Spectrality, Precarity and Interculturality in the Theatre of Anton Juan

Date of Award

5-1-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in English Language and Literature

First Advisor

Charlie S. Veric, PhD

Abstract

“Spectrality, Precarity, and Interculturality in the Theatre of Anton Juan” analyzes the interplay of dramatic elements in the playwright’s selected works, namely, Tuko! Tuko! (1995), The Price of Redemption (1998), and Shadows of the Reef (2006). These plays haunt, as well as queer, the official discourses on Philippine nationalism from the colonial to the postcolonial, the anti-colonial to the authoritarian, and finally the national to neoliberal. The dissertation brings trauma theory, queer theory, and the debates in intercultural theatre in conversation with postcolonial theory to accommodate the complexity of Juan’s semiotics. I argue that the specters of social injustice manifest themselves in representations of gender precarity in his plays that seek to dramatize unaddressed, unarticulated, and repressed historical traumas. Furthermore, I argue that Juan’s breaking of dramatic structures in his plays comes from seeing the societal structures as broken to begin with, wherein he pries open their gaps to stage silenced, hidden, and denied truths. In doing so, Juan not only transforms local theatrical practices, but also intervenes in the redefinition and performance of intercultural theatre. Methodologically, I read his plays using the perspectives of a theatre artist and a literary critic, combining the sensibility of an actor and director with close reading to identify patterns in the texts wherein theatricality can potentially take place. In particular, I follow the haunting of ghosts and read them as specters of injustice, then identify how the queering of gender and theatrical forms provides a counter-cultural alternative to the dominant narrative. I assert that such counter-cultural alternatives surface the repressed and imagine potential resolutions through theatre. Juan’s intercultural theater, which draws on Japanese, Greek, and Spanish influences, is an amalgamation of multiple theatricalities brought together by the queering of their forms. Juan contributes like no other among his peers to the development and expansion of Filipino theatre and its possibilities.

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS