I]ITRODUCTIOiI

The time seems out ofjoint. Economical disasters, outrageous social

imbalance, growing right wing populism, millons of people forced
into migration, various religious fundamentalisms, and unprecedent-
ed eõólogicat catastrophes to come. But theatre - in the past often
óonsidéred to be the political art per se - is struggling to find its place
in the current events and debates. Unsure ofhow to relate to society
adequately, it often seems to doubt its own political relevance. While
some theatre makers seek answers still in narration-driven mimesis,
others overestimate the reception-changing powers of aesthetics.
The crisis ofrepresentation in democracy has hit the representa-
tion machine of theatre at its core. But at the same time, amidst all
the uncertainty and prevailing old strategies, a social and political
turn in theatre has become veryvigible. Artists who have been engag-
ing in their work for many years rvith the political struggle suddenly
become the focus of attention, whereas others have just recently
shifted their own work towa¡ds social, ecological, and economic is-
sues. So how can theatre today again become a powerful medium of
not only mirroring society but being a part of changing it?

For better or worse theatre has, in its forms and contents, always
been an expression of its time. The Greek polis gathered in the The-
atre ofDionysus to debate its values in an architectural setting that
anticipated many of today's parliaments. During the Baroque pe-
riod the monarch was the focal point of the performance whilst the
choreography on stage was in line with the social choreography of
the absolutist society. And it was not by chance that the awakening
of the European bourgeoisie was accompanied by the emergence of
the bourgeois theatre as an aesthetic but also cultural-political and
institutional phenomenon.
The avant-gardes of the twentieth cenhrry went more than one
step further when they considered theatre as a tool to challenge or even
change society. The quotation borrowed as the title of this book -
'Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to
rþpg itl - is attributed .iit ãi to ¡tt*i, lvtuiut o"rLi, or riieðiìf ttre
 latter wishing for theatre to be a moral institution of class struggle difficult situation of performance in Ivory Coast, Congo, and Rwan-
where the distinction between spectator and actor would dissolve. In da. In her very last interview, Judith Malina - legendary head and
contrast, Antonin Artaud imagined the dissolution of this border as soul of the Living Theatre -together with Annie Dorsen runs the
subversive intoxication; and the Futurists forced the audiences of their gamut over decades of a¡tistic and political engagement, fiercely and
serate futuriste with d¡astic means into what we today would call par- ever-optimistically connecting the past with the present. Two essays
ticipation. Even if such desires often remained more radical on paper then directly link political activism with theatre: Margarita Tsomou
than in practice, the most consequential theatre makers always under- and Vassilis S. Tsianos analyse the theatrical and performative forms
stood theatre as a medium in which social and political practices could that can be found in the recent anti-austerity movements in Athens,
be tried out; in which societies in all thei¡ while JohnJordon gives a very personal account ofhis beliefand
- actual or imagined - va-
rieties a¡e performed, expanded, verified, or even re-invented. disappointment in theatre as a political tool.

_ _Joday - after a strong period of mostly narrative-theatre in_t[g llZos /

The second part ofthe book consists ofr5 shorter essays by authors
and r98os, followed by post-dramatic formsëiñphásising the me- ) coming from theatre as well as political studies, philosophy, or vi-
itylf
bf.focusing on its form since the 199os thêià is a s'iionq
- sual arts. This section plays with the idea of an inventory of artistic
{ium
I
I
desire
.-.
-.-..
for a theatre that not only gets a grip on pressing
f political
o r _______ !
strategies in progress and looks in depth and one by one at current
l-=Ssyes but also becomes a political space, a public sphere, in itself., practices, covering a wide geographical as well as aesthetic range
There is no common glgqlqr4 to folJo¡'. Wg are grqÆIre{ e&ry¡4g' of sometimes even contradictory approaches. Many of them are
;"ì, -
out artists as well as the audiences. Bqt there are inseparable from the concrete political and social contexts the artists
"f-fi"ã;g
enough bits andpigçes (andsometimes even big chunk$ of imples- are involved in: Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula not
sive artistic work-an-d political engagement that allow us to imagine only creates pieces with mÍmy references to the politics in his coun-
or even feel the powerful potential of engaged theatre again. Nor try but also to the infrastructure around them. The Freedom Theatre
Just a Mirror takes a look at how theatre today can unfold its fun- in the Palestinian refugee camp ofJenin highlights strong gestures
damental agonistic vigour in very different geographical, political, of self-empowerment being practised over many years, while the
and artistic contexts. A potential that cannot be immediately inte- straightforward verbatim performances of Teater.doc aim to spread
grated into the system nor bound to merely conceal social dysfunc- information that is supressed by Russian mainstream media. Árpád
tions and sore spots, but that is opening spheres ofnegotiation and Schilling's Kretakör company took the political crisis in Hungary
debate in which contradictions are not only kept alive but above all as a call to use thei¡ own artistic know-how for direct social engage-
can be shaped and articulated. ment, though in a very different way to Akira Takayama, who deals
almost anthropologically with the neglected traumas of post-Fuku-
The book opens with an introductory text outlining the situation of shima Japan. The Columbian Mapa Teatro have, for more than 3o
possible and existing political theatre today as a public sphere of years, been poetically mixing facts with fiction in their laboratory
social experimentation, followed by essays mapping the terrain from for social imagination in the middle of Bogotá.
different topical angles. While Carol Martin takes a look at how 'the Who is representing whom in which way and with what right?
real'is presented and represented in a wide spectrum ofverbatim These questions - addressed to the political systems as well as at
and documentary theatre, Jeroen Peeters traces the symptoms of a theake itself - are at the centre of the work made by many of the art-
new ecological thinking in current performances. Julian Boal revis- ists introduced in this book. For example, Swiss Theater Hora's actors
its the Theatre of the Opressed that his father created and practised with cognitive disabilties answer them in a very different way to Milo
in Latin America in the r96os and beyond, and shows where and Rau's re-staging of three recent Russian trials against art and artists.
how his approaches are still valuable today. A conversation between The game of representation is pushed even further when three Slove-
Monika Gintersdorfer and Hervé Kimenyi, Lloyd Nyikadzino, Michael nia¡r artists rename themselves after the powerfi¡l nationalist politician
Sengazi, and Franck Edmond Yao offers an insight into the often JanezJanð4 plaimg a complex game with identity and authorship.
 ESSAYS &
Closer to straightforward activism is the Argentinian group CONVERSATIONS
Etcétera... , subverting real politics by confronting terrorism with their
own concept of errorism. St. Petersburg collective Chto Delat? con-
-
sisting of theatre a¡d film makers, visual artists, and philosophers
-
brings new life to the old Brechtian Learning Pla¡ and the Israeli
Public Movement uses choreography as a means to cut deep into the
tissue ofpolitical representation, often directly intervening in the
public sphere.
Expanding the stage far into the realm of news and social me-
dia by provoking vehement discussions can still be a powerful
technique - as shown by Croatian theatre director Oliver Frljió, who
likes to put not just his finger but his whole hand into the wounds
of society. Or by the Teater NO99, who by (almost) founding their
own party in the wake of Estonian general elections fuelled debates
not only in the cultural sections of the newspapers, but echoed an
earlier artistic project that also took the form of a political party:
the legendary Chance zooo of the late German artist Christoph
Schlingensief.

Not Just a Mi¡'roris the first part of the publication series Performing
Urgency, commissioned by European theatre network House on Fire
which will continue half-yearly. Performing Urgency focuses on the
relationship between theatre and politics, and asks: How can theatre
engage in contemporary social and political issues without compro-
mising art or politics? What kind of knowledge or impact can art
generâte that activism and theory alone cannot? What are the pro-
cesses and methodologies of political theatre today? It aims at a
broader discussion ofthe conditions, aesthetics, concepts, and top-
ics of contemporary performing arts.

This book is dedicated to Judith Malina and Christoph Schlingensief,

the two late protagonists of Nof Jast a Miror. Their presence as art-
ists and as human beings can be felt still so strongly, as they remain
core figures ofthe political theatre scene oftoday.

Florian Malzacher

af
FLORIAN IIIALZACHER

NfI ÍIRGANUM
Some people are yelling at each other with red faces, others try to

TfI FflLLfIW stay calm whilst convincing bystanders of the threat of foreigners
taking over their country. How Austria stands alone against the rest
of the world. An old man almost cries while shaking a newspaper
that repeats in large letters the same discussion on its front page.
Some Korean tourists watch the spectqgle withgut a clug,
r5 years ago, when German theatre maker Christoph Schlin-
gensief set up his now legendary container-installation Bitte liebt
Osterreich.l(Please Love Austria!, zooo) right in the centre of Vienna,
Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel had just made his devil's pact with
the right wing demagogue Jörg Haider, and the other EU-countries
were discussing sanctions against the fellow member state. Austria
debated passionately about immigration policy, as well as about the
limits of art. And Europe watched qith some bewilderment.
Under the dominating banner 'Ausländer raus' ('Foreigners
out!') Schlingensief staged a Big Brother-type game show with asy-
lum seekers. The containers housed a group of immigrants who
could be watched via CCTV on the internet, and the Austrian
population was invited to vote them out of the country one by one.

PflSSIBILITIES The scandal was enormous: conservatives felt insulted by the seem-
ing parody of their argumentation, and the left was disgruntled by
the supposedly cynical display.

flF PÍILITICAL If political theatre can only exist in a context in which the world is
believed to be changeable, in which theatre itself wants to be part of
that change, and where there is an audience that is willing to ac-
THEATRE tively engage in the exploration of what that change should be - then
it becomes clear why it is so difficult to thlnk of such a theatre today

TflDAY in a society paralysed by the symptoms of post-political ideologies

that tend to disgui¡9 ttrgg-rsgly_e9 as þõiita;t¡ðpiagmatism, þ:Fy
mose- resignation, or cheerfrrl complacency. Where the credo of 'There
''ny¡ì
is no alternative' (TINA) is considered common sense and the belief
in the possibility or even desirability of political imagination is fading,
theatre is hit at its core. All its political potential seems disabled.
It was a different time in the r97os and r98os when political
theatre in Europe actually was (in different ways on either side of
 the WaIl) a relevant factor in many public debates. With ideologies counterparts in the emerging conceptual dance movement, theatre
still going strong and the division between east and west clear cut, makers brought to the stage highly self-aware works, continually
theatre engaged in everyday politics by representing all the world's questioning themselves as products of ideologies, politics, times,
miseries - from the Vietnam War or Apartheid in South Africa to fashions, and circumstances. Strongly inspired by de-constructivist
the small daily adversities of a local working class family. Either in and poststructuralist theory they offered a new complexþ of theatre
new drama or modernised classics, radical interpretations of the text îignifiers revolting against the hegemony of the text, undermining
were a key feahire of a Regietheater (director's theatre) which, despite the linearity and causality of drama, and experimenting with all
its many ner,¡/ approaches, stayed mostly in the realm of the mi- possibilities of spectatorship and participation. Instead of represent-
metic. In the east it was a game with hidden messages, in the west ing a (fake) situation in order to critique it*þ alm was to create a
open provocations were an important part of the repertoire, and (real) situation in the co-presence ofthe audience, focusing on the
audiences slamming doors while leaving was a rule rather than an here and now of the experience, as German theatre scholar Hans-
exception. Thies Lehmann describes in Post-dramatic Theatre $g99):
No wonder that large parts of the.public still consider '.his
-þeriod
almost synonymous with 'political the.atre' itself. Ðut-even In contrast to other arts, which produce an object and/or are
though the theatre during this period was often able to propose an communicated through media, here the aesthetic act itself (the
understanding ofthe structural reasons behind the presented evils, performing) as well as the act of reception (the theatre going)
it couldn't avoid the'dilémma that in the end its representations rvere take place as a real doing in the here and now. [...] Th. emission
just another repetition of the very miseries it \Manted to fight. Brecht and reception of signs and signals take place simultaneously.
called this phenomenon'Menschenfresserdramatik' ('cannibal's
dramatic art'), which he described in the early r93os in his notes on This focus on the medium and the form of theatre itseH, the distrust
Die dialektische Dramatik: 'The physical exploitation of the poor is in narrative content and psychological causality and the interest in
followed by a psychological one' when the pitied character is sup- creating individual experiences in which each audience member had
posed to produce feelings ofsadness, guilt or even anger in a spec- to find her/his own path of interpretation, also had an impact on the
tator, who most likely - at least structurally - is part of keeping concept ofthe political potential oftheatre. The political effect of
the very system of exploitation alive. In the end they continued what theatre was now primarily looked for in 'the how' of its representa-
Brecht had already analysed in his S/¿orf Organum for the Theatre tion, not in its concrete political contents. Philosophers like Jacques
(1949): 'The theatre we know shows the structure of society (repre- Rancière offered a broader theoretical base for rethinking the medium
sented on the stage) as incapable ofbeing influenced by society (in of theatre and the notion of performativity by analysing The Politics $
the auditorium).'Not only the play onstage but the whole theatrical of Aesthetics (zooo) and higtrlighting The Emancipated Spectator (zoo7).
set up (not to speak of the hierarchies within the institution itself) It was an important moment of empowering spectators as co-
- -fì;.)
t"' merely reproduced the system they wanted to criticise. authors of their own but it had side effect: the
In the r98os and particularly into the t99os new forms of theatre audience was seen less as a collective but rather as a
emerged with the aim not just to reform the predominant models ofindividuals. Post-dramatic theatre and conceptual dance once
-
but to revolutionise them from outside the established theatre insti- agãiñ-T-sonãfing the changes in society - formed a spectator who,
\ì tutions and traditions. Post-dramatic theatre, devised theatre, per- whilst emancipated from the forced-upon imagination of the director,
-+.
formance theatre - there are many labels for this genre which is still has become akin to the ideal neoliberal subject that seeks its individu-
difficult to clearly define due to its variety of forms and its overlaps alism in active consumption.
with other artistic disciplines. At the centre of the critique of dra- The consequent reaction ofpost-dramatic theatre and concep-
matic theatre stood its use of however estranged mimetic rçpresen- tual dance to the often simplistic or moralistic use of notions like
tation, which was seen as discredited and was subsequently con- truth, reality, or even politics with a complex game of layers, ambi-
fronted with the notion of presence. In close exchange with their guities and re-questioning enabled new perspectives and possibilities
that also reached far into the field of dramatic theatre. But building
on the thoughts of philosophers who derived their theoretical con-
cepts from their own political experiences and engagements (Michel When your trousers are literally glued to your theatre seat in a Se-
Foucault fighting for human rights in prisons with the Groupe rata Futurista (evenings organised by the Italian Futurists from rgro
d'information sur les prisons, Alain Badiou being engaged in migra- on, mixing performance, painting, music, and often practical jokes),
tion and asylum policies in the Organization politique, Jacques this kind of participation might not seem particularly desirable. But
even though participation
Rancière as a short term member in a Maoist group, to name but a - in art and in politics - is not always
few), the new generations ofthinkers, artists, and curators too often pleasant, the beliefthat one can take part in shaping society is a
forgot to bind their even further abstracted thinking back to their necessity for democracy. On the other hand the putative participa-
own contemporâry, concrete realities. As a result we got too used to tion that we are permanently confronted with in an all-inclusive
calling philosophical theories and performances 'political', even if capitalist system (that - unlike Marx's prediction
- has so far always
they are only very distantly based on thoughts that themselves were been able to absorb its internal contradictions by affirmation) has
already abstracted from the concrete political impulses that sparked rendered the term almost useless: a pacifier which perversely del-
them. A homeopathic, second-hand idea of political philosophy and egates the responsibility for what is happening to citizens that can-
art has become a main line of contemporary cultural discourse. -nòt influence it, and thus enables the system to continue more or
It is a thin division between the necessary awareness that eve- less undisturbed in its task to maintain itself. Rare elections, basic
rything is contingent and simple laziness. Complexity can become an social care, some small measures against climate change and human
excuse for intellectual and political relativism. The writings of Rancière rights violations here and there, and our conscience is satisfied.
lPhilosopher
in particular have been used as key arguments from very different Slavoj ZiZek calls this procedure icultural capitalism.
sides - his scepticism towards any clear political statement in a¡t and So-called participatory theatre all too often merely mimics such
his valorising of the power of ambiguity and rupture as the true virfues placebo-involvement; offering not only fake, stipulated choices but
of art, helped pave the way for wide definitions of the political. In the also forcing the audience to engage in this transparent set-up. This
end, if everything is political, nothing is political anymore. is the real 'nightmare of participation' (to use a term by Markus
Mießen): not being forced into participation but being forced into a
So where are we today? How can theatre still create spheres where fake participation. A permanent involvement (which basically means
alternatives can be collectively imagined, tried out, discussed, con- we are active only in the sense that we are consumers) that we can't
fronted? How can theatre create alternative models of how we might escape and which merely prevents us from participating in the pow-
Iive togethe¡ or what kind of society or world we want? A look at ers that be. Passivity disguised as activity. The audiences ofthe Se-
the contemporary performing arts scene shows a strong desire for rata Futurista understood that: for them the provocation that came
a thêàtre that not only focuses on pressirrg pglitical iisues, but also from the stage - a participation forced upon them was an invita-
-
becomes a political space - a public sphere - in itself. There is no tion for a real fight. And many went for it.
common organum to follow. We are in a period of trying out, of A contemporary political theatre has to put itself right in the
finding out - artists as well as the audiences. But there are enough middie of this dilemma: not only avoiding false participation but at
bits and pieces (and sometimes even big chunks) of artistic work the same time reclaiming the idea of participation as such. Ap-a¡_-
and political engagement that allow us to imagine the potential of ligrnation that thrives - in politics and art - on its iadical potential.
engaged theatre again. A theatre that keeps the necessary self-re- A participation that doesn't merely replace one mode of tutelage
flexivity ofthe last decades but avoids the traps ofpure self-refer- with another. Such an involvement does not necessarily have to
entiality. That understands contingency not as merely arbitrary and happen with the consensus of the people involved. It can also aim
an excuse for relativism but as a call for active engagement to at direct confrontation, and can experiment with miscommunication
counter its consequences. or even abuse.
 Since, in short, participatory art is - taking the definition from Dutch theatre director Lotte van den Berg's ongoing project
Claire Bishop's Artificial Hells (zotz) - an art 'in which people con- (since zor4) Building Conyersation aims at even further reducing
stitute the central artistic medium and material, in the manner of theatre to its core. For her, theatre is first and foremost a place of
theatre and performance', it can constitute a whole range of possible communication, of meeting each other, a sphere where conflicts can
human relationships. Artist Pablo Helguera differentiates in Educa- be shown and experienced. An agreement to communicate by obey-
tion for Socially Engaged Art (zou) between nonvoluntary (with no ing often very different rules. And Building Conyersation is indeed
negotiation or agreement involved), toluntary (with a clear agree- just this: talking with each other. Inspired by communication tech-
ment or even contract) and intoluntary participation - the nego- niques from all over the world, models and frames for dialogues are
tiations in the latter being rather subtle, not direct, a play ofhidden developed. There are no actors, no audience. Just the invitation to
agendas in which 'deceit and seduction play a central role.' These participate in a conversation without words, inspired by Inuit as-
categories of participation can shift and mix, of course. Maintaining semblies, or alternating between reflection, retreat, and dialogue,
a lack of clarity around them can be a useful artistic tool, as many following a method invented byJesuits. Another conversation hap-
of the early works of Christoph Schlingensief show. It was not only pens completely without a moderator, topic, or goal - a principle
in Bine liebtÕsterreichlthat the status of the participants remained developed by quantum physicist David Bohm, exploring the patterns
dubious, since it was never officially resolved whether they were of our collective thinking. ts directly influenced
real asylum seekers or actors and if they fully understood the game by Belgium political Chantal Mouffe her concept of z-l ú¡iwr(ír'(
being played. A comparable ambivalence can be found in his work 'agonistic pluralism ', and one of the to her theory. tt.,.t'i..1ÅbfI
with handicapped actors, for which Schlingensief was regularly
accused of abuse. A sphere of agonistic pluralism is also created by one of the most
In a different way such ambiguities are also a key strategy of the politically radical participatory art projects in the recent years. The
Israeli company Public Movement. Interested in the rituals and cho- New World Summit(zon onwards), invented and organised by Dutch

reographies of politics, they play a complex game with participation artistJonas Staal, opens up alternative political spaces in the form
and representation, for example when trying to cast leftist activists of quasi-parliamentarian conventions of representatives of organisa-
as well as neo-Nazis and the German police for a re-enactment of the tions that are excluded from the democratic discourse by being
Berhn Fírst of MqyRiots (zoro). In the end all three groups withdrew categorised as terrorists. These summits offer intense and touching
and the project had to be realised in a different way. Similarly, their moments where voices can be hea¡d that are elsewhere silenced, and
attempt in zorr failed to convince a right-wing fraternity in the Aus- where a radical idea of democracy appears at the horizon. However
trian city ofGraz to publicly perform one oftheir secrete celebrations. they also produce moments of a strong sense of unease, disagree-
The line Public Movement walk might often be too thin, but the real ment, or even anger since these organisations are obviously not
political and artistic project is in many cases already happening dur- chosen by criteria of political correctness. Some might appear eas-
ing the preparation of such works, for example when extreme po- ier for the audience to identify with - for example the Kurdish
litical adversaries meet and attempt in awkward conversations to find women's movement - whereas others' causes might be seem unac-
some coÍrmon ground for direct confrontation. ceptable, for example when it comes to nationalism, violence, patri-
archy, and hierarchies in many struggles for independence. The New
Real participation implies giving up responsibility and power. Brecht's World Summif welcomes very different organisations; there is no
'Lehrstücke' ('Teaching Plays') were to be performed by the audience advice given on how to judge or relate to them. The only clarity
itsell the working class. Brazilian theatre maker Augusto Boal not comes in the critique of Western democracies which base their ex-
only followed this idea inhis Theatre of the Oppressed but even istence on undemocratic, secretive, and often - even by their own
handed over the responsibility for how the performance developed standards - illegal ways of excluding what doesn't fit in their own
to the 'spect-actors' (spectators that during the performance turned scheme. As Claire Bishop pointed out in her essay 'Antagonism and

into actors). Relational Aesthetics' (zoo4): participation should create a sense of

'unease and discomfort rather than belonginCl Trgtllflg all involved Rimini Protokoll have over the years developed a very specific
as'subject[s] of independent though!' the-'gssãn.tiat t *.-q@é
]s
dramaturgy of care, suiting the demands of their performers as well
as the artistic aims of the performance.

It is not by chance that Staal often chooses to hold the Ner¿ However, the rapid changes around the globe have also high-
World Summill in theatres spaces in which all that happens is real lighted the limits of these approaches where the respect for 'the
-
and not real, is simultaneously concrete and abstract, and in which other' has often turned into either its fetishisation or into the self-
the difference between presence and representation is always at centredness of believing one's own living room to be the world.
stake. Here things can be shown and said that don't find a form Theatre makers like Monika Gintersdorfer and Knut Klaßen as a
elsewhere, and where radical imagination is, in rare moments, still consequence search for new ways ofhanding over the stage to their
is possible. African collaborators by permanently redefining the own role as
directors. The concept of'chefferie' not only gave the title to one of
their works, but also serves as a metaphor of how to work together
as it describes a political and administrative model of the meeting
The question ofparticipation is necessarily linked to the question of many chiefs of equal status that was practised before the coloni-
ofrepresentation. Everyone participating in theatre - as an actor, zation ofsub-Saha¡an Africa and continues to exist today in parallel
is also automatically understood with official government institutions.
performe¡ spect-actor or audience -
as representing a larger community distinguished by colour, sex, By contrast, the Swiss Theater Hora - one of the best known
class, profession, and so on. Therefore, the questions that currently companies of actors with cognitive disabilities - seems at first glance
who is being represented in which way by to still offer their directors rather classical authorial positions. How-
haunt all democracies -
whom and with what right? - are mirrored in theatre: Can a bour- ever on second view it becomes clear that the resistance of the
geois actor represent a refugee? Can the west represent the global performers, their own strong and often unpredictable personalities,
south? Can a man represent a woman? Is the representation of co- permanently undermine this working model. As guest director, the
lonial clichés de-masking or just a repetition of a degrading insult? French choreographerJérôme Bel made the ambivalence in Disabled
The problem addressed by recent discussions around 'black-face' Theater (zon) very clear. On one hand the strict orders he gave were
and similar issues go much deeper than questioning the right and announced during the performance on stage and highlighted the
ability of a white actor to play a character of colour. These chal- hierarchy of the production. On the other, the performers fulfrlled
lenges are politically and artistically complex. They will certainly their tasks in whichever way they wanted (and sometimes not at
outlast short term debates about political correctness and occupy all). As Bel has pointed out, it is not the performers who are disabled
theatre for a long time as they resonate with fundamental arguments but the audience who feel uneasy looking at them.
about the necessity, effectiveness, and rightfulness of representation In the end it is in theatre as it is in society: only attempts at
within democracy in general. pluralism will work. Groups of people that have been largely unrep-
Post-dramatic theatre in the r99os and early zooos sought solu- resented (or represented only by others) have to enter the stages of
tions to this problem in different ways. Directors like René Pollesch our theatres. And not only the stages but also the positions of thea-
and collectives like Gob Squad or She She?op rejected the tre makers and audiences. If theatre really is a sphere in which social
"ttog"tt.. practices can be tried out or invented on a small scale, then this is
of talking about others by subjectively focusing orr th,e*i¡-.o-w5t- spe
õific, smallbut influential social environment of a glob-aljsed'grbqn' one of the most urgent tasks at hand.
white, creative, and semi-precarious new middle c-14!s. Others turned
towards more documentary-oriented forms and opened the stage
for the self-representation of 'experts of the everyday' as the direc-
tor-trio of Rimini Protokoll famously calls their performers. Working As much as theatre can be a space of collective or collaborative im-
almost exclusively with 'real people' - meaning non-actors - agination, it has also always been a medium for showing conflicts and

¡ñF
oppositions between ideas, powers, nations, generations, couples, or outside. In front of an audience that emotionally was just as involved
even within the psyche of a single character. Different forms of real- in the piece as the performers, the independent jury in the end de-
ism have sharpened this aspect oftheatre by focusing on the internal cided - by the smallest possible margin - that art was innoòeni
-
contradictions of society. Brecht's dialectical theatre looked at the As Mouffe suggests, public space is 'the battleground' for the
different aspects ofconcrete struggles to enable the audience to un- agonistic struggle between opposing hegemonic projects. On a small
derstand how it was created by the system they lived in instead of scale theatre can create such spheres of open exchange, even in
simply identifuing with one position. Following Ma¡x, Brecht's thea- societies where free speech is scarce or in western democracies
tre was driven by the belief that when the class struggle would fi- where the space between consensus and antagonism is becoming
nally be won, a harmonious communist society would be created. increasingly narrow. Art - using a differentiation by art theorist
Later philosophers like Jürgen Habermas and Rowles -tn Miwon Kwon - not in but aspublic space might be one of the most
very different ways - to save of a con_se4pgr ggciety, believ- important things theatre can offer. This public space is not limited
ing that would encourage humankind to overcome its to the physical and material space of the performance. As much as
individual interests. But we are not only rational beings; emotion will the trials initiated by Milo Rau were one-time events with a quite
always play a role, as Chantal Mouffe stresses in The Democratic limited audience, they extended their stage far into the realm of
Paradox(zooo): 'While we desire an end to conflict, if we want people news and other media, where discussions about politics as well as
to be free we must always allow for the possibility that conflict may art continued.
appeff and to provide an arena where differences can be confronted.' While the once popular critical tooì of mediated scandals - an
Mouffe's concept of 'agonistic pluralism' therefore aims for essential feature of political art, especially in the second half of the
democracy to be an arena in which we can act out our differences twentieth century - seems to have become toothless due to its
as adversaries without having to reconcile them. At a time in which predictability, at moments it still manages to break the routine.
the once frowned upon dictum 'Who is not with us, is against us' is Croatian director Oliver Frljió is one such protagonist of a neo-
having a renaissance at all sides of the political spectrum, we need scandalist approach, and regularly creates heated debates in Croatia,
plaful (but serious) agonism where contradictions are not only kept Serbia, or Slovenia where he routinely pokes his finger in the wounds
alive, but above all can be freely articulated. Only through this can of post-Yugoslavian identity crises. This method does not work
we prevent an antagonism that ends all negotiation. It is not by everywhere; in Germany for example Frljió's work is considered
chance that Mouffe's concept draws its name from theatre, from controversial but not overtly emotionally upsetting. Scandals de-
'agon', the game, the competition of arguments in Greek tragedy. velop their potential where the lines of demarcation within a soci-
ety need to be made visible and/or where there is a necessity to flnd
While some of the works of Swiss theatre director Milo Rau rely on allies by concentrating one's own troops.
very well crafted shock and awe realism, his staging of political tri- Manipulating mass media with the aim of disseminating a mes-
als appear to be textbook examples of an agonistic theatre. Tlre sage as widely as possible is the domain of the US-American group
Moscow Trials(zo4) presented a theatre setup in which three trau- Yes Men. Their strategy is first to make it into the news headlines
matic legal cases against Russian artists and curators were brought with a false but disarming announcement, and then make the news
again in front of a judge, but this time in the realm of art. Protagonists again by uncovering the prank. Most famously, ín zoo4 they man-
of the actual trials as well as people with close links to them were aged to appear on the BBC news by impersonating a Dow Chemical
confronted with each other in an artificial but simultaneously spokesman on the twentieth anniversary of the Bhopal catastrophe.
highly realistic situation. Curators, artists, and critics were fighting The false representative (performed by Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum)
for artistic freedom on one side, conservative TV moderators, or- announced that his company would finally take full responsibility
thodox activists, and priests on the other. For three days the Sakharov foi the disaster and compensate their thousands of victims. The
Centre in Moscow became an agonistic space, in which radically läier disclosut. olüìi real identity fuelled public debate about the
different opinions were exchanged in a way that was not possible scandal worldwide.

¡ñrt
 Also for the Berlin-based Zentrum für politische Schönheit of UK riot cops who, unusuall¡ could not hold their line. When the
(Centre for Political Beauty) the real battlefield is the newspaper video footage of the event was examined, it turned out that beneath
headlines, as well as the TV news, Facebook and Twitter. In zotz their visors the cops were laughing too much to concentrate.' From
they offered a rewa¡d of z5,ooo Euro for any information that would agit prop to therapeutic theatre, performance as a 'useful art' has
lead to a conviction of one of the owners of the weapon producer been playing an important role in political or social struggles.
Krauss-Maffei Wegmann. Since the arms business itself was not Less explicit are the many theatrical moments of movements
amerceable the group searched for any other possible offence. The like Occupy, such as the famous 'human mike', which demands from
real denouncement however was a series of posters and a website everybody present the repetition ofthoughts and arguments that
with the narnes of the company or,¡/ners in the manner of a wild west one might not agree with before being able to react. Everybody is
warrant. This artistically productive but ethically challenging am- present in this act of individual and at the same time collective
bivalence was pushed even further when Zentrum für politische speaking. The assemblies themselves - the heart of the Occupy
Schönheit stole the memorial crosses for those who had died at the movement - are also performative in nature. Their political imagi-
Berlin V/aIl in order to bring them - allegedly - to the outer borders nation is always also physical, and always performed, as philosopher
of the EU, and thus creating a link to the victims of the borders of Judith Butler described in her speech at Occupy Wall Street (zorr):
today. In their most recent and so far most controversial action, Die
Toten Kommen (The Dead Arrive),Zentrum für politische Schönheit It matters that as bodies we arrive together in public, that we
salvaged the corpse ofa drowned 34-year-old Syrian refugee from a¡e assembling in public; we are coming together as bodies in
a cold store at the EU border in Sicily and buried her in a Berlin alliance in the street and in the square. As bodies we suffer, we
graveyard. require shelter and food, and as bodies we require one another
The social turn in the arts brings to the fore the very questions and desire one another. So this is a politics of the public body,
that accompany all socially motivated initiatives: To what degree the requirements of the body, its movement and voice. [...] We
are the people involved self-determined? How long does a commit- sit and stand and move and speak, as we can, as the popular
ment have to last? Who is profiting most? Is it sustainable? It soon will, the one that electoral democracy has forgotten and aban-
becomes clear that such questions don't always have the same an- doned. But we are here, and remain here, enacting the phrase,
swers when considered from the perspective of a¡t, or from activism, 'we the people.'
or even from that of social work.
But despite all overlaps, the relation between art and activism remains
a complex one. Just as artists reject the notion of giving up complex-
ity and ambiguity, activists are likewise alienated by the traditional
It is not just theatre makers who are inspired by the numerous po- role ofartists as especially gifted creators or even lone authors - and
litical movements in recent years and try to bring some of this even more by the market or the institutions they are usually part of.
momentum into their art but vice versa: performance, performative At the core ofactivism stands the concept ofdirect action: an
actions, and theatre have long been part ofthe creative repertoire action with the very concrete goal of pointing out a problem, show-
of activism. Boal's forum and invisible theatre remained an inspira- ing an alternative or even a possible solution. The 'direct' points at
tion for those bringing performances to the streets, and distantly the idea of a non-mediated action - in short, the time for talking
inspired initiatives like the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army and negotiating is over, or at least suspended. Direct action is the
in London as a strategy to de-escalate confrontation with the police. opposite of hesitation and ambivalence. Reflection - to a degree
As one of their founders, John Jordan, writes in Truth is Concrete
- is posþoned. In this regard, direct action might feel like the mo-
(zor4): 'Armed with mockery and love and using tactics of confusion ment in which activism is farthest apart from art.
rather than confrontation, some notable Clown Army actions were On the other hand there is also a moment when a performance
when a 7o strong gaggle of clowns walked straight through a line gains momentum and there is a point of no return. Where it is all
 Tþ; ¿ .l
about the here and now. In this regard, direct action might feel like /'1,t,^ I c.?, )
the moment when art is closest to activism. Many radical moments
d- d f,t
of live art might very well be considered direct actions.
In any case, direct actions are usually not spontaneous; they
are often meticulously prepared, mapped out and staged. They are
planned like a military action, or like a piece of performance art.
The Russian activists of Pussy Riot, to take a famous example, did
not just march into the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and sponta-
neously decide what to do. They chose the setting carefrrlly, rehearsed
text and movements.
The inflatables invented by the collective Tools for Action serve
\
as a means to resolve tense and potentially violent moments or, in
l
j case this fails, as shields against water cannons. At the same time,
I they are eye-catching for the media covering the demonstration. But
')
most of all, they tend to create performative, often theatrical situa-
tions: at a demonstration in Spain a giant inflatable cube was tossed
towards the police, and at first the highly armed squad of zo riot
cops backed awa¡ then tossed it back. The cube moved back and
forth a couple of times before the police frnally managed to get rid
of the thing.

Eliminating the difference between presentation and representation

might have been, as art theorist Boris Groys claims, the goal of much
radical art of the twentieth century and still be a dream of some
activist and artists. But politically-engaged theatre offers the more
complex and necessary possibility that whilst eradicating difference rJ
¡-rJ"ì ¡
it also analyses it at the same time. It does not create an artificial
outside of pure criticality and neither does it have to lure in apo-
litical identification. Theatre is the space where things are real and
not real at the same time. Where we can observe ourselves from the
outside whilst also being part of the performance. It is a paradox
that creates situations and practices that are symbolic and actual at
the same time.
After all, as ZiZek pointed out in his speech at Occupy Wall Street:
today it is actually easier to imagine the end of the world (as done
in so many Hollywood blockbusters) than the end of capitalism. At
a time and in a system where we have even lost, as ZiZek suggests,
'the language to articulate our nonfreedom', radical imagination
reminds us that there is still the possibility to act at all.
CAROL iIARTIN

HISTÍIRY AND PÍILITICS '...What happens is of lixle significance compared with the stories
we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only
flN STAGE stories of events afect us.'
Rabfü Alameddine, The Hakawati

The question - what is political theatre today? - assumes that

political theatre extends beyond staging the stories of underrep-
resented communities, performing a social good such as work
with the ageing, the incarcerated, the disabled, or arguing for
social justice. Political theatre today is deeply engaged with the
representation and analysis of real events in ways we have
never quite seen before. Constructed from interview-based verba-
tim and archive-derived documentary sources (letters, diaries, in-
terviews, records, photographs, films, YouTube, and Facebook) the
real is often presented in the context ofuncertainty about actually
knowing anything in a highly manipulated digital world. Toda¡
theatre's political contribution is to both represent events for further
examination and explore the shifts in paradigm, perspective, and
subject matter that digital reality has wrought. The overlap and
interplay between 'theatre' and 'reality', the blurred boundary be-
tween the simulated and the 'real'world, is one of the most compel-
ling and productive areas of theatrical activity to emerge in the
twentieth century and continue in the twenty-first.
Theatre of the real has many names: documentary theatre,
verbatim theatre, îeâlify-based theairel theaäèläi:l""t, theatrè öf
witné'$; rribunal investigative theatre, nonfiction theatre,
THE THEATRE restored village performances, war and battle re-enactments, and
autobiographical and of terms indi-
cates a range of methods and outcomes that may overlap and cross-
flF THE fertilise. Any combination of theatre created from the verbatim use
oftranscripts, trials, and interviews, re-enacting the experiences of
witnesses, historic events, and places, biographical and autobio-
REAL graphical accounts might be employed. In all of these methods, there
is the desire to produce what Roland Ba¡thes calls the 'reality effect',
ßr\n"i t/V /

an effe ct th at c onfer s the--s tals,s o l lç gi!-i+"1gl il-t}g_ gJygfL fr6Âe."-t¡

.
_lp
because what is represented is thought to have really happened or e{ (s^
AA
has a relationship with what is understood to be real. Theatre about More recently there have been many productions that portray
real events beckons its spectators to wrestle, like Jacob wrestled with individuals as representatives of entire systems of thought. The
the angel, with their own moment. British play My Name Is Rachel Corrie (zoo5) co-edited by Alan Rick-
The influence of theatre of the real on the entire political thea- man and Katharine Viner, for example, challenges the way theatre
tre landscape cannot be underestimated. E,arly in the twentieth constructs history and memory. The deceased protagonist of the
century, the German director Erwin Piscator (1893-1966) created play, Rachel Corrie, wrote about her experience in Gaza apart from
Trotz alledem!(In Spite of Ererythingl r9z5) using new media on stage the historical narratives that created that particular place. Rickman
in the form of film footage of World War I. Focusing on German and Viner created a structure for the play by making omissions,
history from 1914 to the r9r9 assassination of German communist additions, subtle changes of rhetoric, and juxtapositions in Rachel
Ieader Karl Liebknecht, the visual and verbal form oftheatrical re- Corrie's diary entries, letters, and emails. The play's problems of
portage of ln Spite ofEverythinglwas designed to directly represent authorship, the opacity of the work of its editors, and the often hate-
experience and provoke political action. Documentary film footage filled internet discourse that surrounded it obscured the play,s
of the War functioned like a tragic chorus both reporting and por- meaning. The story of Rachel and her sea¡ch for social justice became,
traying the offstage world. Comprised of actual speeches, articles, in the hands of Rickman and Viner, testimony for the prosecution
newspaper clippings, slogans, leaflets, photographs, and films, Pisca- of Israel.
tor thought his production was an historically truthful montage. Even as the notion that truth is stable and knowable has come
Judging from his experience in the War, Piscator thought this was under scrutiny, some artists and theorists continue to make claims
the first time that theatrical representation was in accord with 'ab- for testimony. Typically concerned with social injustice and civil
solute truth.' His goal was to make theatre a generative place that Iiberties and informed by civil rights, antiwar protests, feminism,
functioned like a meeting hall. Learning from Piscator and then and gay rights, documentary and verbatim trial plays address the
striking out on his own, Bertolt Brecht also reconsidered the con- shortcomings of the law in relation to gende¡ race, and social justice.
nection between life (the real) and theatre (the professed fictional) Trial plays stage legal proceedings in order to portray the problems
proposing that theatre be in the service of'socially practical sig- of the law in relation to history (the archive) and the implications
nifrcance,' more than in the creation of pure emotion, as he wrote of re-imagining, re-writing, re-staging and, by implication, recon-
in The Street Scene þ938). figuring that history. Some prominent examples of trial plays in
Brecht described Piscator's work as 'documentary' in what was which the events, the resulting trials, and theatrical innovation are
probably the first use of that term in relation to theatre. By 'docu- all present, include: The Investigationby Peter Weiss (1966), which
mentary'Brecht did not mean a balanced account of both sides of documents the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial; The Trial of the Catonsville
the story but an account that redressed mainstream capitalist news- Nineby Daniel Berrigan exposes the government death machine of
paper accoiñts. Early on the notion of documentary wâi as-s"mãd the Vietnam War; The Chicago Conspiracy Triatby Ron Sossi and
to be both a corrective and its own form of propaganda. Writing on Frank Condon OSZù portrays racial injustice; Inquest (197o) by
Piscator's theatre in Voicings (1995), historian Attilio Favorini con- Donald Freed reveals legal corruption; Are you Now or Have you Ever
cludes; 'In Spite of EverythingJwas thus in line with Piscator's sub- Pyyfl(tgZù by Eric Bentleyìtages the inlamous McCarthy hearings;
sequent, if irregular, attempts to bring to theater the directness of Execution of Justice (1984) gives an account of the homophobic mur-
political speech, that is, to transform representation into political der of Harvey Milk, and Greensboro (A Requiem) (1996), exposes how
action.' Gone for the moment were the psychological preoccupations the Ku Klux Klan literally got away with murder, both plays by
and assumptions of the bourgeois theatre in favour of what Piscator Emily Mann; Unquestioned Integrity: The H\II Thomas Hearings (1993)
referred to as 'the great forces of history.' Life as lived by communi- by Maime Hunt discloses the gender ignorance of Congress during
ties of people, rather than individuals, began storming stages and congressional hearings; Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar
probably owed something to the Soviet history spectacles such as Wilde þgg) and The Laramie Project (zooo), both by Moises Kauf-
the Storming of the Winter Palace. man, reveal gay hatred; The Colour of Justice (rSSS) by Richard
Norton-Taylor, is an account of the unconscious racism of the Brit- recent recession. House / Divided also conjoined the real with the
ish police in relation to the murder of Stephen Lawrence; One Hour simulated and the fictional. The burst of the housing bubble in zoo7,
Eighteen Minutes (zoro) by Moscow's Teatr.doc shows the failure to the stock market crash, the bank and industry crisis, and the reces-
protect a Russian anti-corruption lawyer; and The Moscow Trials sion that followed prompted the members of The Builders Associa-
(zorz) conceived by the Swiss director Milo Rau, stages real-life tion to ask questions about the collapse of the American and global
protagonists in a trial of Russian democracy and freedom. economic infrastructure, especially the loss of homes. The company
Court documents can and often are intercut with other informa- researched and considered the relationship among spaces, places,
tion and scenes. The original production of Inquest used recon- and material goods as well as virtual realities. What have houses
structed scenes from Ethel andJulius Rosenbergs's private l.fe. Inquest come to mean as commodities in the global marketplace? How does
attempts to exonerate the Rosenbergs by using court documents to something as abstract as prices on the stock market affect something
tell a story about the corrupt and unethical practices of the persons as real as a family's home? How did the extreme loss of wealth affect
who controlled the construction of the couple's legal narrative. The ordinary people? Have events like these happened before?
production reopened their espionage trial by constituting the audi- Daily life is an important realm of inquiry in theatre of the real.
ence as an assembly of citizens with the rights and responsibilities Most famous for their work in this area is Rimini protokoll, a com-
of delivering a verdict. The once strange but now familiar ability of pany that resides in Berlin but works all over the world. Known as
unproven master narratives to dominate public thinking, especially experts of everyday life, Rimini Protokoll has created many works
in moments of cultural and political crises, is integral to the play. that integrate assumptions about quotidian reality. In Remote Berlin
A great number of international works address the interface (zor3) created by company member Stefan Kaegi, a group of about
between performance and the archive both in terms of interrogating 5o people wearing headsets trekked through the city, guided by
the archive and adapting the portrayal of memory to a theatrical Rachel, a digital voice. Accompanied by a soundtrack of music and
space. O Jardim (zon) by Companhia Hiato of Brazil tells the stories street sounds, Rachel guided participants through streets and parks,
of three generations of the same family. Although the overarching into banks, churches, onto the metro, and eventually to the roof of
narrative of the work is fictional its infrastructure is real, using as a hospital. Remote Berlín's Rachel is both seemingly naive and very
it does the performers' family photographs and portions of their life facetious as she guides participants through'scripted realities' on
stories as the basis of the production. Brickman Brando Bubble Boom the streets of Berlin. 'Automatically you pass the small posts like on
(zon) by Agrupación Señor Serrano of Spain tells the story ofJohn autopilot,' she says. 'Your body knows how to do it and how it works:
Brickman, who invented the mortgage system in Victorian England Walking. I like working with humans. Evolution has taught you so
and fought for the right of everyone to have a home. Brickman's much.' Leading participants into a bank, Rachel advises them to act
story is intercut with footage of Marlon Brando in The Godfather at normal by feigning interest in a banking product, sitting down, or
the same time as a nârrator describes Brando playing the role of casually leaning against the wall. Situations like this occurred sev-
Brickman in a film. Soon enough we learn that the very plausible eral times in Remote Berlin, giving participants a reflexive perspec-
story of Brickman is fictional while the fantastic story of Brando's tive on how we predictably perform urban life according to digital
succession of homes culminating in the purchase of an island is true. instructions. Remote Berlin appears to disrupt urban conformity by
Live-feed projection shows the performers manipulating tiny human staging the movement of 5o people through the cit¡ even âs it con-
figures and Monopoly houses to illustrate Brickman's housing pro- forms to the rules and regulations of the city by securing the
jects and map the locations of Brando's many homes. proper permissions necessary for some of its 'stages.'
Complex stage reality is also a part of The Builders Association's A growing number of reflexive performance techniques focus
House / Divided(zon) which makes extensive use of multiple projec- the spectator's attention on how performance is made and reality is
tion screens, live actors, real and fabricated artifacts in a general constructed. Acknowledging the complexity of aperformance's real-
technological extravaganza with an episodic narrative structure ity redirects single-perspective notions of truth toward the ambigu-
about the real US housing foreclosures that resulted from the most ity of multiple viewpoints. Works like those of Lebanese-born Rabih
Mroué and Linah Sineh stage a radical uncertainty both about un- Yamout is absent yet omnipresent as he inhabits a technological
derstanding and the actual occurrence of events. In their workLook- afterlife. There is a lot of speculation about what happened to him,
ing for a Missing Employee (zoq) halflies, invented truth, newspa- especially in the context ofhis artistic life, his religion, his personal
per clips, diary entries, found objects, and propaganda are swirled relationships, and the Arab Spring. ln the media-driven world brought
together to tell the story of how and why the civil servant Raafat into Yamout's room through the electronic devices on stage, all the
Suleiman went missing. Mroué and Saneh examine the way docu- information is potentially significant and relevant while none of it
mentary can evade truth in a flurry of reportage that attempts to seems to definitively reveal anything about Yamout. The postings
piece together apuzzle but never creates a definitive picture. Mroué on his Facebook page, messages on his answering machine, and,
sits perched behind his spectators with his image projected on a eventuall¡ the announcement of his death on television infer a post-
screen until he too disappears from both the screen and the perch. secular world where enormously powerful forces are in control. The
The real is lost in the very act of trying to summon it. Information entire work amounts to the staging of a simulated biography.
fails as it is revealed. A¡chives are created and 'disappear' in the same The technological afterlife that is 'Yamout' is staged for a real
act of performance. Even the story teller disappears. Knowledge audience in real time. The invented responses of his Facebook 'friends'
escapes us even as information invades us. Truth exists but may not are in concert with the real as we know it through our digital de-
be able to be found. What is real are the devices of reportage, not vices and serve to reveal how we invent what we think we know
what they purport to report. The medium is the subject. What live audiences see in this actorless installation is, finally, just
Recent revoìutions and protest movements and performances the flickering texts, images, and sounds of technology; texts, im-
about them have used mobile phone images in ways that tell us ages, and sounds that are, nevertheless, overburdened with meaning
something about the contingencies ofeveryday acts and aesthetics. and presented as real. The archive that informs fi rpm and a few
Mroué's The Pixelated Revolution (zorr) is a provocative commentary seconds is the daily performance of self on digital media. It is an
on the everyday aesthetics of twenty-first-century warfare and imagined and invented experiential archive that documents a past
revolution. Mroué analyses the mobile phone film recordings up- that never happened. The digital version of Yamout's life is fic-
loaded to the internet by Syrian protestors in order to talk about tional even as it is figuratively happening in all our lives all the time.
several things: images that originate outside of institutional regula- Mroué and Saneh show the technical means of archiving as part of
tion; the risk of making images during a revolution; variables of the archive; reality is eating its own tail.
truth and authenticity; and, how the protestors' images document ß rpm and a few seconds stages today's technology as a social
the circumstances of the demonstrators not shown on camera. Ac- practice that portends the real even as it pretends its own actuality.
cording to Mroué, the images of the Syrian protestors not only It is a postmodern version of Henrik Ibsen's dramaturgy where the
counter the surveillance of the state but upend assumptions about fiction onstage problematises the very idea ofa stable reality offstage.
the aesthetics of credible images and sources of information. An Twenty-first-century dramaturgy employs the technical means at
aesthetic born from the contingencies of everyday necessity can hand - the internet, computers, live streaming, smartphones, etc
just as the nineteenth-century activist play'wright used what was new
-
disclose truth and authenticity to create unauthorised political his-
tory by examining the ways in which instruments of 'looking' to his age, highly realistic stage sets dressed with meticulous visual
transform historical knowledge as they change hands and purpose. detail a¡imated by actors who appeared not to be acting. In theatre
The disappearance of truth is also the subject of another work of the real, the use of media is not secondary
- not merely a record-
by Mroué and Sineh, 33 rpm and a few seconds (zorz, sometimes also ing of live events - but primary; today media is an arbiter of truth
referred to as 33 rounds per minute and then some).'Ihe performance and the benefactor of its invention. Media is still 'evidence' that what
installation documents Beirut resident Diyaa Yamout's unexpected is purported to have happened actually did happen. It functions as a
disappearance. The stage installation shows only his workspace with record of events, as a form of testimony, and as source information
a table and two chairs, an open computer with a screen showing his open to extensive manipulation.
Facebook page, a television, a cell phone, and an answering machine.
 YouTube, Facebook, and social media in general are challenging performance provides insight into not only how documents work
the social and political role oftheatre. In response, theatre about real as stage objects, but also how audiences perceive meaning in relation
events has generated new methodologies and styles for political to document ation. EI año en que nací (The Year I Was Born, zorc) by
provocation by using the ubiquitous technologies that are part of . 'ãnd
Lola Arias differentiates between the visual images of the documents
our daily lives. Remediation such as sampling, remix, collage, and the testimony the performers use to tell their own stories. The
mash-up trouble the border between fiction and nonfiction. Embrac- stories they tell about r7 years of dictatorship þ9z3-t99o) in Chile
ing complex, multivalent, and contradictory ways of seeing informs attempt to set the record straight about what happened during those
both the way we experience theatre and reality. Visual images such years and the legacy of trauma that still accompanies national nar-
as photographs, animations, digital re-enactments, and videos includ- ratives.
ing documentaries, surveillance cameras, and amateur videos shot The Year I Was Born initially shows family photographs as the
from conventional and mobile phone cameras can both prove and self-evident sources of information that the performers used to make
contradict legal and casual testimony and written reports. Using assertions and to tell stable stories about the individuals depicted in
redacted texts and digital media has both deconstructed drama and them. One important exception is the story of Viviana Hernández
reconfigured the authority of a written text. Comparing the possi- looking for the identity of her father. As Hernández shows us a suc-
bilities of technology with our own experiences creates its own form cession ofphotos, she talks about her search for her father. The
of disinformation. projected photos change as new narratives about who her father
Troubled epistemology is not new to theatre. One of the most might be emerge. Each photograph is successively presented as the
important documentary works to critically intervene in the reliabil- one, as her real father, and then followed by a kind of digital execution
ity of documents is Weiss's Die Ermittlung (The Investigation, frrst as they are dashed off the screen. Not him, not him, not him. Before
staged reading October 1965). Written as a dramatic portrayal of the the photos are swept off the screen, however, the performer manag-
Frankfurt Auschwitz trial that lasted from the end of t963 through ing them from the table at the side of the stage draws on them -
the summer of 1965, The Inttestigafion is comprised of extracted and glasses, a moustache, etc - as if to elide their documentary status
edited portions of the trial's testimony. Working from the published with a deft strike of the pen in a manner that made a caricature of
testimony of the trial and from recollections of having attended part the men in the images. Sweeping the images from one to the next
of the trial, W'eiss never intended a literal verbatim recreation. Cau- was not unlike the definitive iPhone and iPad gesture that moves
tioning against reconstruction Weiss wrote in his preface to the images across the screen from one to the next. Finally, when Hernán-
published play: 'In the presentation of this play, no attempt should dez reads a portion of her father's trial we learn that execution is
be made to reconstruct the courtroom before which the proceedings precisely the subject. Hernández's real father, or so she says, is in
of the camp trial took place.' The Investigationhas its own narrative prison for the murder of two militants.
style, sequence, and poetics that includes witness testimony about Hernández gives us a series of full stops in the pursuit of truth.
the Nazis'painstaking alteration of documents. Alongside the sur- At any moment in the world of the performance, Hernández could
vivors' testimonies, accounts of the corrupted documents convey have ended her search. Arias conceived the fault li.ne between fact
how the language of the camps \Mas part of an alternate universe and fiction in this production as following the difference between
with its own context-specific language. The accuracy of Weiss,s visual evidence and testimony. 'You can call it documentary theatre
portrayal was not questioned, even though his aesthetics were at- because the play is based in documents, facts from the past,' Arias
tacked. said in an interview. 'But I call it theatre. The performers reconstruct
In the twenty-first centur¡ both performance theorists and the life of their parents through their own family photo albums,
artists are turning their attention to how documents, whether reaÌ letters, tapes... But there is also a lot offiction in it. They do re-en-
or fictional, material or digital, are framed; to the status of documents actments of scenes from the past, based on what someone told them
as artifacts; and to their implications for dramaturgy, scenography, or blurry memories... The past is also a fiction that changes every
and mis-en-scène. Analysing the way documents are used in live time we transform it into a story to tell to others.' The overlap be-

tfl
 tween fact and fiction reflects not only the recurring overlap and It is not history or fact but it can allude to both history and facts.
interplay between 'theatre' and 'reality', and the blurred boundary Strange connotes not only odd, peculiar, and weird but also unex-
between the stage and the 'real'world, but also the difference between pected and inexplicable in ways that attract new interest and atten-
visual and oral testimony. The notion that documents provide in- tion. The phrase may be understood to describe theatre about real
controvertible evidence has long been in question. yet documents, events; narratives that are in accord with reality that articulate fidel-
in both their material and digital forms, are still well respected and ity to an ideal in ways that invite consideration of what was here-
are used as sources of information with consequences for the crea- tofore thought ofas usual but are, in fact, strange. Theatre about real
tion ofmeaning in historical accounts, in legal procedures, and on events has generated new structures and styles ofperformance,
theatre stages. unique approaches to drama, and diverse forms of dramaturgy. By
All the productions and plays discussed here assume that the interweaving fiction and nonfiction and simulating documentary
stage is a serious social space where audiences can learn about the style to upend assumptions about how we understand the world,
real world. Theatre's potential for making the world comprehensible artists of the real challenge us to make sense of how the meta-
is integral to its ability to occupy and constitute a public space. The phoric lifts from its physical presence onstage to a realm of ideas
Polish playwright Pawel Demirski calls documentary theatre a way both on and offstage.
of thinking and method for acquiring knowledge about the world.
I prefer the phrase 'theatre ofthe real', as it both includes and exceeds
documentary theatre. The former depends upon verbatim quotation
whereas 'theatre of the real' is a larger category that encompasses
both theatre about real events andthe way real events are concep-
tualised using diverse means, including fiction clearly identified as
such, in the service of nonfiction. Theatre of the real is where the
procedures of society are tested, *ñ"r" th¿äã."te4iif iit-o_c.eatã
-ãlãesthetic
laboratory for ideas and actio¡l^:,-wlrer.ì1" o,r*i¿. world--
-_*1
t/' is inside the theatre, and where the role of the spectator is one of a
critical analyst assessing the potential of new and accepted wisdom -
for the greatest good. We have here a shift in paradigm, perspective,
subject, performance, and methodology.
Even Brecht's proposal for theatre being like an event on a
street corner can produce not the acceptance of a diversity of opin-
ion but continuing conflict. Even in the face of concrete evidence,
people can remain convinced of their own views. What ensues may
be more a hot argument about convictions than insight. Tolerating
differing narratives with equanimity is not the same as considering
the merit of multiple views in order to arrive at the truth about
social reality. Reality may be multifaceted, but people may very well
believe only in one version of events. When an author writes many
views into his play or performance, she still controls the selection
and portrayal ofall the views represented but not their reception.
Truth is stranger than fiction, so the saying goes. Truth, of
course, means being given the facts about something, to be in accord
with reality, and to have some sort of fidelity to some kind of ideal.

,^