ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s notion of the post-subjective body, which is closely related to their notion of the Body without Organs (BwO). This notion, originally taken from the texts of Antonin Artaud, was transformed into a creative concept and applied to the performances of Italian cinema and theatre director Carmelo Bene. My intention is to take this one step further and reconsider the notion of the Body without Organs by analysing the performances of Italian theatre director Romeo Castellucci. There is a clear structural analogy between Deleuze and Guattari’s ideas and Castelluci’s performances. Another reason to focus on this relationship is more genealogical: in 1979, Deleuze wrote ‘One Less Manifesto’ where he refers to the performative strategies of Carmelo Bene and defines his notion of minor theatre; Bene’s performative strategies, in their turn, clearly influenced Castellucci’s notion of theatre. The chapter seeks to investigate in what ways Castellucci’s performances question the notions of the organised body, transparent and univocal signification, and self-identical subjectivity. The destruction of these layers creates the new condition of continuous variation and invents new forms of becoming, leading to minority consciousness.
