The Intertextuality of the Sound Space in Dmitry Volkostrelov’s productions

Productions based on films as opposed to plays are a phenomenon which is becoming increasingly prominent in contemporary theatrical art. At the same time, there are still no scientific texts looking into this type of works. There are reviews, where the focus is predominantly on the comparison of plotlines and the film is essentially studied as a dramatic text. In some cases, the subject of the comparison may be а scene from the film that has found its way into the stage production as a visual quote.

This article makes the pioneering use of a method borrowed from film studies — diegetic analysis of the soundscape — to analyze this kind of productions. In film the method is used to analyze how and by what means the viewer is relocated from one narrative level to another. In films this is often the function of sounds. The aim of the study was to test the possibility of applying this methodology to the theatre and to test the hypothesis that productions based on films reproduce the structural connections of these films. The following conclusions have been made: diegetic analysis of soundscapes in theatre is possible and effective at least for productions based on cinematic texts.

When using the methodology it becomes evident that the director relies on the soundscape structure of the films. It has been established that the audio components of the stage production become the key elements used by the director to interact with the original source. By recreating and enhancing the structural connections between sound, image and plot, the director creates the opportunity for the audience to have an experience similar to that of the film characters. At the same time, there remains the possibility of staying in a metaposition, observing and comparing the stage and the screen productions.