Please join the Theater and Performance Studies Workshop for:
Michelle Chow

MAPH Student, University of Chicago

Who will Present:

See No More: Theatrical Subjectivity in Oscar Wilde’s Salome

Respondent: Benjamin Morgan, Associate Professor, English, University of Chicago.

Wednesday, December 2nd,

*****4:00 – 5:30 PM*****
(please note that this is not our usual meeting time)

Please register HERE to receive a copy of the paper and a zoom link for the workshop. 

Abstract: Among Oscar Wilde’s plays, Salomé is rather understudied, perhaps because it seems the least distinctly “Wildean.” (The witty turns of phrase and satirization of the English upper-class for which Wilde became best known for are barely apparent in the one-act, Decadent, French-language tragedy Salomé.) In both its subject matter and its language, Wilde draws on common Symbolist techniques for a startling, haunting interpretation of the biblical drama between Salome, her stepfather Herod, and John the Baptist. My paper explores the treatment of theatrical subjectivity in Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, specifically how that subjectivity comes in through the dialogue, and how that subjective dialogue comes to challenge what we might think of as the objective physical experience of theatre. Part of the drama of Salomé is that each character seems to be experiencing a different reality and attempts to eclipse all others through their dialogue. I argue that in Salomé, words precede and efface the bodies on stage, even when we can see them. Salomé develops a theatrical language to torque drama towards subjectivity, to command perception over corporeal bodies—to exercise a transformative power over theatre in its original sense, theasthai: to behold.

We are committed to making our workshop fully accessible to persons with disabilities. Please direct any questions or concerns to the workshop coordinators, Arianna Gass (ariannagass@uchicago.edu) and Catrin Dowd (catrindowd@uchicago.edu).