Traditional comic theater in Samoa: A holographic view [microform]
- Bib ID:
- 3287774
- Format:
- Book and Microform
- Author:
- Sinavaiana, Caroline Gabbard
- Description:
- 356 p.
- Summary:
-
This study presents an interdisciplinary approach to the present practice of Samoa's traditional satirical theater, as observed, recorded, and analyzed by the author with additional commentary from various comedian/ "auteurs," other actors, and audience members. Fale aitu (literally, "house of the spirits") are comic interludes, which are "scripted" orally, rehearsed, then performed in public with much improvisation by a small troupe of players, trained and directed by the most accomplished comedian among them. Plots are often marked by the humorous ridicule of authority figures, both indigenous (e.g. parent, teacher, elder) and colonial (e.g. pastor, government official, visiting European dignitary), who are dramatically epitomized through the use of caricature and hyperbole.
Conventional dramatic devices include mimicry, slapstick, and elaborate verbal play. In the sketches, then, normative status roles are reversed: the high is made low, the world temporarily "turned upside down," as characterized in carnival traditions-elsewhere. In a traditional context, the fale aitu appears to function as an informal regulatory institution of conflict management, that is, by acting as a catharsis for collective resentments and frustrations that structurally would have no other socially sanctioned outlet.
In this way, the comedies may be seen as contributing to the maintenance of social equilibrium. In the modern context of Samoa's colonial history, fale aitu may serve to illustrate the dynamics of a cultural process by which a society mediates the intrusion of alien but powerful cultural influences, for example, democracy, individualism, and capitalism, into a traditionally tribal milieu, thereby de-mystifying and defusing that which is potentially threatening to social/cultural equilibrium. At the same time, the satirical mode of presentation may serve further to subvert particularly alien values that do not harmonize well with indigenous values, for example, Western individualism versus Samoan communalism.
- Notes:
-
- (UnM)AAI9312217
- Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-12, Section: A, page: 4374.
- Chairman: David Stannard.
- Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Hawai'i, 1992.
- Reproduction:
- Microfiche. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International.
- Subject:
- Other authors/contributors:
- University of Hawai'i
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
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Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary Dramatic Musical
- Published status:
- Unpublished
- Creation date:
- 1992
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