ABSTRACT
In Anglophone theatre and performance studies the term event' has gained wide currency since the 1990s, where the notion of the theatrical event' in particular has provided a way of assessing theatre's engagements with its spectators. White lists holocaustal' events such as the Great Depression, the genocide in and around Nazi Germany, and widespread poverty linked to a growth in world population. The theatrical event, in Sauter's account, is to do with the amusement and pleasure of watching', which has a yet longer provenance. In her influential book Theatre Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception Susan Bennett discusses the specific encounter of the spectator with the theatrical event'. Hotel Medea is an interpretation of the myth of Medea, who marries Jason, is betrayed by him and in an act of revenge murders their children. This really is a theatrical event.
