The Department of Theatre, Film, and Media Studies at the University of Vienna will be hosting Dr Mario Frendo (Department of Theatre Studies, University of Malta) who will deliver a lecture entitled Musicalised Dramaturgies: Ancient Tragedy, Performance, and the Poetics of Aristotle. The lecture, open to undergraduate and postgraduate students, the faculty body, and the general public, will be held at the Jura Soyfer Hall in the Hofburg (Imperial Palace) in Vienna on 13 December 2016, at 1700hrs.  

Dr Frendo will address issues related to the poetics of theatre dramaturgies understood as processes of performance, by focusing on Ancient Greek tragedy – a performance phenomenon which developed within a Mediterranean oral culture.  In view of the oral premise, the figure of the ancient poet will be problematised. As ‘composer’ of performance, the ancient poet will be located as a figure responsible not only of written scripts but also of what was to be performed. Theatrical texts will be approached in terms of musicality articulated as a critical tool and used to reconsider the notion of dramaturgy. ‘Musicalised dramaturgies’ will be proposed as possible dramaturgical strategies that can be applied to critical analyses of Ancient Greek tragedy which, as even Aristotle acknowledges, developed from oral dithyrambic practices. In the course of the discussion orality and musicality will be considered as backdrops to investigate the emergence of performance practices that are otherwise difficult to formulate if the notion of text is limited to literary critiques.

Dr Frendo is lecturer of theatre and performance within the Department of Theatre Studies at the School of Performing Arts, University of Malta. He leads the group for Research in Culture and Performance that was recently launched by the School of Performing Arts.