Exploring Epistemological and Phenomenological Dimensions in Drama and Theatre Studies

With Drama studies becoming more limited and reduced in education and even being more constricted in actual presentation, it is worth considering a couple of crucial points in its academic and physical frameworks. Though sometimes regarded as outdated relics of the past, the ephemeral nature of live performance provides unique emotional and physical dimensions creating an intersection of knowledge and experience. Understanding and incorporating epistemological and phenomenological perceptions in drama and theatre study and presentation enhances the cultural creation and appreciation of theatrical works. Such incorporation encapsulates how we know, interpret, and feel stories and expressions presented on stage; while influencing production choices and audience engagement taking it beyond narcissism.

Actors in an empty space

Understanding Epistemology in Drama and Theatre

Individual insights from writers, directors, dramaturgs, actors and designers shape the kind of meaning being created or channelled in a work of theatre. This does not preclude intuitive creativity. However, at some point each participant in the process needs to be aware of the precepts that govern the created work.

What is the take on a particular story or theme? Is it derived from history, culture, society etc? The job of the playwright, director and/or dramaturg is intricately concerned with such questions. What forms of knowledge are needed and how will they be incorporated?

• Knowledge through image creation and storytelling: Narratives and designs exploring meaning offering insights into social structures, relationships and power draw upon history or specific events as starting points. Some begin with philosophical questions.

• The role of the playwright, director and teacher: The groundwork for theatre presentation starts with some connection or awareness of a particular area of knowledge and content that needs framing. This shaping of what is being developed and presented can be a complex task. Developing a perspective on a particular area can be a very specific task that doesn't finish with the writer. Directors and dramaturgs try to challenge truths in order to find the perspective needed for the work. Actors then challenge perspectives to find the reality that can be held up for audience consideration and inspection; perhaps to even challenge and reconsider their own perspectives!

• Audience as knowledge participants: Part of Drama education is to enhance the artistic literacy of audiences. They are not passive receptacles. If audiences are to engage with theatre and gain worthwhile experiences and even new knowledge, then education is needed to negotiate the forms that theatre utilises. Just as the old-style music-appreciation classes invited people to engage with different forms in order to both and enjoy perhaps play music, Drama needs to recognise people's own dramas and stories while acquainting people with forms and styles beyond the familiar.

Epistemology raises questions. It asks about inherent truth and how it can be represented. Epistemological questions relate to an understanding of norms and a notion of fundamental truths. Does factual accuracy necessarily reveal truth? Can a work theatre expose something deeper? Such questions are faced by studies and practical productions.

Epistemology is then a starting point. However, more significantly in the educative and practical application of theatre is the discipline of Phenomenology.

Phenomenology and the Experience of Theatre

Phenomenology begins with actual lived experience. Eugenio Barba devoted a whole book on this topic. In one section he wrote of the "Actor's Dramaturgy". He outlined how important it was for the actor to recognize their experience in order to step from it to the intentions of character. Barba wrote:

"... the actor’s logic ... did not correspond to my intentions as a director, nor to those of the author. The actor drew this logic from her biography, from her personal needs, from her experience and the existential and professional situation, from the text, the character or the tasks received, and from the relationships with the director and with the other colleagues. In theatre, it examines how actors and audiences experience the performance in the moment." (Barba, E. ON DIRECTING AND DRAMATURGY Burning the house, Translated by Judy Barba, LONDON AND NEW YORK 2010)

• Embodiment in acting: This dramaturgy is the starting point for phenomenological approaches to creating effective theatre. Recognition that actors, directors and all involved in the creative process each have their own private dramaturgy is the first step in a phenomenological theatre. Barba speaks of "organic" acting deriving from recognition of this process. He adds that any actors not doing this are really NOT actors at all. Elements of movement, speech and gesture that don't begin with recognition of individual dramaturgy are devoid of any authenticity. And thus are largely meaningless!

• Audience engagement: Phenomenology highlights the sensory and emotional impact of theatre. Lighting, sound, space, and timing all contribute to how the audience experiences the event.

• The “lived moment” of performance: Phenomenological approaches lift a presentation bringing it into the present! Each performance is a unique act; an ephemeral existence caught between actors and audience. This provides a problem for reviewers of theatre. The reviewer is in effect providing a kind of dramaturgy of dramaturgy. Of course, many reviewers are totally unaware of their engagement with their particular forces that shape their world view ... and so it goes ...

  
  

Actor’s hands adjusting stage props during rehearsal

Integrating Epistemology and Phenomenology in Theatre Production

Combining these dimensions enhances both study and production:

• Script analysis: Starting with epistemological aspects allows the initial intentions of the text to be elevated and deeply considered.

• Performance choices: Phenomenological approaches offer organic acting allowing for a more alive performance within the present.

• Audience interaction: Highlighting the audiences cultural and background experiences allows for work that may well have a greater resonance and ability to focus continued communal dialogue on the epistemological elements of the production.

In our production of "Romeo and Juliet" the actors emerged in the proximity with the audience and even from around the tables where they placed their meals and drinks. The idea was to show that these young people were just like young people now; the same pressures and desires existed. While we also showed Juliet's mother taking drinks from the audience area and being very close to the audience in her most emotional scene. Epistemological themes of family relations and cultural madness were highlighted by this use of proximity.

A similar approach is being used in our production of "Rhinoceros" by Eugene Ionesco. The comical rhinos are obvious puppets and masked characters seen doing things like a conga line dance. While bringing out the absurd, the epistemological elements of conformity and petty denial within a personalised context within society might well be applied.

Practical Applications in Drama Education and Production

Drama educators and theatre practitioners can apply these concepts to improve learning and creativity:

• Encourage students to explore how knowledge is presented in scripts and performances.

• Use exercises that focus on sensory awareness and emotional presence to deepen phenomenological understanding.

• Design productions that challenge audiences to question their assumptions and engage actively with the performance.

  
  

These approaches foster critical thinking and empathy, essential skills for both theatre makers and audiences.

Actors practicing movement exercises in theatre rehearsal space

Final Thoughts on Epistemological and Phenomenological Dimensions in Theatre

About twenty years ago, I developed the Drama Framework for the ACT Drama courses. That was when there was a separate framework from the merged Arts Framwork that now exists as constructed by the Board of Senior Secondary Studies in the ACT. In that initial Framework, I included the notions of Phenomenological and Ontological considerations. Of course, five years later when the framework was revised, the philosophical terminology and their implications were thrown out. While I consider now that Ontology is probably too remote for our Drama and Theatre studies, Epistemology provides a great framework for Drama to fully investigate truths and validity in texts and in all areas of arts practice. Phenomenology might well be the practical starting point for all creative work in Drama and Theatre. In many ways it already is ... however, it might be useful to more formally use it to shape our curriculum and our practice with real people working in this ephemeral art form ...

Joe Woodward 11 January 2026

Tickets for RHINOCEROS by Eugene Ionesco may be accessed here: https://events.humanitix.com/rhinoceros-cnbc99wn

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Dates and times for the DTC production of RHINOCEROS by Eugene Ionesco are 18 - 25 April 2026 in The Joe Woodward Theatre.

The Rhinoceros in the Room

Artist writer director faces a battle for art itself in the face of trigger warnings and self-censorship

From ancient inaccessible cave art to the banned works of artists, writers and performers, the obstacle for all creative activity is censorship and more significantly self-censorship. The threat of benefactors cutting off or denying financing, the changing political/social environment and imagined or real threats of ostracism by fellow artists/colleagues pose the great challenge to the essential art of seeing. Novels such as Koestler's "Darkness at Noon" and Dostoyevsky's "The Devils" explore such issues. However, in an oblique and highly significant way, Eugene Ionesco's play "Rhinoceros" provides perhaps the strongest exposition of the gravitation tendency threatening, not only creative expression, but the very notion of individual identity itself.

Audiences viewing Eugene Ionesco's play "Rhinoceros" may well come with preconceptions as to what it is about. Is the Rhinoceros really Woke or Trumpism or Fascism or Communism or Religion or Migrants banging at the doors ... To reduce the play down to such banal explanations is to seriously undermine and underestimate the real power of Ionesco's writing. To frame the play in terms of some concrete context giving it a superficial meaning is to destroy its very essence. While there is evidence that aspects came from Ionesco's own experience with friends and colleagues becoming Fascists in Rumania, this is not the full story.

Ionesco is quoted as saying:

“The supreme trick of mass insanity is that it persuades you that the only abnormal person is the one who refuses to join in the madness of others, the one who tries vainly to resist,” he said in a 1983 discussion of Rhinoceros." (quoted in https://magazine.1000libraries.com/the-incredible-life-of-eugene-ionesco-father-of-the-theatre-of-the-absurd/)

But don't we see this in all of life's experience; be it socially, culturally, within families, politically and within the microcosm and the macrocosm of all existence? I am sure that within the play, the leading character of Berenger might well be diagnosed by some pseudo psychologist or ideologue as clinically insane or at least as having a major disorder. I am sure somewhere, an academic study or analysis has come to criticise and damn the character as having major flaws thus denying him the sincere standpoint on which to challenge the dominant progression of mass hysteria. Alternatively, Ionesco might be criticised for positing an individualist model of cultural behaviour that challenges collective insanity.

In preparation for directing this play, I have found a number of sources to be very informative, stimulating and relevant; but the most useful is: Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

Darkness at Noon

In Koestler's novel, a former leader of a revolution, Rubashov, is being held for trial for some seeming betrayal of the ruling party. His interrogation by Ivanov, a veteran revolutionary and former colleague of Rubashov’s, is a masterpiece of psychological exposition. It details the way pressure of conformity to even the most absurd of ideals and commitment to a collective narrative can compress and seep into the consciousness of even the strongest mindset. Based on aspects of the Stalinist show trials, we see how self-extinction can produce the desired outcomes of the social and political architecture of the state; the voluntary self-denial as a weapon of some seeming greater ideal!

To compare a hyper-realist novel such as "Darkness at Noon" with an absurdist comedy like "Rhinoceros" might seem a bit stretched; at least initially! Yet, given the extreme differences in form, both works feature a central character, Rubashov in "Darkness at Noon" and Berenger in "Rhinoceros", that is struggling to maintain his own sense of worth confronted by collective insanity. Both characters have psychological pressures put on them by people who are very close to them. Both face a monolith that threatens to cave in upon their very being.

The idea that one's oppressor is the source of one's salvation ultimately leading to disaster and death struck an instant cord with me. If one is alienated enough or psychologically and spiritually malnourished, the platform is there for one to gravitate to the hideous strength; that compelling attraction that creates its own magnetic pull even as it repels. In Rhinoceros, we are introduced to the humdrum and petty fascinations of people so preoccupied by the trivialities and semantic playgrounds of daily lives where nothing beyond the moment has any impact or meaning. Even a rampaging rhinoceros in the house makes little impact.

In the "Darkness at Noon" universe, it is the Rubashovs and Ianvos who play these fascinations as if in a game of chess.

The Production

A play is not a philosophical discourse; though it might well have elements of such discourse contained within it. Being aware of serous core themes should not then stifle the absurdity and inherent comedy created within the theatrical form of the work. "Rhinoceros" is a funny play. People's foibles and petty obsessions become the source of its inherent humour and universal qualities. Characters are slight extensions of people we know and, if we are honest, of ourselves. Ionesco's obsession with the banality of language is highlighted in the seeming ordinariness of so much dialogue with some internal monologues providing moments of personal insight by the central character who displays a constant and creative dissatisfaction. The play allows a production to extend a huge range of theatrical elements to create a huge pastiche through which to experience the very nature of absurd existence. The medium is the message to a large extent. As a director, one must be then cautioned against allowing too much semi-realism or didactic suggestions to infiltrate the style and motivations for the action.

Ironically, it is Koestler who writes simply of a fundamental basis for absurdist comedy; a rationale for his serious intent while extolling its seeming ridiculous premise. Koestler states:

"We all know that there is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous; the more surprising that Psychology has not considered the possible gains which could result from the reversal of that step."

He goes on to offer the analogy of bio symbolism in discussing the value of laughter: "The bacillus of laughter is a bug difficult to isolate; once brought under the microscope, it will tum out to be a yeast-like, universal ferment, equally useful in making wine or vinegar, and raising bread." (Koestler THE ACT OF CREATION, Hutchinson & Co London, 1964 p31)

What can be deceptively frivolous or superficially funny, might also turn out as the seed for something insightful and serious. Most comedians know this. Writers from the ancient Greeks to Shakespeare to Edward Albee and Ionesco have all utilised this basic understanding. In "Rhinoceros" it isn't the beast that provides absurdity; it is the reactions and the interactions of the character that provide the comedy and the absurdity. It is a very different device to that used by Kafka and later Stephen Berkoff in "Metamorphosis" where a man transforms into an animal. Gregor Samsa becoming the bug is an extension of his personal alienation. The Rhinoceros is an external manifestation of irrational compulsion. Both works are absurd. Both deal with isolation. While "Metamorphosis" presents the bug as a curse; "Rhinoceros" presents the animal transformation as a kind of hysterical liberation ... a willing physical, intellectual and emotional adoption of something inhuman!

"Rhinoceros" contains more of the "bacillus of laughter" and from it we hope to evoke some transformations in both cast and audiences alike. Productions are chosen through consideration of contexts and capacity to produce. I wouldn't take too much imagination to identify a cultural/social context for such a work as Rhinoceros. We considered the capacity for our company to utilise dance, drama, music, exquisite costumes, puppetry and masks, design and then to provide for audience comfort in the form of light meals, a licensed bar and seating choices for the duration.

The Director and the Rhinoceros

All very well! But obviously, I am evading the question. How do I as director face the inevitable Rhino in the room; the one in my room that taunts and demands my eventual capitulation! That extreme compulsion to please and placate; the one that offers to avoid those tricky and difficult conversations with participants and with my masters who might challenge my soul! The Rhino dresses well and even smiles while trying to assure my tempestuous inclinations that I would do better to stay more closely to the more dominant passivity of therapeutic art or of narcissistic indulgences so commonly presented as theatre. That Rhino in the room who points continuously to my own bullshit and my vanity! That Rhino that constantly points to my outmoded and seeming nostalgia for what once was and never really could be ... The Rhino lovingly assuages my emotions and offers a new way forward. The Rhino is no longer a beast ... the Rhino graciously offers to take the burden of my identity and relieve me of all doubts ...

That rhinoceros in the room will be different for each participant. Yet through laughter and intriguing imagery, perhaps it will haunt the dreams of all who witness the event. And this is the aim ...

Joe Woodward

(8 Jan 2026)

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Theatre As a Smiling Clown in a Knock-Em-Down Gallery

A reflection on Eugene Ionesco's play RHINOCEROS

The lemming smile of the porcelain clown can't help but haunt the savage moment of one's demise; the demise of the artist and the observer of human kind as it descends into the banal oblivion of cultural goo ...

The idiot smile of certainty

planted on the faces

of once seemingly intelligent creatures

as mouths scream and chant the slogans

of the platitudinous gods ...

that smile of the revolutionary hero

about to die ...

like a Nikolai Bukharin of 2026

Is certainty a given?

Eugene Ionesco's play "Rhinoceros" is perhaps more relevant today as the cultural elites and controllers of cultural thought and newspeak have forgotten the original context of the rampaging thought-made-flesh that was the original context of Ionesco's work!

The play is very unkind to that wonderful animal that is the rhinoceros; comparing it as a monstrosity that is modern thought processes was extremely unkind ... yet it was a sort of means to focus the homeless mind on to some context that could illustrate the absurdity of mass psychosis and identity.

Absurdity in theatre didn't begin with plays

Absurdity begins with acceptance of the fragility and weakness of our ability to process the world around us. Culture would gladly, under certain circumstances, gladly accept the dead pig's head on a stick as a representation of god or devil if given the right circumstances. The absurdist playwright simply magnifies this constancy in a way that is distanced and comical. Neurosis and enabling go hand in hand with an insane society as once truths become lies and lies become truths in the post modern nightmare of privileged societies too weak to even begin to decipher the insane paradigms of its imprisonment. Identification becomes leading concept in all of ones reality. So if someone identifies as a cat, then kitty litter trays would need to be placed in the rest rooms ... and this is happening! Post Modern suck from the likes of Foucault permeate all our realities. So where are the see-ers? The artists and playwrights?

Ionesco and the absurdists didn't invent these mocking scenarios so evident in their plays. Rather the plays are conduits of intellectual viruses that penetrate the steely armour of academia and social control. Arthur Miller was wrong to castigate the absurdist for being some kind of fence sitting deviate who celebrates the meaninglessness of life. What Arthur Miller didn't realise is that he was the ultimate absurdist married to an icon and proclaiming that his plays would have any impact on society ... yeah: entertaining but with no ultimate lasting impact. How absurd is that? To be sucked in by one's own sense of importance! Schools, even the most conservative, present his Crucible every year. Absurd?

Theatre, the ultimate fool or ultimate clown?

Theatre stands with the fool on the hill trying to bat off the castigating rats that are thrown at it. It contemplates its sense of unassailing sanctimonious righteousness. It KNOWS it knows the truths about everything and so Theatre is confident in it's inescapable truth of its existence. It is confident that unwashed sacrificial plebs and yobbos and that underclass of far right rednecks cannot touch or breach the outer-walls of its established hegemony over nothing! Theatre is proud. Its practiced smile is that of the percaline clown at the side show. The smiling maggots that creep over its facsimile add to the esteemed culture that its homeless mind embraces. For it is a nothing! An over-bloated carcass of one's own past that self realises its ridiculous existence on the hill overlooking the village of idiots. It invites its own implosion with its self-conscious intimacy and its trigger of warnings that threaten to blast it into the fiction of 1984.

So the crowd sways and chants its everlasting chant of approval as Theatre is so slowly, ever so slowly, deconstructed and dismembered from its ivory tower on the hill. The fool is lost and disorientated. The Clown simply cries and laughs uncontrollably. The fabricated theatre that exists in the side-show is slowly being knocked down in the gallery of clowns. The adherents are being taken out and shot.

But it was never necessary to shoot anyone as the implosion did all the dirty work. Theatre stopped being part of the relevant few when it failed to see the elephant in the room: or should we say the rhinoceros rampaging all about us. The transfiguration of mind into semantic dissonance; the inability to differentiate the semantic construction with any sense of actuality! The Foucault infection so invisible and yet so deadly ... Shakespeare's hovel falling into a sink-hole where Harry Potter disappeared into a mesh of his own making! This is where the all-licenced fool is buried.

The clown struggles to sit on a chair. It is a clown after-all. The fool cries uncontrollably in the foyer of some distant destroyed edifice of a once thriving venue. The nearby schools that once taught Drama and presented theatre, no matter how naïve, have closed the doors while no longer allowing their young participants to achieve eye contact lest that be a form of abuse. They no longer allow students any form of body contact as that would be a contemporary sin ... an attack on safety and any degree of human response to each other or the universe ...

And so the ruins become the setting for a new generation of daleks ... The clowns exterminated; the smiles reimaged ... the dead Narcissus replaces the homeless mind of fictional theatre ...