THE POST-DRAMATIC THEATRE.
Hans-Thies Lehmann Postdramatic Theatre.
“For both theatre and literature are textures which are especially dependent on the release of active energies of imagination, energies that are becoming weaker in a civilization of the primarily passive consumption of images and data” (Lehmann, 2006, 16).
“Theatre does not produce a tangible object which may enter into circulation as a marketable commodity, such as a video, a film, a disk, or even a book” (Lehmann, 2006, 16).
“a unique intersection of aesthetically organised and everyday real life takes place ” (Lehmann, 2006, 17).
“In contrast to other arts, which produce an object and/or are communicated through media, here the aesthetic act itself (the performing) as well as the act of reception (the theatre going) take place as a real doing in the here and now” (Lehmann, 2006, 17).
“Theatre means the collectively spent and used up lifetime in the collectively breathed air of that space in which the performing and the spectating take place. The emission and reception of signs and signals takes place simultaneously. The theatre performance turns the behaviour onstage and in the auditorium into a joint text a, ‘text’ even if there is no spoken dialogue on stage or between actors and audience. Therefore, the adequate description of theatre is bound to the reading of this total text” (Lehmann, 2006, 17).
“Yet in theatre the text is subject to the same laws and dislocations as the visual, audible, gestic, and architectonic theatrical signs. (Lehmann, 2006, 17).
“By alluding to the literary genre of the drama, the title ‘Postdramatic Theatre’ signals the continuing association and exchange between theatre and text. Nevertheless, the discourse of theatre is at the centre of this book and the text therefore is considered only as one element, one layer, or as a ‘material’ of the scenic creation, not as its master. In no way does this involve a prior value judgment. Important texts are still being written, and in the course of this study the often dismissively used term…” (Lehmann, 2006, 17).
“’text theatre’ will turn out to mean a genuine and authentic variant of postdramatic theatre, rather than referring to something that has supposedly been overcome” (Lehmann, 2006, 17).
“…unsatisfactory theoretical analysis of the newly produced scenic discourses (in comparison with the analysis of drama,)” (Lehmann, 2006, 17-18).
“The interpretation that this autonomization of language bears witness to a lack of interest in the human being, (small 4) however, is not a foregone conclusion. Is it not rather a matter of a changed perspective on human subjectivity? What finds articulation here is less intentionality — a characteristic of the subject — than its failure, less conscious will than desire, less the ‘I’ than the ‘subject of the unconscious’. So rather than bemoan the of an already defined image of the human being in the postdramatically organised texts, it is necessary to explore the new possibilities of thinking and representing the individual subject sketched in these texts [Sic.]” (Lehmann, 2006, 18).
“the remark that aesthetic investigations always involve ethicalI, moral, political and legal questions in the widest sense. Art, and even more so theatre which is embedded in society in multiple ways — “ (Lehmann, 2006, 18).
“all aesthetic interrogation is blind if it does not recognise the reflection of social norms of perception and behaviour in the artistic practise of theatre.” (Lehmann, 2006, 19).
“Yet the majority of spectators, who — to put it crudely — expect from the theatre the illustration of classical texts, may well accept the ‘modern’ set but subscribe to a comprehensible fable (story), coherent meaning, cultural self-affirmation and touching theatre feelings” (Lehmann, 2006, 19).
“The new theatre, one hears and reads, is not this and not that and not the other, but there is a lack of categories and words to define or even describe that it is in any positive terms. This study aims to go some way towards correcting this situation and at the same time encourage ways of working in the theatre that expand our preconceptions of what theatre is or meant to be” (Lehmann, 2006, 19).
Works Cited.
Lehmann, H. (ed.) (2006) Postdramatic Drama Hans-Thies Lehmann. USA: Routledge.