Newly adapted for the Anglophone reader, this is an excellent translation of Hans-Thies Lehmann’s groundbreaking study of the new theatre forms that have developed since the late 1960s, which has become a key reference point in international discussions of contemporary theatre.
In looking at the developments since the late 1960s, Lehmann considers them in relation to dramatic theory and theatre history, as an inventive response to the emergence of new technologies, and as an historical shift from a text-based culture to a new media age of image and sound.
Engaging with theoreticians of 'drama' from Aristotle and Brecht, to Barthes and Schechner, the book analyzes the work of recent experimental theatre practitioners such as Robert Wilson, Tadeusz Kantor, Heiner Müller, the Wooster Group, Needcompany and Societas Raffaello Sanzio.
Illustrated by a wealth of practical examples, and with an introduction by Karen Jürs-Munby providing useful theoretical and artistic contexts for the book, Postdramatic Theatre is an historical survey expertly combined with a unique theoretical approach which guides the reader through this new theatre landscape.
Preface to the English Edition 1. Prologue 2. Drama Drama and Theatre Drama and Dialectic 3. Pre-histories Towards a Prehistory of Postdramatic Theatre A Short Look Back at the Historical Avant-gardes 4. Panorama of Postdramatic Theatre Beyond Dramatic Action: Ceremony, Voices in Space, Landscape Postdramatic Theatrical Signs Examples 5. Performance Theatre and Performance The Present of Performance 6. Aspects: Text - Space - Time - Body - Media Text Space Time Body Media 7. Epilogue 8. Afterword Notes Bibliography Index
Biography
Hans-Thies Lehmann is Professor of Theatre Studies at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His numerous publications include Theater und Mythos (1991) on the constitution of the subject in ancient Greek tragedy, Writing the Political (2002) and, with Patrick Primavesi, Heiner Müller Handbuch (2004).
Karen Jürs-Munby is Senior Lecturer in Drama, Theatre and Performance at the University of Huddersfield.
'This is a provocative, illuminating and stimulating book that will undoubtedly become as essential a text in English theatre scholarship as it already has in continental Europe.' – Marvin Carlson, Theatre Research International
'This groundbreaking study [is] an inventive response to the emergence of new technologies.' - International Theatre Informations
'This is an important book, already elbowing its way into the forefront of English-language critical discourse on theatre...' --TDR
