Steve Giles

Postdramatic theatre and the political : international perspectives on contemporary performance

Is postdramatic theare political and if so how? How does it relate to Brechts ideas of political theatre, for example? How can we account for the relationship between aestetics and politics in new forms of theatre, playwriting, and performance? The 11 chapters by 13 contributors in this book discuss crucial aspects of the issues raised by the postdramatic turn in theatre in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century: the status of the audience and modes of spectatorship in postdramatic theatre; the political claims of postdramatic theatre; postdramatic theatres ongoing relationship with the dramatic tradition; its dialectical qualities, or its eschewing of the dialectic; questions of representation and the real in theatre; the role of bodies, perception, appearance and theatricality in postdramatic theatre; as well as subjectivity and agency in postdramatic theatre, dance and performance. Offering analyses of a wide range of internationa performance examples, scholars in this volume engage with Hans-Thies Lehmanns theoretical positions, relating them to other approaches by thinkers ranging from earlier theorists such as Brecht, Adorno and Benjamin, to contemporary thinkers such as Fischer-Lichte, Ranciere and others.

Postmodern Brecht: A Re-Presentation

This book should be of interest to students of modern German lite rature, critical theory, modern drama and cultural studies.