Semiotics and Contemporary Play Directing: The Example of Ogonna Agu’s Dawn in the Academy

Abstract

The success of any theatrical performance depends largely on how the theatre director understands, experiments and explores the wide array of techniques and approaches for creating such theatrical production. This inquiry experimented on the semiotic theory, a 21st century postmodern experimental form, as an approach to creating a theatrical production. The play script Dawn in the Academy was semiotically analyzed and presented from a directorial perspective on the stage of Chinua Achebe Arts Theatre, University of Calabar, Nigeria. The inquiry emphasizes that the semiotic sign system is an indispensable tool in the dialectic interchange between the stage and the audience. The research, supported by the play project establishes that the semiotic discipline is a productive method a director could apply when faced with an interdisciplinary play script. The semiotic oriented approach of directing on the basis of this research, is therefore established as the vehicle, which the ambiguities, indissoluble structure and juxtaposed variegated happenings inherent in scripts can be transformed. Consequently some of the basic elements of the semiotic theory as highlighted in this paper, reveal the rich and vibrant content of the various facets of the semiotic production process. Contemporary play directors in their professional quest to fully interpret and project the works of playwrights to the audience, have, among others, the option of applying the semiotic theory and sign systems in their stage experimentation.