ABSTRACT

Performative theatre is one of the most important trends of our time. It is emblematic of the work of many European theatrical artists in the early twenty-first century.  

Annamaria Cascetta does not propose a model or a historical overview, but rather strives to identify the salient features of a significant trend in the theatrical research and transformation of our time by analysing some crucial examples from outstanding works, of great international resonance. She draws on work by artists from different generations, all active between the late twentieth century and the first decades of the twenty-first, and in various European countries, performed in a number of European theatres in recent years.  

The aim is to apply a method of analysis in depth, bringing out the technical elements of contemporary "performative theatre" in the field, and above all to highlight the close links between it and the urgent and troubled issues and problems of history and society in the phase of cultural and anthropological transition we are experiencing.

chapter |20 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|30 pages

The human journey

Odyssey by Robert Wilson

chapter 2|29 pages

A journey into mind and brain

Je suis un phénomène to The Valley of Astonishment by Peter Brook

chapter 3|26 pages

Upending tradition

Christ and Aeschylus irrelevant? Romeo Castellucci’s Orestea and Sul concetto di volto nel Figlio di Dio

chapter 4|12 pages

Christ’s legacy

Golgota Picnic by Rodrigo Garcia: starting again from man or drowning in nothingness? *

chapter 5|40 pages

Anna Castoldi and Francesco Marzano: How to live together?

From militarism and authoritarianism to the weapon of joy in Gaudeamus by Lev Dodin

chapter 6|25 pages

A school of democracy for an ever-changing identity

The Blind Poet by Jan Lauwers and Ça ira by Joël Pommerat

chapter 7|16 pages

Migration, artificiality and the city on the axis of time

Bodenprobe Kazachstan and Remote X (Remote Milano) by Rimini Protokoll

chapter 8|18 pages

Oh What a Lovely War by Joan Littlewood

The prophecy of a pioneer artist

chapter 9|15 pages

The body’s dignity regained

MDLSX by Enrico Casagrande, Daniela Nicolò and Silvia Calderoni (Motus) and Bestie di scena by Emma Dante

chapter 10|35 pages

The beautiful and the true

From Orchidee to Vangelo, the salvational itinerary of Pippo Delbono