SAMUEL BECKETT: DIRECTING, SPACE AND NEUROCOGNITION
A tripartite model of spatiality in performance, grounded in experimental evidence from studies of interoception, peripersonal space and hippocampal function, constitutes a meta-framework through which diverse approaches to theatre-making can be illuminated. Samuel Beckett’s directorial practice as documented in his Theatrical Notebooks proves particularly amenable to such analysis. The phenomenological foundations of this neurophysiological framework find a significant precedent in the early twentieth-century German debate in psychopathology, in which Neo-Kantianism and Bergsonism figured prominently. These philosophical currents were demonstrably influential on Beckett and arguably formative of his approach to staging, actor direction, and character conception and construction at large.
Angelo Romagnoli is an Italian multilingual actor, artistic director, and postdoctoral researcher in the performing arts. He holds a PhD in Drama at the University of Kent, UK, with a thesis titled The Three Spaces of the Actor: Practical Investigations on Samuel Beckett and Thierry Salmon through Contemporary Neuroscience, investigating spatial neurophysiology in performance. Currently, Angelo Romagnoli is a member of the BACH Centre (Behavioural Arts and Culture for Health, Sustainability, and Social Cohesion) at the University of Chieti-Pescara (Italy) and Lecturer of Dramaturgy of Space at the University of Bari (Italy). He is also a member of the Editorial Board of the Italian Tier 1 journal Culture Teatrali, founded by Marco De Marinis.
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