Postdramatic theatre / Hans-Thies Lehmann ; translated and with an introduction by Karen Jürs-Munby.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lehmann, Hans-Thies.

Standardized Title:

Postdramatisches Theater. English

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Theater--Germany--History--20th century.

Theater.

Experimental theater.

History.

Germany.

Experimental theater--Germany--History--20th century.

German drama--20th century--History and criticism.

German drama.

Physical Description:

x, 214 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2006.

Language Note:

Translated from the German.

Summary:

Hans-Thies Lehmann's groundbreaking study of the new theatre forms that have developed since the late 1960s has become a key reference point in international discussions of contemporary theatre. Postdramatic Theatre refers to theatre after drama. Despite their diversity, the new forms and aesthetics that have evolved have one essential quality in common: they no longer focus on the dramatic text. Lehmann offers a historical survey combined with a unique theoretical approach, illustrated by a wealth of practical examples, to guide the reader through this new theatre landscape. He considers these developments in relation to dramatic theory and theatre history, and as an inventive response to the emergence of new technologies and a historical shift from a text-based culture to a new media age of image and sound. Engaging with theoreticians of drama and theatre from Aristotle, Hegel, Szondi and Brecht to Barthes, Lyotard and Schechner, the book analyses the work of recent experimental theatre practitioners such as Robert Wilson, Tadeusz Kantor, Heiner Muller, The Wooster Group, Needcompany and Societas Raffaello Sanzio. This excellent translation is newly adapted for the Anglophone reader, including an introduction by Karen Jurs-Munby which provides useful theoretical and artistic contexts for the book.

Contents:

What's in the 'post'? 1

(Post)dramatic theory 'post' Szondi and Hegel 2

The turn to performance 4

Post-1960s institutional context, memory, history and palimpsest 7

Theatre and world in the age of media: are we post-postdrama? 9

Postmodern and postdramatic theory 13

The stakes 16

Intentions 18

Trade secrets of dramatic theatre 21

Caesura of the media society 22

Names 23

Paradigm 24

Postmodern and postdramatic 25

Choice of term 26

Tradition and the postdramatic talent 27

Drama 29

Drama and theatre 29

'Epicization'- Peter Szondi, Roland Barthes 29

The estrangement of theatre and drama 30

'Dramatic discourse' 31

Theatre after Brecht 32

Suspended suspense 33

'What a drama!' 35

'Formalist theatre' and imitation 36

Mimesis of action 36

'Energetic theatre' 37

Drama and dialectic 39

Drama, history, meaning 39

Aristotle: the ideal of surveyability (synopton) 40

Hegel 1 The exclusion of the real 42

Hegel 2 The performance 44

Prehistories 46

Towards a prehistory of postdramatic theatre 46

Theatre and text 46

The twentieth century 48

First stage: 'pure' and 'impure' drama 48

Second stage: crisis of drama, theatre goes its own way(s) 49

Autonomization, retheatricalization 50

Third stage: 'neo-avant-garde' 52

A short look back at the historical avant-gardes 57

Lyrical drama, Symbolism 57

Stasis, ghosts 58

Stage poetry 59

Acts, actions 61

Speed, numbers 61

Landscape Play 62

'Pure form' 64

Expressionism 65

Surrealism 66

Panorama of postdramatic theatre 68

Beyond dramatic action: ceremony, voices in space, landscape 68

Kantor or the ceremony 71

Gruber or the reverberation of the voice in space 74

Wilson or the landscape 77

Postdramatic theatrical signs 82

Retreat of synthesis 82

Dream images 83

Synaesthesia 84

Performance text 85

1 Parataxis/non-hierarchy 86

2 Simultaneity 87

3 Play with the density of signs 89

4 Plethora 90

5 Musicalization 91

6 Scenography, visual dramaturgy 93

7 Warmth and coldness 95

8 Physicality 95

9 'Concrete theatre' 98

10 Irruption of the real 99

11 Event/situation 104

1 An evening with Jan and his friends 107

2 Narrations 109

3 Scenic poem 110

4 Between the arts 111

5 Scenic essay 112

6 'Cinematographic theatre' 114

7 Hypernaturalism 115

8 Cool Fun 118

9 Theatre of 'shared' space 122

10 Theatre solos, monologies 125

11 Choral theatre/ theatre of the chorus 129

12 Theatre of heterogeneity 132

Performance 134

Theatre and performance 134

A field in between 134

The positing (Setzung) of performance 135

Self transformation 137

Aggression, responsibility 139

The present of performance 141

Aspects: text - space - time - body - media 145

Text 145

Chora-graphy, the body-text 145

Textscape, theatre of voices 148

Space 150

Dramatic and postdramatic space 150

Time 153

Postdramatic aesthetics of time 153

The unity of time 158

Body 162

Postdramatic images of the body 162

Pain, catharsis 165

Media 167

Media in postdramatic theatre 167

Electronic images as a relief 170

'Representability', fate 171

The political 175

Intercultural theatre 176

Representation, measure and transgression 177

Afformance art? 179

Drama and society 180

Theatre and the 'Society of the Spectacle' 183

Politics of perception, aesthetics of responsibility 184

Aesthetics of risk 186.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [200]-207) and index.

ISBN:

0415268125

0415268133

OCLC:

61229777

Publisher Number:

9780415268127 (hbk. : alk. paper)

9780415268134 (pbk. : alk. paper)