Abstract
This articulates a set of anxieties about teaching postdramatic theatre through a reading of Thomas Ostermeier’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. It offers a final assessment of the utility and strengths of Lehmann’s concept of postdramatic theatre with particular reference to questions of pedagogy, politics and aesthetics. In the epilogue to Postdramatic Theatre, Lehmann states that postdramatic theatre engages with a certain kind of pedagogy that deliberately formulates non-rational approaches to contesting the hegemony of consumer society. The chapter concludes by posing a series of questions about the future of Lehmann’s concept: does the vocabulary of postdramatic theatre operate as a practical pedagogical tool today? Do we need to formulate new, more invigorating ideas to engage with contemporary performance? And if so, what kind of vocabulary might displace Lehmann’s?
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Agamben, Giorgio. 1993. The Coming Community. Translated by Michael Hardt. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Bacon, Jane, and Franc Chamberlain. 2005. Editorial: The Practice of Performance Studies in the United Kingdom. Studies in Theatre and Performance 25 (3): 179–188.
Bartlett, A.J., and Justin Clemens. 2017. What is Education? Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press.
Bottoms, Stephen. 2011. An Open Letter to Richard Schechner. In The Rise of Performance Studies: Rethinking Richard Schechner’s Broad Spectrum, ed. James M. Harding and Cindy Rosenthal, 23–38. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Croggon, Alison. 2010. Benedict Andrews and Barrie Kosky: Two Innovative Australian Directors. TheatreForum 37: 3–12.
D’Cruz, Glenn. 2017. Re-Routing Ibsen: Adaptation as Tenancy/Occupation in Simon Stone’s The Wild Duck and Thomas Ostermeier’s An Enemy of the People. In Ethical Exchanges in Translation, Adaptation and Dramaturgy, ed. Elmer O’Toole, Andrea Palegri, and Stuart Young, 65–79. Leiden: Brill.
Dean, Jodie. 2012. The Communist Horizon. London and New York: Verso.
Eagleton, Terry. 2013. The Rise and Fall of Theory. In Modern Criticism and Theory, ed. Nigel Wood and David Lodge, 821–824. London and New York: Routledge.
Fuchs, Elinor. 2008. Postdramatic Theatre (Review). TDR: The Drama Review 52 (2 (T198)): 178–183.
Grehan, Helena. 2014. Introduction: Performances of Resistance/Resisting Performance. Performance Paradigm 10: 4–5. http://www.performanceparadigm.net/index.php/journal/article/view/140/139.
Lehmann, Hans-Thies. 2006. Postdramatic Theatre. Translated and with an introduction by Karen Jürs-Munby. London and New York: Routledge.
———. 2008. Lehmann Responds. TDR: The Drama Review 52 (4 (T200)): 13–20.
McKenzie, Jon. 2001. Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance. London and New York: Routledge.
Melrose, Susan. 2011. A Cautionary Note or Two, Amid the Pleasures and Pains of Participation in Performance-making as Research. In Participatory Research & Learning in the Performing Arts. London: Centre for Creative Collaboration.
Newfield, Christopher. 2011. Unmaking the Public University: The Forty-Year Assault on the Middle Class. Boston: Harvard University Press.
Poole, Gaye. 2010. Introduction: Teaching Theatre, Performance and Drama Studies. Australasian Drama Studies 57: 4–9.
Rancière, Jacques. 1991. The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation. Translated and with an introduction by Kristin Ross. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
———. 2004. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. Translated by Gabriel Rockhill. London: Continuum.
———. 2009. The Emancipated Spectator. Translated by Gregory Elliot. London: Verso.
Rorty, Richard. 1989. Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roth, Michael S. 2014. Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Schechner, Richard. 1992. TDR Comment: A New Paradigm for Theatre in the Academy. TDR: The Drama Review 36 (4): 7–10.
Shaw, George Bernard. 1994 (1904). The Quintessence of Ibsenism. New York: Dover Publications.
Stegemann, Bernd. 2009. “After Postdramatic Theater.” Translated by Matthew R. Price. Theater 39 (3): 11–23.
Stucky, Nathan, and Cynthia Wimmer, eds. 2002. Teaching Performance Studies. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
The Invisible Committee. 2008. The Coming Insurrection. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).
Wangh, Stephen. 2013. The Heart of Teaching. London and New York: Routledge.
Williams, Bruce. 1990. The Ghost in the Workshop: Liberal Education and Practical Drama. Meridian 9 (1): 170–177.
Williams, Raymond. 1991 (1954). Drama in Performance. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Zakaria, Fareed. 2015. In Defense of a Liberal Education. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
D’Cruz, G. (2018). An Enemy of Postdramatic Theatre? Or, What I Think About When I Think About Teaching Postdramatic Theatre. In: Teaching Postdramatic Theatre. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71685-5_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71685-5_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-71684-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-71685-5
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)