En arms avtryck : En studie av betydelseskapande processer i Fria Teaterns uppsättning av Tim Crouchs Min Arm ur ett intermedialt perspektiv

Sammanfattning: The following essay is a study of the theatre-play Min Arm, a translation and performance by Per Lasson for Fria Teatern in Stockholm 2009-2010. Actor, director and playwright Tim Crouch wrote the original script My Arm in English in 2003. With basis in intermedial theory, as defined by Jörgen Bruhn, as well as Hans-Thies Lehmann’s theory on post-dramatic theatre this study investigates the meaning-building processes in Min Arm as a theatrical performance. Concepts of the difference between stage play and performance text are borrowed from and inspired mainly by Eli Rozik’s Generating Theatre Meaning. By using Roland Barthes concept of intertextuality as an inherent part of every text, which places it in a social context, Min Arm is placed in a broader intertextual and intermedial discourse. Starting from the notion that a theatrical performance has a unique ability to combine verbal and non-verbal signs this study maps out how the audience becomes part of the meaning- building systems in Min Arm. The theatre play will be labelled a hypermedium, as it acts as a framework for several other visual media. To incorporate Min Arm and performance studies in a larger scope of artistic tradition this study uses Jurij Lotman’s theories on art among other modelling systems and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s notion of the ”willing suspension of disbelief” that is the basis for generating meaning in the theatre-performance. The main body of the essay takes three directions after a description of Min Arm’s plot and staging: the different texts of Min Arm, the play as a hypermedium and Min Arm in a broader context. The study sets out to answer questions on how Min Arm’s seemingly simple story manages several layers; what relationship Min Arm has to theatre as a medium; and how meaning is created in Min Arm. By doing so the investigation reaches at two inherent themes of Min Arm, which concern recipient meaning construction and the transformative qualities of the text.