ABSTRACT
Postdramatic theatre, a phenomenon identified and theorised by Hans-Thies Lehmann, comes in many forms. A theatre that attempts to go beyond representation has a range of means at its disposal for either calling representation into question or banishing it from the stage altogether. The postdramatic seeks to convey something akin to the contemporary experience of ‘ambiguity, polyvalence and simultaneity’ (Lehmann 1999: 141; 2006: 83).1 As a result, a postdramatic aesthetic articulates a new modality of using signs in the theatre in that the relationship between signifier and signified no longer requires clarification and thus poses an audience a set of questions that the stage refuses to answer. In turn, master signifying systems in the theatre, such as those associated with the actor and speech, give way to an all-encompassing event defined by a thorough-going relativisation of definitive signification, in which the actor is as important as the gestures, the set or the lighting.
