THE CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR OF WAR IN CONTEMPORARY PRACTICES OF DECONSTRUCTING SHAKESPEARE'S TRAGEDY “TROILUS AND CRESSIDA”

Abstract

The paper focuses on the peculiarities of the use of postmodern techniques of interpretation of Shakespeare's work in the discourse of modern theatrical art. In particular, the specifics of the deployment of the conceptual metaphor of war in the production of “Troil and Cressida” by the British director J. Banatvala is being considered. The analysis shows the effectiveness of the postmodern director's use of deconstruction techniques, which generate processes of meaning-making at different levels of the text perception: thematiccontent, compositional, figurative and symbolic, stylistic. The author's concept of a theatrical performance is in line with the ideas of J. Derrida about the denial of the existence of a single source of artistic meaning and the relocation of the meaning-making center within an aesthetic object. The concept of a centered structure, realized in the experience of stage interpretation of classical material has led to transformations of the play's content and formal elements. The director resorts to decentering of Shakespeare's text structure. The concept of the absence of a center, the understanding of structure as an endless play of differences within finite limits that cannot be centered into a closed whole. This concept allows us to emphasize the polysemantic nature of any socio-historical and ideological phenomenon. War in the stage interpretation of a postmodern director acquires an ontological status, acts as a universal reality of existence, and has a worldview nature. As a conceptual metaphor war is being actualized in the postmodernist experiment to explain complex abstract concepts: the end of history, the human crisis, and the current state of understanding of human relations. At the same time, deconstruction acts as a means of creating an artistic world and facilitates the transmission of philosophical and specific historical artistic senses.