Screen Reworkings

Abstract

Any discussion of the representation of stage on screen runs the risk of perpetuating a hierarchical binary relationship that constructs the live performance as the original and the screen presentation as its copy. This chronological hierarchy also often assumes implicit evaluative judgements: loading the ‘original’ with a primacy that resides in its authenticity, with the representation by contrast becoming ‘merely’ a copy, inauthentic, unoriginal and secondary.¹ Such a binary can, additionally, lead to assertions that the live is intrinsically superior to the non-live, in part because of various perceptions of authenticity.