Teaching Cavell and the Avoidance of Love in Drama

Stanley Cavell’s essay “The Avoidance of Love,” collected in In Quest of the Ordinary (1988), bridges philosophical argument and enacted speech. Read alongside a scene, it shifts attention from what characters declare to how words perform: an apology can repair, evade or wound; “I love you” can open a relation or close down further risk.

Teaching the essay does not require students to become Cavell scholars. A compact module works when one philosophical concept meets repeated acts of reading, voicing and staging. Students can test whether a scene supports, resists or complicates Cavell’s concerns with perfectionism, irony and moral responsibility.

From ordinary language to dramatic action

Ordinary language philosophy bridges philosophical argument and theatre. When students ask what “sorry,” “honest” or “guilty” does in an exchange, they examine language as action rather than decoration. A spoken promise commits a character; a refusal may wound another even when its literal wording appears mild.

The title can invite a sentimental reading of love as romance. Cavell’s concerns are wider: perfectionism can become a defence against vulnerability, while irony preserves distance from another’s claims. Treat these as interpretive propositions, not slogans, and ask how literary form makes the problem visible.

Putting the essay beside a dramatic scene lets students connect a line’s stated meaning with its timing, volume, silence and physical address. The philosophical question becomes testable: does the scene disclose an attempt at relation, or does its form organise avoidance?

Learning outcomes and guiding questions

By the end, students should explain the difference between stating a feeling and performing a speech act; analyse irony, silence and repetition as forms of moral defence; and produce an evidence-led interpretation linking Cavell to a dramatic passage. Group work should make disagreement, revision and collective interpretation part of the lesson.

Useful guiding questions include: What does a character risk by speaking? When does precision sound like care and when does it become control? Can an audience believe a speaker while judging the strategy of the speech? These questions prepare students for seminars, performances and written analysis without reducing literary study to a checklist of themes.

A four-session teaching sequence

Session one establishes the philosophical problem. Read a short Cavell passage beside a scene from King Lear, The Winter’s Tale or an Australian play such as Kate Mulvany’s The Seed. Students annotate key ordinary words, then describe the scene without naming emotions. They should identify one moment where dialogue changes the balance of risk between characters.

Session two tests semantic choices. Ask groups to rewrite one line, changing only a verb, pronoun or degree of directness while preserving its dramatic function. “I care about you” might become “I noticed you were late” or “You know I worry”. Comparing these versions reveals how language allocates attention, authority and responsibility. A brief plenary then relates those choices to Cavell.

Session three moves into ensemble rehearsal. Give pairs a short scene and two intentions, such as seeking forgiveness and securing an alibi. They may alter distance, pace, eye-line and interruption while keeping the words fixed. Observers record where power shifts and prepare one question connecting the staging choice to the philosophical issue.

Session four stages two contrasting versions, followed by a five-minute colloquium. Each group identifies its textual evidence and explains the ethical effect of its choices. The audience then distinguishes between an interpretation that merely restates the theme and one that shows how dramatic form produces or resists connection.

Performance as philosophical inquiry

Performance inquiry and dramaturgy should test meaning, not display acting polish. Have students deliver the same speech literally and then through a shifting subtext. They record both versions and listen for changes in tempo, emphasis and implied address, revealing how a sentence can acknowledge another person while evading their claim.

A second exercise changes the terms of address. Students read one passage addressed to “you”, then rewrite it as “we”, “they” or “I”. Shifting pronouns exposes how speech creates solidarity, distance or self-protection. It also prepares discussion of how ordinary language becomes rhetorical action under pressure.

Invite students to formulate hypotheses rather than prescribe a “correct” emotion. “The speaker is being sarcastic” is an interpretation; “the contradiction between the formal apology and the withheld name exposes defensive irony” is a claim that can be tested against the text and staging.

Assessment and critical feedback

A summative task might combine a 1,200-word close reading, a five- to seven-minute performance and a 300-word reflective rationale. The essay analyses a passage in dialogue with Cavell; the performance demonstrates one interpretive decision; the rationale records what changed during rehearsal. This suits Australian drama courses that value conceptual argument and embodied presentation without making vocal polish the main criterion.

A transparent rubric can allocate 40 per cent to textual and philosophical analysis, 30 to communication and interpretive coherence, 20 to use of feedback, and 10 to reflective precision. In feedback, ask what evidence supports an interpretation and what alternative staging could test it. Recordings, annotated scripts and peer observation notes support revision rather than becoming decorative evidence.

Students can also submit a recorded audio or visual performance if that better meets their access requirements, while retaining the same assessment criteria. Written feedback should identify the precise moment in the scene where an interpretation could be strengthened or challenged. Peer reviewers can use a short comment scale: claim, evidence and alternative reading.

Australian settings and practical adaptations

The module can sit in NSW HSC and Victorian VCE study, then scale to a first-year university drama or literary-studies subject. Australian university teaching often mixes flipped or “jumbled” classroom work with seminars and studio production; this sequence suits that rhythm. Schools can use two 50-minute periods for each session and build the colloquium into an existing assessment.

Local examples include Sydney Theatre Company, the National Institute of Dramatic Art, WAAPA in Perth, Queensland Performing Arts Centre and festivals in Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Darwin. Public, commercial, company and fringe sectors use different booking and ticketing models, but schools can seek subsidised matinees, streamed productions and licensed performance rights. Obtain scripts from institutional copies or properly licensed extracts.

Australian understatement, egalitarian address and expressions such as “no worries” and “fair dinkum” can reveal social pressure beneath mild speech; analyse rather than caricature regional and social voices. Teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander works requires following artist permissions, attribution and cultural protocols, while multilingual repertoires can support analysis of code-switching, identity and belonging. Captions, audio description, Auslan interpretation, relaxed sessions and digital alternatives support regional students and people with access needs.

Take the module into your next drama class by choosing one short scene, pairing it with two focused Cavell passages and staging the exchange twice so that students can hear philosophical choices become dramatic choices.