Philosophy of the Performing Arts

118 performance and the classical paradigm
However, and this brings us to the second point, it is not clear that, even
if we grant all of this, it is sufficient to establish that all theatrical perform-
ances make better sense under the ingredients model than under the classical
paradigm. First, as we shall see in Chapter 8, the ensemble revision model of
theatrical production is not universally applicable even within the Western
theatrical tradition. Where there are, within this tradition, norms of theat-
rical production that don’t involve ensemble revision of the sort found in
Hamilton’s range of scenarios, the foregoing argument for the ingredients
model of theatrical performance cannot apply.
Second, even where we do have productions that involve ensemble revi-
sion, it isn’t clear why this establishes that the ingredients model accounts for
such productions better than the classical paradigm. Take Hedda-for-Hedda ,
for example. While performances of this production indeed reflect decisions
and modifications made in rehearsal, those decisions and modifications seem
to be governed by the company’s overarching aim of being true to Ibsen’s
play in the first of our senses. Hamilton claims that, even if the company
belongs to a tradition that always uses a text in this way, their treating it as
the script of a performable work is still an unforced choice on their part, as
the ingredients model requires. He supports this claim by appealing to an
ideal companion company belonging to the same tradition who would see
alternative ways of engaging with the text. So, where companies seek to
faithfully realize an independent work, we have “performances that adopt
constraints that are not binding in the tradition, but are taken as though they
were” (J. Hamilton 2007, 210).
But this is rather mystifying. For suppose that we have a tradition where
both performers and audience assume that the right, or the only, way to
engage with the text of a dramatic work is to seek to mount a production
that is faithful to the text of that work. In what sense does the observation
that “objectively” there are other options open to both performers and audi-
ence show that performances intended by the performers and understood
by the audience to be of a work are not really of the work at all? By analogy,
it is “objectively” possible for musicians performing in a classical orchestra
to treat the score as merely one “ingredient” in a group improvisation. But
this surely does not demonstrate that their actual performance, which is
intended by the performers and understood by the audience to conform to
the classical paradigm, is not really of a musical work at all. Hamilton has
responded to this kind of argument by rejecting the musical analogy on the
grounds that the historical traditions of music and theater are quite different
(J. Hamilton 2009b, 83). But this seems to beg the question, given that what
is at issue is precisely how the theatrical tradition is rightly understood.
More generally, if we hold models of artistic performance accountable
to their ability to reflectively explain critical and performative practice,