De Gedaanteverwisselaar - Niet Opnieuw Een Well-Made Play

Nico Boon's PhD started out as an investigation into the legacy of the well-made play - a type of playwriting that originated in the 19th century and that is defined by plot progression, climax-oriented scenes, strategic revelations, dramatic conflict, causality, realism, and a tight-knit structure typically organised in acts. At the beginning of this long-distance swim that is a PhD in the Arts, he asked whether the rediscovery of the well-made play could offer a path towards a narrative framework more resonant with these times. Soon, however, Boon's research morphed into a more paradoxical, ambiguous, and tentative inquiry. It chose to follow more adventurous, shadowy, twisting routes. The Shapeshifter: The Well-Made Play Not Written All Over Again is the result of that more serpentine, that more essential exploration. What does this PhD attempt to say? One - The role of chance and contingency in playwriting is underestimated. Two - A hyperfocus on terms like 'well-made', 'construction', and 'plot' is constricting. Three - Playwriting is a practice that originates in the body and that follows the fluctuating rhythms of the body. Four - Playwriting constitutes a permanent interplay between what is inside and outside, between one's own words/thoughts/intuitions and those of others. Five - Playwriting is a discipline of continuous improvisation, in which shapeshifting, rhythmic intuitions, bodily impulses, auditory awareness, and experimenting are more important than focusing on fixed narrative structures, or a clear 'sense', or distinct boundaries. Six - Playwriting, ultimately, is a transgressive enterprise, belonging to what Derrida calls poematic language and characterised by zigzag movements, that always refuses to choose a definitive form.