to its object, such as the photograph of a

person, an index, a sign linked to an object such as smoke which is linked to fire, and a

symbol the meaning of which we all agree on, such as the dove as a symbol of peace.5

2 Aston, Elaine and Savons, George. Theatre as Sign-System: A Semiotics of Text and Performance.

London. Routledge. 1991. p 3

3 Ibid p 6

4 Ibid p 6

5 Ibid p 6

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Russian Formalism, also a school of structuralism, distinguishes between ordinary

language and artistic language. There is the notion that the purpose of art is to reawaken

our perception of life,6 or as Shklovsky writes, “Art exists that one may recover the

sensation of life, it exists to make one feel things…”7 I find this in line with what Ann-

Sofie Bárány says; that there is no problem for a young child to experience (feel) a

drama.

Here I would like to mention the approach of the Prague School. Adherents to the

Prague School uphold that everything in the theatrical frame is a sign and that “dramatic

performance is a set of signs.”8 This is another way of saying that objects on stage

acquire greater meaning than they have in an everyday setting, and one of their

attributes is that they can change meaning during the course of the drama. A practical

example of this is the use of the curtain in Baby Drama. It is a conventional stage

curtain, and is also an attribute in the opening peek-a-boo scene.

2. b. Roland Barthes

Whereas the Prague School focussed on identifying rather than classifying signs

in the performance context, other theoreticians have devised other systems for

examining signs. I find that Roland Barthes’ references to the imagination and

psychoanalysis is relevant to this drama and will briefly explain his idea of three types

of imagination.

Barthes writes that there is a relationship between the signifier and the signified

that is tiered, and he uses the example of the Cross as a symbol of Christianity, an

ideology that is multifaceted and abundant. This is called an analogical relation. What I

would like to apply to Baby Drama, in contrast, is what Barthes calls a nonanalogical

relation between the signifier and the signified. This is embodied in the idea of a

symbolic consciousness which had an impact on the early stages of psychoanalysis.9

Freud, according to Barthes, acknowledged that certain symbols have an inexplicable or

6 Ibid p 7

7 Ibid p 7

8 Ibid p 8

9 Barthes, Roland. “The Imagination of the Sign” in Critical Essays. Trans. R. Howard. Evanston.

Northwestern University Press. 1972. p 207

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nonanalogical character. A symbol, in this context, is rich and cannot be reduced to a

simple sign.10

In other words, the form of a symbol is considered to be exceeded by its

content, so that from the perspective of the symbolic consciousness, the symbol is less

of a codified means of communication than an affective instrument of participation.

The word symbol has come to be replaced by sign or signification, which is a

word for an informal relation of signs. According to Barthes this shift in terminology

reflects a shift in the focus of the symbolic consciousness, where the signified becomes

of more interest than the sign,11

which is always true in the performance context.

Barthes speculates that there is probably an imagination of the sign; i.e. the sign is not

only the object of a particular knowledge, which I would like to equate with what Karin

Helander, Professor of Theatre Studies at Stockholm University, calls adult intentions

of the spoken word in a drama,12

but is also the object of a vision.13

Barthes illustrates

the object of a vision by asking us to imagine the sign moving in a field of signification.

I would like to assert that this idea of an object of a vision moving in a field of

signification can serve to explain Helander’s assertion that small children experience

(erfar) theater.

Barthes describes three imaginations of the sign. The symbolic consciousness, as

mentioned above, implies depth of imagination. In this perspective, the world is

experienced as the relation of a superficial form, what Barthes calls a “many-sided,

massive, powerful Abgrund.”14

Intense dynamics are at work here, and the relation

between form and content is renewed in time, i.e. the superstructure is impacted by the

infrastructure, without our being able to grasp the structure itself, according to Barthes.

Here I would like to substitute the word our for the infant and speculate that the infant

can experience the impact, itself, without necessarily grasping the structure.

We can contrast the symbolic imagination with what Barthes calls the formal

imagination. The formal imagination sees the signifier linked to several virtual

10

Ibid p 207 11

Ibid p 207 12

Bárány, Ann-Sofie. Babydrama. Göteborg. Kabusa Böcker. 2008. p 9 13

Barthes, Roland. “The Imagination of the Sign” in Critical Essays. Trans. R. Howard. Evanston.

Northwestern University Press. 1972. p 209 14

Ibid p 209

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signifiers. The formal imagination does not see the sign in depth but in a perspective

governed by prelearned knowledge, for instance the auditive signs of the actors’ lines.

Here I would like to substitute formal imagination for what Helander calls adult

intention. Let us assume that adult intention does not necessarily see the sign in its

depth, but in a perspective. Then we can say that the adult interprets the sign, or the

spoken word, in the same spirit as it was chosen, from a finite organized reservoir.

Barthes explains this type of sign as a summons to the “imagination of the surveyor.”15

Here Barthes takes the example of the professional who determines the boundaries and

elevations of land or structures as his way of illustrating the formal imagination, which

chooses signification based on what is already prestructured in the brain.

The third type of imagination that Barthes describes is the functional imagination.

He writes that the functional imagination does not see the sign in its perspective, but

that the functional imagination foresees links, either antecedent or consequent, between

one sign and others. This imagination foresees bridges extending to other signs. The

functional imagination perceives the dynamics of the image as an “arrangement of

mobile, substitutive parts.”16

These parts can be substituted and recombined, and the

functional imagination allows for ambiguity since the parts can vary in their relations

and can vary in usage. The functional imagination gives nourishment to works of

fabrication based on the arrangement of discontinuous and mobile elements.17

This is a

suitable type of imagination for application to the theater. The functional imagination

perhaps explains the sensual experience of words, gesture and feeling that form the

bigger picture that an infant is able to experience in Baby Drama. In the functional

imagination, the spectator can perceive their own linkages between signs or between

spectator and performance, regardless of intellectual development. This forms the

foundation for a unique individual experience of a drama.

15

Ibid p 210 16

Ibid p 210 17

Ibid p 211

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Keeping these three types of imagination in mind, I will now briefly touch on

Barthes idea of theatricality as a ‘”density of signs”18

before analyzing the signs of Baby

Drama. An example of Barthes’ density of signs is the visual signifiers of theater where

a word is given visual characteristics. If we take a word from Baby Drama, for instance,

the word, or linguistic sign, mama does not resemble a mother. It is not analogical.

Mama instead has visual signifiers on stage.

Barthes asks a series of questions intended to help us decode the signs of the

performance context.19

The questions that are relevant to this paper are: What are the

relations between the signs? And how is the theatrical signifier formed? I would like to

use these questions combined with Barthes three types of imagination to examine a few

selected signs from Baby Drama. For practical purposes, I will breakdown the signs of

Baby Drama according to the classification system of the Polish semiotician Tadeusz

Kowzan in The Sign in the Theater.20

2. c. Classification of sign systems according to Kowzan

Kowzan makes a distinction between natural and artificial signs. He defines

natural signs as things that exist without human intervention, for example an actor’s

attributes, which in the performance context acquire significance. Imagine lines in

English delivered by a native English speaker, and then the same lines delivered by an

immigrant who speaks English with an accent. The accent will lend meaning to the lines

that is different from that of the native speaker. As spectators we accept that something

that is natural in real life; an immigrant speaking with an accent, becomes a sign in the

framework of a performance.

Kowzan proposes thirteen sign systems divided into signs of the actor and signs

outside the actor. The following is a brief description of the thirteen categories that

18

Barthes, Roland. “Literature and Signification” in Critical Essays. Trans. R. Howard. Evanston.

Northwestern University Press. 1972. p 262

19 Ibid p 262

20 Aston, Elaine and Savons, George. Theatre as Sign-System: A Semiotics of Text and Performance.

London. Routledge. 1991. p 105

Deborah Fronko

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result from Kazan’s efforts to classify the sign systems of the theater. I will use these as

a structure for examining the most notable of the sign systems of Baby Drama.

2. c. 1. Sign systems of the actor

The actor is where the linguistic elements of the script meet the context of the

performance, in other words the actor is where the written text and the subtext are

synthesized into a density of signs.21

Kowzan divides these signs into eight categories;

word, tone, mime, gesture, movement, make-up, hair-style, costume. Of these I will

examine the auditive signs word, movement and costume.

2. c. 2. Sign systems outside the actor

Kowzan divides sign systems outside the actor into five categories; props, stage

scenery, lighting, music, sound effects. Of these I will examine the visual signs props

and stage scenery in Baby Drama. The props and stage scenery examined will be cloth

in its application as the drape, the womb and umbilical cords, and the colors black,

white and red.

3. Background

The following provides a little background information on Unga Klara, Suzanne

Osten and the origin of the play Baby Drama. 22

Suzanne Osten has been the director and artistic leader of the theatrical group

Unga Klara, a part of Stockholms Stadsteater, since 1975. In Baby Drama, Unga Klara

combines long experience of creating drama for all ages with the psychoanalytical

tradition, as employed by Ann-Sofie Bárány in writing the script.23

With this production

Suzanne Osten wanted to test the lowest age limit for a drama, and the play was written

for an audience of 12 – 15 infants between the ages of 6 and 12 months.

Osten has worked with theater for children since 1967 and has often felt forced to

combat what she calls society’s discrimination against children in terms of their ability

to understand the spoken word. This discrimination is expressed in phrases such as,

21

Ibid p 104-105 22

In Baby Drama. Dir. Suzanne Osten in collaboration with Bengt Danneborn. DVD. Stockholm. n.d. this

is translated as Baby Drama in the English subtitles and is to be distinguished from Babydrama, the book

by Ann-Sofie Bárány which has not been translated. 23

Bárány, Ann-Sofie. Babydrama. Göteborg. Kabusa Böcker. 2008. p 11

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“Children can’t understand this,” or “They haven’t understood this, the language is too

hard.” 24

This, Helander maintains, is discrimination in the sense that critics of

children’s theater mean that children cannot understand adult intentions behind the

spoken words in a drama.25

Suzanne Osten challenges these accepted norms of seeing

and representing the world on stage in Baby Drama. I maintain that this criticism of

children’s theater comes from the restricted perspective that to understand a play

requires an organized reservoir of knowledge, prestructured by the brain, as discussed

above in Section 2.b. Roland Barthes.

In the wake of modern research on infants and psychoanalysis with infants,

researchers have become aware that infants have a need for and the capacity to perceive

artistic experience. For example, infants appreciate complex forms, rhythms and

dynamic processes.26

Subsequently, art for the youngest human beings does not need to

be unambiguous. It can create room for wonder, questions and interpretation.27

We

cannot argue for or against word comprehension in the youngest human beings, nor can

we assume that the spoken words the baby hears in the womb are clear and concise. I do

maintain, however, that the experience of art stimuli is equally as valid for this age

group as for any age group if we see to the nonanalogical character of traditional signs

of the theater in line with Barthes, as explained in Section 2.b.

In this context, I would like to make clear how some key words will be used in

this paper, since I will be writing in English and translating some sources from Swedish.

I will use unambiguous for the Swedish entydig. I will use ambiguous as meaning the

capability of being understood in two or more possible senses, and I may even use it in

the sense inexplicable. I will use ambiguity as the quality or state of being ambiguous. I

will translate the Swedish intentioner as intentions and use this word in the sense of aim

or what is intended, clearly formulated or planned. I propose that the very idea of adult

intentions implies restricting ambiguity for the non-adult. Ambiguity can be seen in the

Freudian sense as having an inexplicable or nonanalogical character, as in Section 2.b.

24

Ibid p 12 25

Ibid. p 9 26

Ibid. p 8 27

Ibid. p 8

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which is an appropriate description of what takes place in the functional imagination’s

perception of the sign system of the performance context. Barthes has chosen the term

functional because he finds it conveniently ambiguous.28

He explains the word’s

ambiguous character in that it “refers both to the notion of a variable relation and to that

of a usage.”29

I would like to contrast this quality of ambiguous or ambiguity with

intention to facilitate discussion in Section 5. The very idea of intention in a drama

implies that the creator had an aim which the spectator is expected to perceive, which to

my way of thinking sets a restriction on the esthetic experience of a drama. If we accept

that drama is a form of communication, then ambiguity, not intention, lends the

communication, or the drama, complexity. Ambiguity, subsequently, opens a door to

the communication of an esthetic experience.

Osten collaborated with Ann-Sofie Bárány in the production of Baby Drama.

Ann-Sofie Bárány is a psychoanalyst, researcher and the author of the script of Baby

Drama, and the book Babydrama that explains the work process behind the play. She

writes that if the word ‘understand’ is stretched to mean ‘experience,’ then there is no

problem for the young child to experience a drama. Helander, who wrote the Foreword

to Babydrama maintains that the infant chooses to follow objects, words, phrases,

characters or movements that it finds exciting and fun and builds on the experience of

these a context that is often unexpected for an adult.30

She points out that an infant

cannot express its experience in words, but this does not mean that its experience of

drama is any less than that of an adult. According to Helander the small child has strong

feelings and a stage play for infants can deal with the same major existential questions

that adult stage plays deal with; life and death, love and sorrow, loneliness and a sense

of belonging.31

Many years before beginning her work with Baby Drama Osten had read the book

A corps et á cris (1991) in its Swedish translation På kroppen och på skriket (1994)

28

Barthes, Roland. “The Imagination of the Sign” in Critical Essays. Trans. R. Howard. Evanston.

Northwestern University Press. 1972. p 210 29

Ibid. p 210 30

Bárány, Ann-Sofie. Babydrama. Göteborg. Kabusa Böcker. 2008. p 9 31

Ibid. p 10

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written by the French infant psychoanalyst Caroline Eliacheff. Eliacheff’s thesis is that

we should view the child as “an active subject” and listen to it long before it has

developed its verbal ability.32

This is in line with Osten’s and Bárány’s desires to stretch

the meaning of the concept ‘understand.’ Osten admits that if we tested children’s

ability to reproduce words from a play or a movie then adult critics would be right, but

the sensual experience of words, gesture and feeling form a bigger picture that infants

are able to perceive.33

According to Helander Baby Drama is unique in its advanced use of language for

infants34

. Word play and phonetic playfulness is significant to the drama. Helander

asserts that the fetus hears language while in the womb. She also asserts that the fetus

hears music with all its nuances and rhythmic changes,35

and that research on infant

memory shows that music is a vital communicative link to the young child.36

The infants described by Eliacheff in her case studies in A corps et á cris are

mostly orphans from three months of age with serious psychosomatic illnesses.

Eliacheff works from the point of view that the history of each child is incorporated into

their own body which reacts with psychosomatic problems. The infants Eliacheff treats

in the book have all been placed in institutional care by social services while waiting for

placement in an adoptive family. The infants have not developed their verbal ability yet

nevertheless Eliacheff listens to each infant’s history and retells it to them while the

infant is held in the arms of a mothering figure (maternantes).37

Osten read Eliacheff’s book and felt that if an analyst could speak with feeling,

body language and empathy to an infant and attain evident effect, then the theater

should also be able to achieve an effect.38

On another occasion, Osten attended a lecture

on children and childhood given by Ann-Sofie Bárány, with whom she had collaborated

32

“På Kroppen och På Skriket: Intervju med Daniela Montalici Prawitz” in Mellanrummet: Tidskrift om Barn- och

Undomspsykoterapi. (On the Body and On the Scream: Interview with Daniela Montalatici Prawitz. In the journal on child and

youth psychotherapy Mellanrummet. Swedish only) No. 1. 1999 http://www.enigma.se/mellanrummet/nr1-1999/1-99-66.htm 33

Bárány, Ann-Sofie. Babydrama. Göteborg. Kabusa Böcker. 2008. p 12 34

Ibid. p 8 35

Ibid. p 8 36

Ibid. p 9 37

“På Kroppen och På Skriket: Intervju med Daniela Montalici Prawitz” in Mellanrummet: Tidskrift om Barn- och

Undomspsykoterapi. (On the Body and On the Scream: Interview with Daniela Montalatici Prawitz. In the journal on child and

youth psychotherapy Mellanrummet. Swedish only) No. 1. 1999 http://www.enigma.se/mellanrummet/nr1-1999/1-99-66.htm 38

Bárány, Ann-Sofie. Babydrama. Göteborg. Kabusa Böcker. 2008. p 12

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earlier. At the lecture, Bárány, with the intention of being provocative, stated that, “all

children love to hear the story of their own birth,” which struck a chord in Osten.39

This

statement along with Eliacheff’s account of her effective psychoanalyses with infants

can be said to be the point of departure for Baby Drama.

4. The Story

Bárány selected the story of birth for the drama because this is a theme all of us

have in common. Since the audience was infants from 6 to 12 months of age, this would

be a dramatic event that both the infants and their parents had recently experienced. In

this sense the audience was integral to the making of the drama.

Bárány interviewed each actor about their own conception and knowledge of

being a baby. Bárány asked precise questions with the objective of disclosing a

chronology, a coherent story from each actor that would resemble the chronology of the

play. Bárány had decided in advance to use a five-step model. She asked each actor five

questions in a therapy-type setting.

Physician and psychoanalyst Eva Basch Kåre was consulted after the interviews.40

Kåre explains that people do have memories from the period of time around birth, but

not as ordinary memories. They do not come to our consciousness in the way we are

used to, in the form of images and thoughts. The cerebrum, the largest division of the

brain, is not fully developed until around fourteen years of age. She explains that early

memories are physical, that they come in the form of diffuse feelings. The newborn

child has a memory for physical sensations and basal feelings, according to Kåre,

because the part of the brain where basal feelings and physical sensations are registered

and stored is fully developed. Otherwise, it is common that people’s first memories of

childhood are from around the ages of four to seven years.

Based on the above, we may doubt that we have memories prior to our physical

existence, but must laud Bárány’s innovative approach to script writing; memories from

the time prior to conception and from inside the womb, as a playful approach that gives

free reign to the imagination of the actor. The responses provided a wealth of input for

Bárány, who incorporated some of them directly into the play script. The questions she 39

Baby Drama. Dir. Suzanne Osten in collaboration with Bengt Danneborn. DVD. Stockholm. n.d. 40

Bárány, Ann-Sofie. Babydrama. Göteborg. Kabusa Böcker. 2008. p 26-27

Deborah Fronko

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asked the actors were as follows: Why did you choose your parents? How do you

imagine that you were conceived? How was your time in the womb? What did you

arrive at? And how did you understand that you were you?

4. a. Improvising the story

Osten based the rehearsal process on shared meaning-making and improvisation,

asserting that the actors must work through their own experiences as babies to be

genuinely interested in other babies. Subsequently she led the actors through

improvisations based on the results of Bárány’s interviews. Osten let the actors stage

their own time as a baby. The time in the womb, for instance, was staged with the use of

a large piece of cloth stretched between members of the ensemble while one actor was

free to swing in the cloth and enact their time in the womb. Osten explains that this is a

technique for actors, similar to psychodrama, devised by the Swedish dramatist Staffan

Göthe. This type of improvisation is done from the perspective of ‘I’. The ‘I’ is to enact

the following situations: I choose my mother. I choose my father. They fall in love.

They make me. I’m in the womb. Now I’m born. And how did I experience my first

period outside the womb?41

The aim of these improvisations, according to Osten, was to achieve genuine

expression. She says that experience with psychodrama and gestalt therapy has taught

her that people are good at recollecting physical memories. She points out that if she

were to stage a drama about unemployment, she would want to explore through

improvisation to see if we have physical knowledge of unemployment. Osten maintains

that if an actor is to give form to something on stage then the actor must awaken bodily

memories, along with knowledge-based memories, to avoid stereotypes.42

4. b. The scenes

The scenes of the play are strongly linked to the responses to the interview

questions.

The first question resulted in the scene Party and Conception (Party och

Befruktning) in which a female figure and a male figure want to be conceived. The

second question resulted in the scene Conception (Befruktning) with flirty talk mixed 41

Baby Drama. Dir. Suzanne Osten in collaboration with Bengt Danneborn. DVD. Stockholm. n.d. 42

Ibid.

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with the expressed wishes of the unborn children: “I want her (indicating one female

role) but with her (indicating another female role) eyes.” (Jag vill ha henne (Claire) fast

med hennes (Malins) ögon.43

The third question resulted in the scene Enclosed in Water

(Omslutas av Vatten) which reflects the undemanding existence in the womb. The

fourth question resulted in the transition scene Mask Meeting (Maskmöte) which leads

to Births (Födelser). And the fifth question resulted in Clown Section (Clownpartier)

where clownish parents are presented in what to a baby is assumed by Bárány to be a

confusing and at times grotesque meeting with the surrounding world. This scene leads

to The Family (Familjen) in which the baby is confronted with upbringing.

5. The Sign Systems of Baby Drama

I will exemplify how a few of these signs are used to communicate meaning in

selected scenes of the play. I will explore how signification occurs in the encounter

between the dynamics of these traditional signs of the theater. It is easy to understand

the dynamics of signs that communicate to the adult spectator and I admit that it is

speculative as to how signs work together to communicate meaning to the 6- to 12-

month old infant. To help explore signification to infants I will use Barthes concepts of

the symbolic imagination and the functional imagination. I will contrast these with

Barthes concept of the formal imagination which I will assume that adult spectators may

rely more on in the perception of a performance.

5. a. Visual signs, auditive signs and movement

The mechanics of perception are beyond the scope of this paper. There are

accepted conventions on the perception of color, however, and these will be applied

here.

The color scheme of the set is red, black and white. Red is the hottest of the warm

colors on the color wheel.44

Red overpowers all cool colors and does not fade into the

background even if used in equal amounts as a cool color.45

Red is also applied on the

basis of scientific studies; a red light and a red sign are used to signal stop because the

43

Bárány, Ann-Sofie. Babydrama (the play script). Unpublished. n.d. p 12 44

The Color Wheel. http://www.makart.com/resources/artclass/cwheel.html 45

Bear, Jacci Howard. Color Meanings: Symbolism of Color and Colors That Go Together in About.com

Guide http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/color/a/symbolism.htm

Deborah Fronko

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color grabs the attention of the driver of a vehicle. In this perspective red has a cultural

code as a warning color and is part of the learned knowledge of western culture.

Imagine the confusion of an alien who sees their first red heart on a Valentine card after

learning that red is a symbol for warning. The perspective of the alien may be fruitful to

adopt when we examine the experience of the infant Baby Drama spectator.

The Baby Drama spectators are confronted with red in the foyer to the theater

where the babies are placed on a red rug and the adults in red sofas facing each other

from opposite walls. This rug has no transcendent symbolism; a rug is a common

element of home furnishings. So is a sofa. The actors enter the foyer from behind a red

drape. They are costumed and made-up but their auditive signs and movement are

conventional when they welcome the spectators and introduce themselves to the

children, asking the attending adult the child’s name and writing the names on tags that

are given to the adult. This action is not transcendent either; introductions belong to

common social intercourse. After this, the audience moves to sit in front of the red

drape and one actor goes behind it and begins a game of peek-a-boo (Titta – Borta).

The other actors leave the public area, disappear behind the drape and play peek-

a-boo, making their faces visible lit with a white light, then non-visible from behind the

drape. The scene ends with all actors’ faces visible while the white light moves from

one to the other. This movement combined with the lines “Look – Gone“ (Titta – Borta)

functions as a bridge to the first scene and signifies game or play.

One actor then gives practical information to the attending adults using

conventional auditive signs and movement and opens the red drape. He then changes to

what is called Chinese in the script;46

unfamiliar phonemes to Swedish ears. In both the

symbolic and formal imagination this would signal something dissimilar to previous

auditive signs. The formal imagination may wonder why foreign phonemes are being

introduced, which would create a sense of expectation. The symbolic imagination may

not experience a sense of expectation, but will recognize the use of foreign phonemes

when Spanish is spoken in the scene Party and Conception (Party och Befruktning). In

46

Bárány, Ann-Sofie. Babydrama (the play script). Unpublished. n.d. p 4

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the functional imagination, the so called bigger picture of the performance, this auditive

signal becomes an antecedent bridge to coming scenes.

Behind the red drape is the space for the stage and seats. The scene Party and

Conception (Party och Befruktning) is set. The lighting rests on a red cloth that drapes a

red sofa. Behind the sofa is a white stage curtain. White is a neutral color and is

commonly used as a background color that leads our eyes to focus on other colors, in

this case, red. A group of actors are under the red cloth on the sofa.

This scene is not realistic. It is not common behaviour that people hide under a

large cloth on a sofa. The spectators have perhaps experienced this behavior with play at

home otherwise they have been prepared for this action through the bridging function of

the peek-a-boo game. The use of red cloth is iterative and an element to be recognized.

Red is not transcendental, here; it is the color of a cloth drapery and the solid color of

the costumes of some characters. I speculate that the red drapery over the sofa creates a

sense of expectation in the spectators who have the peek-a-boo game fresh in mind.

This scene is also unrealistic, transcendent and signifies that what happens here in this

place is a game, it is play.

When actors appear from under the cloth, the peek-a-boo game is iterated but

altered and the relation between form and content is renewed, as described in Section 2.

b. The superstructure of the drama is impacted by iterations of props, actors and

movement in the infrastructure.

The roles of the actors are presented by a narrator role in this scene. The female in

red and the male in black with a red shirt visible under a black blazer, play roles that are

dissimilar to the other roles. Physically they are behind the sofa which would signal

dissimilarity to all spectators regardless of perspective of imagination. Their lines are

auditive signs that tell the spectator with a particular knowledge that they are child-like.

One of the contributing auditive signs is when these characters mispronounce the words

mama and papa. This mispronunciation is iterated when the Spaniard character in the

scene mispronounces a Swedish word. The first mispronunciation I will speculate may

be recognized as self-experienced, a particular knowledge, from the perspective of the

infant, and opens for participation in the drama. To the formal imagination with greater

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particular knowledge, the second mispronunciation impacts on the first and signals

humor. The mispronunciation of the adult Spaniard character signals a child-like

behavior to the formal imagination and functions as a bridge, foreseeing the role

exchanges between adult roles and child roles that will take place in later scenes.

The scene ends with each actor disappearing behind the white stage curtain one by

one. The narrator remains on stage and blows bubbles while talking, iterating the signal

that this is play, before disappearing behind the white curtain.

Stage hands appear on stage to remove the sofa and one says “gone” (borta) as

they remove it, iterating the auditive play signal from the peek-a-boo game. Let us

imagine this scene without the word “gone.” In that case, the removal of the sofa would

not have transcended meaning, but would have been a conventionality.

The auditive signal “gone” in connection with the removal of a prop is a play

signal in both the symbolic and formal imaginations, but in the functional imagination,

i.e. in the bigger picture of the performance, it is additionally a consequent bridge to

previous scenes. I propose here that when the formal imagination with particular

knowledge of consequent signs impacts on the perspective of the functional

imagination, then the occurrence of an antecedent sign will be anticipated, and thus a

sense of expectation is created.

Here I will return to a discussion of color. White is a color that in western culture

is the code for purity as linked with the white bridal gown. We can contrast this culture

code with the eastern culture code in which white is a symbol for death and mourning.

In western culture white is also a code for neutrality as linked with the white flag of

surrender in a battle situation, and sterility as linked to the clothing of medical personnel

or a hospital setting. Culture codes are a learned knowledge and for this reason I

allocate white as a signifier in the formal imagination.

In terms of the color wheel, white functions as a neutral color and is commonly

used as a background color to lead our eyes to other colors. The human eye perceives

white as a brilliant yet cool color. The cool attributes of white, however, are more

flexible than the warm attributes of red. As a background color white creates a high

contrast between background and foreground and enhances the meaning of other colors,

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even if they are used less in a design. However, white can also be used alone as the

primary focus of a design, consequently, in the performance context white can have two

functions; as a background color or as the primary focus of the set design.

The scene Enclosed in Water (Omslutas av vatten) is introduced when the white

stage curtain is pulled aside and an entirely red scene is revealed. Red is iterative, in

focus and transcendental in this scene. Hanging from high above are long red cloth

ropes, some in looped, hammock form and some with a knotted foothold. Underneath

these is a red mat; iterative of the rug in the foyer. In this scene, however, the red mat

transcends reality as signified by the auditive signs or lines of the actors; stepping on the

mat is to be avoided. The pattern of movement of the actors on the stage and the one

beside it also signal that stepping on the mat is to be avoided. The formal imagination

with a particular knowledge can perceive this meaning with solely auditive signs, while

the symbolic imagination, lacking a particular knowledge of the spoken words, will

perceive meaning through movement of the actors; feet are not to touch the mat. In the

formal imagination, the notion that feet are not to touch a mat or the floor in a reality

steered by gravity, signals humor. The symbolic imagination may perceive the sign of

movement in a field of signification where it may serve as an affective instrument of

participation for the infant who may have begun to stand and walk. In the functional

imagination, this signification of movement foresees the movement in the circus act of

the female role which climbs up the cloth rope and then rolls down it.

Auditive signs inform the spectator that this scene is inside a womb. The

repetition of words, including enclose (omsluta), embrace (omfamna), in there (där

inne) said by an expectant father role, in here (här inne) said by a baby role, signify

inside the womb to the formal imagination of the spectator with a particular knowledge.

For the adult spectator from the western world, red is culturally coded; blood, life and

vitality, passion and lust, to mention a few. The adult spectator will interpret the

signification of the long ropes of cloth as informed by the actors’ lines. I assume that the

adult spectator uses formal imagination, as defined by Barthes, and chooses

signification based on what is already prestructured in the brain in terms of word

comprehension and prelearned cultural symbols as objects from a finite organized

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reservoir of knowledge. The adult will interpret the long red ropes of cloth as stylized

umbilical cords and the surrounding red setting as a womb.

Let us also imagine this scene with the red ropes of cloth interpreted in the

symbolic imagination that is not informed by the auditive signs as perceived from a

particular or organized reservoir of knowledge. In such a case, this could be a red-

colored, wondrous, fantasy playground. The color red is once again iterative and

transcendent, brought to the attention of the symbolic imagination by the contrast of the

white stage curtain. The use of red cloth is iterative and in this scene it has been

recombined in place and form in relation to the actors’ movement. Instead of a peek-a-

boo curtain or a drapery hiding characters on a sofa, cloth now appears as long ropes to

swing on. The symbolic imagination will perceive the stark red color, the long cloth

ropes hanging from the ceiling, and the unconventional and transcendent movement of

the actors performing on the ropes as existing in a nonanalogical relationship. I can

imagine that for the infant spectator, without an organized reservoir of knowledge, or as

deep a reservoir as the adult spectator, this scene will be signified in the impact between

the performance and the spectator, thus creating an esthetic experience.

I will now return to a discussion of color. Black is also a cool neutral color to the

human eye. As a culture code in western culture it signifies the somber, the serious and

funereal as well as the conventional as exemplified in the phrase ‘men in black’

meaning government agents. It is also associated with the formal, as in basic black

formal party attire, which the parent characters wear in Baby Drama. Black also has

artistic connotations perhaps stemming from the stereotypical beatnik and the Beat

Generation literary movement of the 1950s, typified by black turtleneck pullovers and

black jeans as an anti-conformist fashion statement. In design, black works well with

red which makes it a good choice to offset the signature red of the Baby Drama set.

In the scene Party and Conception (Party och Befruktning) the parents-to-be wear

basic black formal attire. The father-to-be has a red blazer and the mother-to-be has red

stockings as accessories to the formal attire, which to the spectator with a particular

knowledge signifies formal festivity or party. The adult spectator of Baby Drama would

perceive the formal attire of the adult roles based on a particular knowledge. Black

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formal attire is conventional, worn together with a red clown nose however the attire

transcends conventionality. The spectator with a particular knowledge would perceive

the dynamics between clown noses and formal attire, and the result in the formal

imagination would be a signifier for humor.

In contrast, the spectator without a particular knowledge, or infant, can also see

that the figures on stage transcend conventionality. Auditive signs or lines of the

characters tell all spectators which role they embody; child or adult. The roles are

reinforced through movement, as when the child roles remain behind the sofa in the

scene Party and Conception (Party och Befruktning), or when child roles use cloth,

such as the umbilical cord hammock swings in the scene Enclosed in Water (Omslutas

av vatten), or when the child roles are born from behind the red drape in the scene

Births (Födelser).

The adult roles test other roles but unambiguously signal the role change through

auditive signs. A male adult role tests the cat role in the scene The Family (Familjen)

and returns to the adult role by a change of movement enhanced with the line, No, now I

don’t want to be a cat anymore. (Nej, nu vill inte jag vara katt längre). The mother role

in the same scene tests the child role which is signalled in the line, Papa. Now mama is

a baby again. (Pappaaa. Nu är mamma baby igen). This role returns to being an adult

signalled in the line, No, now I don’t want to be a baby anymore. (Nej, nu vill inte jag

vara bebis längre.)

We can confidently assume that the formal imagination with its particular

knowledge, in this instance spoken language, will clearly perceive this role change

independent of visual signs. The youngest spectator, in contrast, may not have

developed this particular knowledge of spoken language, yet, but can perceive the role

change through visual signs.

The visual signs of child roles in previous scenes involved the use of cloth, e.g.

red cloth hammock swings in Enclosed in Water (Omslutas av vatten), the red drape in

Births (Födelser) and the red mat in The Family (Familjen). Meaning, in this case

whether a role is a child or an adult, is communicated in the interplay of visual signifiers

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through costumes and use of props independent of the auditive sign of unambiguous

spoken language.

When an adult role changes into a cat or a child, I will call this a breach of role.

This breach can also be described as an arrangement and rearrangement of mobile parts.

It is visually signalled by the rearrangement of patterns of movement and use of props,

and communicates meaning through this interplay of similarities and differences. The

breach can be clearly perceived in the symbolic imagination. The infant spectator seeing

from a symbolic perspective does not need to know which character is adult or child,

but can perceive a nonanalogical relation between the signifier and the signified. In this

sense, the breach becomes an affective instrument of participation for the young

spectator. The breach can also be perceived in the functional imagination with its

antecedent and consequent links between signs, moving in the field of signification of

the drama. We can once again speculate that the infant spectator can experience the

impact, itself, without necessarily grasping the structure.

Here I will return to a discussion of auditive signs. The scene Mask Meeting

(Maskmöte) ends with the words work work work (jobba jobba jobba). The next scene

Births (Födelser) begins with a repetition of these words. The set is all white signifying

to the formal imagination with particular knowledge from an organized reservoir of

knowledge that this is the interior of a hospital. The words work work work are

enhanced by frenetic movement in the hospital setting. The formal imagination

perceives the links between these auditive and visual signs as signifying an impending

occurrence, perhaps even a medical emergency.

The functional imagination will perceive the word work as a consequent link to

the previous scene. This auditive sign’s function as antecedent and consequent link

gives it greater significance which heightens the sense of expectation in the subsequent

scene.

Repetition of the word work will be recognized in the symbolic imagination

independent of any particular knowledge of the meaning of the word. In the symbolic

imagination, the word is given significance in its relation to movement on stage; in

other words there is a nonanalogical relation between these two signs. This is an

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example of the signified becoming of more interest than the sign, as described in

Section 2. b. The result in the symbolic imagination would be an affective instrument of

participation.

To examine visual signs, I would like to return to the red drape in Births

(Födelser) and the red mat in The Family (Familjen). Spectators were introduced to the

sign of red cloth in the introductory ceremony to Baby Drama. Red cloth as a sign was

repeated in the drapery over the sofa under which actors hid in the scene Party and

Conception (Party och Befruktning). The red curtain in the scene Births (Födelser) is

given significance in its relation to movement on stage, similar to the word work, as

explained above. At the same time, the red curtain gives significance to the characters

on stage. For example, the doctor, in a white coat, never steps behind the curtain, while

the characters that appear from behind the drape, in contrast, are the child roles.

The formal imagination will perceive these roles through the auditive signs of the

actors’ lines. If we accept that the formal imagination sees the sign not in depth but in

the perspective of a finite organized reservoir of particular knowledge, then the actors’

lines will leave no ambiguity about what role they are playing and what action is taking

place. Since the formal imagination chooses signification from what is already

prestructured in the brain, we can assume that the auditive signs will have precedence of

signification over the visual sign of the curtain for the adult spectator.

In contrast, the symbolic imagination will perceive the red curtain and the actors’

lines as a vision moving in a field of signification, as explained in Section 2. b. The red

curtain and the actors’ lines will be perceived in their relation to each other as parts of

an infrastructure impacting on a superstructure, i.e. the drama. These signs are exceeded

by their content or singular meaning as I interpret Barthes’ intentions with the word

content, and together become another affective instrument of participation for the infant

spectator.

In the perspective of the functional imagination the auditive signs and the visual

sign of the red curtain are mobile parts that create the dynamics of an image. This scene

is a good example of how mobile parts, or signs, can be substituted and recombined.

These mobile parts are auditive signs that function alone unambiguously, on one level,

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and visual signs that function together with auditive signs to create a signification, on

another level. There is a mother role, in her basic black dress, and there are child roles

dressed in red. The child roles in their interaction with the red curtain create a

signification. The mother role through movement in front of the curtain creates a

signification. The mother role appearing from behind the curtain together with auditive

signs creates a signification. The functional imagination will perceive links between

these signs, and perhaps the infant spectator will perceive sensual links between

themselves and the performance, as described Section 2. b. The main point here is that

the functional imagination gives room for ambiguity in the perception of these signs in

combinations that must vary for each individual viewer. This ambiguity forms the

foundation for a unique experience of the drama, regardless of the spectator’s

intellectual development.

5. b. Masks

The mask is a visual sign. Two types of mask are used in Baby Drama if we

accept that the clown nose is the smallest mask, in line with Jacques Lecoq.47

There is a transition at the end of the scene Enclosed in Water (Omslutas av

vatten). The set changes as the surrounding red cloth is “slurped”48

into a hole, the

umbilical cord hammocks are raised and a white set is revealed. At the narrator’s

command conventional baby swings are lowered into the seating area. The infant

spectators can be seated in these swings by their attending adult. The swings, of the type

bumper jumper or door swings hang from springs and have a characteristic movement.

The actors, except the narrator, leave their roles, help and watch the infants swing. This

is also play, although conventional, not transcendent play.

The actors return to the edge of the stage and return to character, when a stage

hand enters with a basket containing masks. The scene Mask Meeting (Maskmöte)

begins. The return to the stage and altered pattern of movement are visual signs that

signify change through dissimilarity to former placement and movement. Each

performer takes a mask from the basket. Two actors stand on the stage and one mimics

47

“Jacques Lecoq.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lecoq

48 Bárány, Ann-Sofie. Babydrama (the play script). Unpublished. n.d. p 27

Deborah Fronko

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the up-down movement of the audience in swings. The word work is said repeatedly in

this scene. This auditive sign is an antecedent linkage to the next scene Births

(Födelser) where the word work will be given visual signifiers. It is not perceived as an

antecedent link in Mask Meeting (Maskmöte) but will be perceived as such in the

functional imagination in Births (Födelser).

The actors introduce the masks to the audience. They hold them up beside their

faces and then put them on. This is an introductory ceremony iterative of the

introduction in the foyer of the theater and if the infant spectator recalls, something

unconventional and transcendent happened after that introduction. I propose that the

infant spectator in the scene Mask Meeting (Maskmöte) has the particular knowledge of

the formal imagination; they have experienced an introduction previously, and can

experience this introduction as the sign for continued play. The repetition of signs can

also serve to create expectation in the formal imagination.

Additional significance can be perceived in the formal imagination. In addition to

the sense of expectation created by the iteration of a ceremony, the masks are treated in

a special way, handled as carefully as an adult would handle a newborn. This may say

nothing to the symbolic imagination, but to the formal imagination this unconventional

treatment of inanimate objects signifies something precious and a sense of wonder or

questioning is created based on the particular knowledge of a finite organized reservoir

of knowledge, prestructured by the brain.

In contrast, when an introductory ceremony is repeated it becomes an antecedent

sign that impacts on the perspective of the functional imagination, then the occurrence

of a consequent sign will be anticipated, and thus a sense of expectation will be created

in the perspective of the functional imagination.

This scene can also speak to the symbolic imagination in that the masks can be

perceived as more significant than inanimate objects that are appealing to look at. The

masks are iterated in three movements; held out, held beside the actor’s face, then put

on. I assert that signification is perceived in the symbolic imagination in the repetition

of movement and in the meeting between the performance and the spectator.

6. Final Discussion

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My original intention was to examine theatrical signs according to Kowzan’s

categories, one by one. It was not possible to discuss a particular sign isolated from all

others. Theatrical signs are, as Barthes writes, a density of signs. He gives the visual

example of trees in a forest standing vertically, communicating through their roots.49

I

could not write about a prop without attending to its color and how it was used by the

actors, for instance. Neither could I divide the auditive signs of the actors’ lines from

the physical delivery of the lines.

In Kowzan’s approach every theatrical sign is part of a larger system that achieves

a collective effect. In the context of a performance for spectators between the ages of 6

to 12 months, it is impossible to affirm precisely what these spectators have experienced

of this collective effect. These spectators cannot repeat the words they have heard; they

cannot understand the adult intentions behind spoken words, we cannot survey their

response beyond video recording it.

Barthes writes that the formal imagination chooses signification based on what is

already prestructured in the brain. Subsequently, I assert that a perspective from a finite

organized reservoir, from which the formal imagination chooses the signification of a

sign, implies a restriction on ambiguity. Imagine the difference in how the formal

imagination perceives spoken words compared with how the symbolic imagination

perceives auditive signs with limited linguistic knowledge or without any at all.

Ambiguity is a key element of the functional imagination. If we accept that ambiguity in

the Freudian sense has an inexplicable or nonanalogical character, then ambiguity in

signification must lay the groundwork for a wealth of perceptions of a sign system. In

other words, spoken words do not need to be understood in the unambiguous adult

sense, as ascribed to the formal imagination, but in the performance context and in the

functional imagination they become auditive stimuli that are part of an overall esthetic

experience.

We cannot measure how an individual infant perceives a drama. I assume that the

experience of drama is unique for each individual infant as it is for each individual

49

Barthes, Roland. “The Imagination of the Sign” in Critical Essays. Trans. R. Howard. Evanston.

Northwestern University Press. 1972. p 207

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adult. Here, I would like to play with words to explain what Barthes calls the depth of

perception of the functional imagination, with the purpose of describing how a spectator

between the ages of 6 to 12 months may experience a drama. I have used the terms finite

reservoir and particular knowledge earlier. Let’s imagine a reservoir that is infinite or

knowledge that is not particular. This reservoir is infinite in that it has not yet been

impacted by life experience or linguistic achievement. This infinite reservoir would

enhance, not limit, the signification that takes place in the impact between the

performance and the spectator, which creates to my way of thinking a wealth of possible

perceptions. I maintain that such an infinite reservoir accommodates broad and unique

interpretations of signs, creating a unique esthetic experience, regardless of the age of

the spectator.

7. Conclusion

A performance of Baby Drama was explored from a semiotic approach. The

analysis section applied the ideas of Roland Barthes on the symbolic imagination, the

formal imagination and the functional imagination. From these three approaches the

experience of a drama by infants and adults was compared.

Whereas the way adults experienced the drama can be measured through surveys

or interviews, the experience of the infant cannot be studied beyond video recordings. I

have maintained that adults may have used the formal imagination in their perception of

the performance. Adults understood the spoken words of the drama, auditive signs, and

visual signs with their adherent culture codes from a finite organized reservoir of

knowledge prestructured by the brain.

Infants could have understood the performance in the sense that they experienced

the inexplicable or nonanalogical character of the signs of the theater, i.e. the signs as an

affective instrument of participation in the functional imagination. The infants were

fully capable of experiencing a vision moving in a field of signification without being

reliant on a finite organized reservoir of knowledge, prestructured by the brain, in order

to experience the performance. I assumed them viewing the drama from an infinite

reservoir not yet limited by life experience. They were not reliant on intellectual

development or linguistic achievement to experience the drama.

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The infants could also have experienced the drama in the symbolic imagination

where the superstructure or drama, itself, is impacted by the infrastructure, the sign

systems of the theater. The perception of these systems by the infant is not limited by

adult intentions, or particular knowledge of spoken words or culture codes.

I have suggested that perception in the formal imagination may limit ambiguity of

meaning. Ambiguity in the Freudian sense has an inexplicable or nonanalogical

character, and consequently ambiguity in signification must lay the groundwork for a

wealth of perceptions of a sign system making the experience of a performance unique

and individual. In line with this idea then, the infant spectator may have a heightened

esthetic experience unavailable to the adult.

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Bibliography and Other Sources

Aston, Elaine and Savons, George. Theatre as Sign-System: A Semiotics of Text

and Performance. London. Routledge. 1991

Babydrama. By Ann-Sofie Bárány. Dir. Suzanne Osten. Per. Malin Cederbladh,

Clara Norman, Stephen Rappaport, Torbjörn Svedberg, Danilo Bejarano, Claire

Wikholm. Unga Klara, Stockholm, Sweden. March 15, 2006

Baby Drama. Dir. Suzanne Osten in collaboration with Bengt Danneborn. DVD.

Stockholm. n.d. In author’s possession

Bárány, Ann-Sofie. Babydrama. Göteborg. Kabusa Böcker. 2008

Bárány, Ann-Sofie. Babydrama (the play script). Unpublished. n.d. In author’s

possession

Barthes, Roland. “The Imagination of the Sign” in Critical Essays. Trans. R.

Howard. Evanston. Northwestern University Press. 1972

Barthes, Roland. “Literature and Signification” in Critical Essays. Trans. R.

Howard. Evanston. Northwestern University Press. 1972

Bear, Jacci Howard. Color Meanings: Symbolism of Color and Colors That Go

Together in About.com Guide http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/color/a/symbolism.htm

“Jacques Lecoq.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lecoq

Osten, Suzanne. ”Mellan det kända och okända – vårt behov av teater. En studie i

att göra teater för spädbarn.” (Between the known and the unknown – our need for

theatrical performance. A study of creating a theatrical performance for infants. In

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collaboration with Bengt Danneborn. Swedish only) University College of Film, Radio,

Television and Theatre (DI). Stockholm. November 23, 2009

“På Kroppen och På Skriket: Intervju med Daniela Montalici Prawitz” in

Mellanrummet: Tidskrift om Barn- och Undomspsykoterapi. (On the Body and On the

Scream: Interview with Daniela Montalatici Prawitz. In the journal on child and youth

psychotherapy Mellanrummet. Swedish only) No. 1. 1999

http://www.enigma.se/mellanrummet/nr1-1999/1-99-66.htm

The Color Wheel. http://www.makart.com/resources/artclass/cwheel.html

Further reading suggestions

Ball, David. Backwards & Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays.

Carbondale and Edwardsville. Southern Illinois University Press. 1983

For a discussion of ambiguity in the visual arts: Cohen, David. Ambiguity and

Intention http://www.interdisciplines.org/artcog/papers/11/1/2

For a brief discussion of the signification of props based on culture codes:

Nikolarea, Ekaterini. “Performability versus Readability: A Historical Overview of a

Theoretical Polarization in Theater Translation” in Translation Journal. Volume 6. No.

4. October 2002 http://www.accurapid.com/Journal/22theater.htm

For a discussion of beatniks and the Beat Generation literary movement:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatnik