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Ivan Medenica, editor<\/strong><\/p>\n 150 pp. Belgrade: Institute of Theatre, Film, Radio and Television<\/strong> Reviewed by Katerina Delikonstantinidou<\/strong> [1]<\/sup><\/a> (Greece)<\/p>\n In the decade between the publication of Hans-Thies Lehmann\u2019s Post-dramatic Theatre<\/em> in 1999 and the Conference \u201cDramatic and Post-Dramatic Theatre: Ten Years After,\u201d held in Belgrade in 2009, Lehmann\u2019s groundbreaking study has been translated into 18 languages and has been widely discussed and debated.<\/p>\n The Belgrade conference itself grew out of an attempt to respond to the vexed questions and polemics that the post-dramatic debate\u2014the \u201clast big theatre paradigm\u201d\u2014has spawned over the past decade as well as to track changes and developments in the post-dramatic theatre landscape. These conference proceedings use Lehmann\u2019s seminal work as a starting point, each separate paper oriented towards a consideration of the \u201cafter\u201d of the post-dramatic theatre as well as the reality generally of a \u201cpost\u201d post-dramatic theatre.<\/p>\n With one eye on the present effects of the post-dramatic and the other on its future directions, the conference (and this volume) tries to answer a number of questions concerning the relation of post-dramatic theatre to text, performance and criticism both in Serbia and internationally. Well edited by Serbian theatre scholar Ivan Medenica, the 12 essays (including the editor\u2019s Introduction which appears in both Serbian and English) reflect the multi-cultural quality of its overarching theme including texts in Serbian, French, Italian, and English. The book also includes a summary of each essay in both the language of the specific text and in Serbian.<\/p>\n Lehmann\u2019s own essay is the real beginning of this collection and he speaks about what he considers to be the five significant tendencies of theatre practice of the past ten years\u2014an emphasis on group work, a growing dialogue between theatre and society, a return of the chorus, the use of narration, and the reappearance of theatre of text. Given these tendencies, Lehmann goes on to argue for the interplay of these elements as tools \u201cwith which to re-think the European tradition of dramatic theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n His own discussions of the pre-dramatic, dramatic, and post-dramatic, of theatre and performance, of the notions of \u201ctheatricality,\u201d relational theatre, and the autonomy of the notion of the aesthetic (this last one meriting more attention I would suggest), serve as guides through the book.<\/p>\n Three response essays stand out here: Patrice Pavis\u2019 \u201cR\u00e9flexion sur le Th\u00e9\u00e2tre Post-dramatique,\u201d Elinor Fuchs\u2019 \u201cPost-dramatic Theatre and the Persistence of the \u2018Fictive Cosmos\u2019: A View from America,\u201d and Marco de Marinis\u2019 \u201cLa Prospettiva Post-dramatica: Novecento e Oltre.\u201d All are insightful reflections on the notion of the \u201cpost-dramatic\u201d and on the meaning and purpose of post-dramatic theatre. Each offers a rich discussion on the relation of post-dramatic theatre to mise en sc\u00e8ne<\/em> and performance, to the fictive, to dramatic composition, staging, and theatre studies generally.<\/p>\n Pavis\u2019 essay, in particular, traces and maps the post-dramatic\u2019s \u201chesitation\u201d within the continental notion of mise en scene <\/em>as well as the notion of \u201cperformativity\u201d in anglophone countries. This essay also reflects on the future of the theatre as residing less in the elaboration of new forms than in established theatre subsidy systems, a rather grim notion.<\/p>\n Fuchs\u2019 \u201cView from America,\u201d is a more evolutionary vision of dramatic form, critically examining Lehmann\u2019s formula along the way. Wary of radical breaks in culture and discerning a new rapprochement between drama and theatre, Fuchs concedes that the \u201cfictional world that aligns all dramaturgical elements into a synthetic whole,\u201d is a hard thing to kill insofar as the dramatic re-absorbs post-dramatic experimentation and continues it, albeit in an altered form.<\/p>\n Like Fuchs\u2019, Karen J\u00fcrs-Munby\u2019s cross-cultural view (involving Britain and Germany) refrains from enthusiastic declarations of the post-dramatic\u2019s shedding of dramatic conventions. In fact, it argues along with Pavis that Lehmann never really opposed \u201ctheatre without text\u201d or \u201ctextual theatre.\u201d Rather, she offers a provisional schema of the heterogeneous text-based and non-text-based trajectories that can be followed in order to arrive at post-dramatic performance anticipating a reformulated and robust theorization of the relationship of text to performance. This seems a felicitous development that would positively impact institutional structures, and, by extension, creative engagement with new writing for the theatre.<\/p>\n Along similar lines, Lada \u010cale-Feldman\u2019s paper presents an intellectually stimulating and post-structuralist-inflected approach to the post-dramatic use of textual \u201cmaterial.\u201d She presents three different examples from the past 40 years of Croatian theatre practice as evidence that post-dramatic theatre \u201ctreats the text \u2026 as Lacan treats the human body: as an imaginary reminder of the coherence of a textual entity endowed with a sense and a meaning, repressing the fear of fragmentation, castration, and founding\/ontic dublicity.\u201d<\/p>\n In a very different style, Annalisa Sacchi\u2019s paper, examines the (post-dramatic) stage as a place of memory practice building on Walter Benjamin\u2019s notion of \u201ccitable gesture.\u201d Sacchi, like the writer of the next essay, Ana Tasi\u0107, who critically examines the use of live video relay in contemporary theatre, shows in stark light how post-dramatic experimentation can be simultaneously full of regenerative possibilities and wrought with challenges.<\/p>\n Equally revealing is the penultimate article of the collection: Oliver Frlji\u0107\u2019s \u201cPost-dramatic Theatre and Political Theatre,\u201d a thought-provoking essay that reflects on the political potential of contemporary post-dramatic theatre by analogy with Alain Badiou\u2019s elaboration of the \u201ccommunist hypothesis.\u201d What is particularly appealing in Frlji\u0107\u2019s thesis is that it moves far beyond simply problematizing Lehmann\u2019s conception of the depoliticization of theatre towards the formulation of a fresh approach to the issue of the political in contemporary theatre.<\/p>\n An essay by Serbian Vlatko Ili\u0107 rounds off the discussion by offering a positive\u2014although hardly unproblematic\u2014answer to the question posed by his essay\u2019s very title \u201cDo we still need theatre?\u201d Ili\u0107 would \u201cinitiate a re-ideologization of the gaze . . . in order to enable the comprehension of the potent experiences of live performance.\u201d The book concludes with Ili\u0107\u2019s prescient call for a post-disciplinary theatrical paradigm whose \u201cradical experiences of the impossible\u201d will be able to interrupt control of contemporary social life by mediatized and market-oriented conjunctions.<\/p>\n An intellectually fascinating, informative, and cleverly structured collection of essays, Dramatic and Post-dramatic: Theatre Ten Years After<\/em> breaks new and fertile ground for research and reflection. One can only wish here for a more thorough mapping of Serbian \u201cpost-dramatic\u201d terrain itself through the inclusion of more evidence on the connection between local theatrical phenomena, production, and experience. This, however, is not so much a lack but rather an invitation for a continuation of this important debate.<\/p>\n
\nFaculty of Dramatic Arts<\/strong><\/p>\n
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