초록 열기/닫기 버튼
Among the many elements that display his critical exploration of the human being as a central aspect of the worlds he presents, this paper sheds a particular light on Wallace Shawn’s long-held stylistic technique of the self-reflexive monologue. His 2009 play Grasses of a Thousand Colors features another possible effect of utilizing monologues as the dominant stylistic form: positioning animals as fully articulate beings, like humans, to vocalize their direct intrusion upon the long one-sided conversation of the human protagonist. It is in this context that I highlight the play’s reflexive dimensions found through the ecological perspective and through the interplay of narrativity and performativity. I take note of how such a seemingly solipsistic approach as monologues ironically emphasizes interchanges of extreme feelings among the characters and how this interplay is delivered to the audience to the extent that this stylistic technique inculcates a disquieting sense of enmeshment within the audience. Ultimately, by illuminating the newly created site (the theatrical “ecotone”) in breaking the fourth wall between actors and audiences and blending the two groups, my analysis suggests that Shawn’s dramaturgy initiates change in both the characters and audience members who witness the characters’ acts of narrativizing the past.
