Notions of Dis/Place in Performance

Using the stage production of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis (2021) as a case study, this chapter seeks to articulate how training at NIDA extends Stanislavsky’s method of Active Analysis and incorporates notions of what I am calling dis/place into scenographic dramaturgy. In practice, this method operates at multiple scenographic levels. Throughout the rehearsal process, various elements of production (performance, set design, costume, live-feed video, projection, sound, music, and light) have been explored simultaneously in improvisational strategies to develop uniquely integrated performance outcomes. The sense of being out of place or displaced is at the heart of Kafka’s story and provides a rich site for articulating the process of harnessing Stanislavsky’s methods of rehearsal and depictions of “othered” psychological states in dramatic storytelling. Through this case study, I show that in most dramatically rich productions, apparently singular stage space always represents at least two places at once . One way to achieve this is to use the Stanislavskian event structures of Contemporary Active Analysis as a framework to explore the inner life of each scene, and layer in other spatial, place-inspired scenographic elements such as live feed video to the improvisations as they progressed.