Jürs-Munby, Karen; Carroll, Jerome; Giles, Steven (2013) Postdramatic theatre and the political. International perspectives on contemporary performance. London: Bloomsbury.
Specifically: Jürs-Munby, Karen; Carroll, Jerome; Giles, Steven (2013): ‘Postdramatic Theatre and the Political’ In Karen Jürs-Munby, Jerome Carroll, Steven Giles (Eds.): Postdramatic theatre and the political. International perspectives on contemporary performance. London: Bloomsbury (Methuen drama engage), pp. 1–30.
p1: Lehman, Postdramatic, as contra Post-Modern “contemporary forms of theatre and performance has departed not so much from the ‘modern’ and from ‘dramatic’, that is, they no longer conformed to the idea of mimetically enacting a dramatic conflict in the form of a story (fable) and dialogue spoken by characters in a fictional universe.”
[so Hare is definitely (arguably – see Angel-Perez eg) not PoDram! But that is more to the point of J Alexander’s paper – that life is not postdramatic, so theatre cannot be. Political theatre even more so cannot be PoDram Politics is conflict! – concerns characters, crises, resolutions, etc. Perhaps need to track down some definitions of ‘drama’ dramatic’ etc]
pp2-3: Given the dramatic political circumstances of the first few years of the new century… “Lehmann also reiterated that ‘[u]nderstandable as the desire to ‘thematise’ social and political issues may be [debbie green, Hare etc], we must not forget that the truly social dimension of art is the form, as the young Georg Lukacs observed! He asserted that ‘post-dramatic strategies continue to be seen by many theatre practitioners as more suited to dealing with social ideas (unemployment, violence, social isolation, terrorism, issues of race and gender) than the traditional model of social engaged drama.'”
[OK so, the social dimension of art is its form? is this a Plato thing? or does it refer to the staginess of drama; the managed social encounter between stage and audience. This is the social dimension and the content of the ‘act’ is secondary?
When he goes on to insist that PoDram remains ‘popular’ he seems to be suggesting (as I think JA was pursuing) that the form best suited to reflect/communicate (mimesis?) in the contemporary world is one that reflects the PoDram ‘nature’ of that world – that speak to/from it]
pp3-4 [5?] Jurs-Munby et al again “…in some works there is no play at all, but what [5>] we have is always still theatre.”
p5 Representation is dispensed with. The straight jacket of script, reproduced – which was “only ever…less real and less significant than the event itself.” (Kelleher)
[I think I would have to disagree. A mere event would be neither drama, nor theatre, but spectacle. You cannot get away with that abrogation (as a theorist at least), as the audience will ‘sense-make’, fit the action/dramatic or otherwise, into the orders they see around themselves. This is linked to the ‘political’ democratic training aspect of Greek theatre. It was not, and cannot be, mere event – any more that Hare’s theatre can be mere ‘lecture’ as he terms it in Obedience, Struggle and Revolt.
The world is always out there, and author, director, actor, and audience always bring some of it with them, in the sense-making activity – the ordering – of being human. I gave the Ethnomethodology lecture this morning, can you tell!]
pp5-6: [Lehmann is interesting – seems both Brecht, and inherent in the dramatic’ !! to me]
…revisit this when time allows… in the meantime, consider…
p7: “it remains essential to acknowledge that the truly political dimension of theater [is] in the situation, the relation, the social moment when theatre as such is able to constitute.” Lehmann! [with the help of the audience!!]
[this seems to echo my point above! I seems to be agreeing with Lehman – but I suspect, not by the same route, or the same reason even!?]
jeffgoatcher 