Hibernation Works for Bears but not for Theatre: The Notion of Community among Theatre Institutions and Experimental Theatre Groups in Slovenia (1955–1967)

The paper proposes that the experimental theatre scene in Slovenia in the years 1955–1967 formed a community. The performative visions of experimental groups acted as subtle gestures opposing the prominent aesthetic trend that dominated the performing scene in central institutions of postwar theatre creativity. The latter found it difficult to connect with its audience since it dealt with issues of lesser concern and lacked a true connection with progressive theatre currents (predominantly coming from France).

The World of Odour in the Slovenian Performing Arts

The article provides an overview of performances on Slovenian stages that have used odour to stimulate the audience’s senses and arouse transformational effects. Representing the first research of this kind into Slovenian culture, the author demonstrates that odour was used as a means of sensory perception, especially in experimental theatre practices since the 1970s. One of the first such works was Cimetova vrata ladje norcev in druge spremembe (The Cinnamon Door of the Ship of Fools and Other Changes), a performance art piece directed by Tomaž Kralj at Glej Theatre in 1975. In the 1990s, the interest in olfactory perceptions grew among theatre-makers who successfully used odour to implement the aesthetics of the real in post-dramatic theatre and achieve the immersion of the spectator. This role of odour in theatre also continues in the 21st century. Barbara Pia Jenič began deliberately and continuously developing the poetics of scent at the Sensorium Theatre, which she founded in 2001 with Gabriel Hernandez. In her creation of sensorial events, Jenič relies on the methodologies of Enrique Vargas, with which she became acquainted as an actress and scent designer in his group Teatro de los Sentidos and creatively developed them at the Sensorium Theatre. As a scent designer, Jenič has collaborated with other Slovenian theatres, among others, on the 2015 operatorium, The Tenth Daughter (Deseta hči) by Svetlana Makarovič (based on the libretto by Milko Lazar, directed by Rocco) at the Slovenian National Theatre – Opera and Ballet Ljubljana.

Dramatizing Chinese Intellectuals of the Republican Era in Face for Mr. Chiang Kai-shek: Encoding Nostalgia in a Comedy of Ideas

Face for Mr. Chiang Kai-shek, one of the most influential Chinese plays to have garnered attention in recent years, serves as a reminder of the importance of campus theatre in the formation and development of modern Chinese spoken drama from the early twentieth century onwards. As an old-fashioned high comedy that features witty dialogues and conveys philosophical and political ideas, it stands in opposition to such other forms of theatre in China today as the extravagant, propagandistic ‘main melody’ plays, as well as the experimental theatre of images. This article argues that the play’s focus on Chinese intellectuals of the Republican era and their ideas encodes nostalgia both in its dramatic content and theatrical form: the former encodes nostalgia for the Republican era through a nuanced representation of Chinese intellectuals of that period, while the latter encodes nostalgia for orthodox spoken drama (huaju) in the form of a comedy of ideas. Yuan Li (first author) is Professor of English in the Faculty of English Language and Culture, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. She has published extensively on contemporary Chinese and Anglo-Irish drama, theatre, and cinema. Tim Beaumont (corresponding author) is Assistant Professor at the School of Foreign Languages at Shenzhen University. His research is primarily philosophical, and it is currently focused on the relationship between nineteenth-century liberal nationalism and contemporary multiculturalism.

Keeping the Promise of Community: Communal Efforts on the Contemporary Zagreb Non-Institutional Scene

In their 1979 manifesto, the independent experimental theatre collective Kugla glumište (Zagreb, 1975–1985) claims: “Kugla discovers images, symbols and stories that wish to be the promise of community.” The article explores the repercussions of those neo-avant- garde community efforts on the contemporary Zagreb non-institutional scene by analysing four inclusive performances which differ in motivations, aesthetic aims, production levels and participatory modes. In The Love Case of Fahrija P (2017), the ex-members of Kugla and additional co-authors stage a polylogue with the artistic heritage of the deceased Kugla glumište member Željko Zorica Šiš (1957–2013) and the inclusive procedures they devised during the 1970s. The community project 55+ (2012) by the production platform Montažstroj gathers the participants who are over 55 in workshops, public debates, celebrations, protests and a documentary to provide visibility and voice to that neglected generation. In the trilogy On Community (2010–2011), the production platform Shadow Casters tests different mechanisms of creating temporary aesthetic communities, from learning an a cappella group song to sharing secrets, on its recipients. Finally, the atmospheric inclusion of the subtly associative performance Conversing (2019) by Fourhanded offers an almost elitist opportunity of co-existing in the intimate world of private tensions. However, what they all have in common is a physically non-invasive form, emotional and/or intellectual engagement and an emphasised personal commitment that can oblige audiences to reciprocate while they join the community of experience.

The Remarkable Curvature of the Mind of Abdias do Nascimento

Nascimento transcended the country of his birth and established himself in the minds and hearts of Africans everywhere as a combatant against racism and classism. Abdias do Nascimento was to Brazil what Langston Hughes and Katherine Dunham were to African Americans, a phenomenon of cultural energy that lifted his people to the highest dimensions of art in defiance of a designed degradation of blackness. Abdias grew up as a rebel spirit, as he would often say, in the tradition of his mother, who had called out abusive behavior toward blacks, in a brazenly racist country that had exploited the indigenous and African people for centuries. Thus, he was to become a Malcolm X, Du Bois, and Paul Robeson in the Brazilian context. Combining artistic skill, militant resistance, world knowledge, historical understanding, and an adventurous nature, his active mind did not rest in one field but in several art forms and research areas. He found his first love in the practice of African art and spirituality while creating the Black Experimental Theatre in Rio de Janeiro in the l940s.

#failbetter

Recalling Beckett's treatment of failure ( Three Dialogues, 1949; Worstward Ho, 1983), this article considers ‘fidelity to failure’ as a performative and political issue. In dealing with both the aesthetics and ethics of Beckett's failure, the article is informed by recent publications and events within the field ( Kenny ; Morin ; Maprayil; 2020 ). These interventions build upon a body of literature on Beckett ( McMullan, 1994 ; Calder, 2001 ; Anderton, 2016 ; Thomas, 2018) and culture ( Bersani and Dutoit, 1993 ; Ridout, 2006 ; Bailes, 2011 ; Halberstam, 2011 ). The article examines the phenomenon of failure within Beckettian production and wider ethical implications surrounding the (mis)appropriations of ‘failing better’. Having established the uses – and misuses – of this phrase, the article proceeds in three interlinked parts: a) aesthetic failure in Beckett's creative practice through to his legacy in experimental theatre and popular culture; b) performance more broadly, including intersections with disability culture and queer studies; and c) performative interventions in public discourse, from Brexit in Europe to the 2016 US Presidential Election as well as social movements such as Black Lives Matter.

Madame de Staël ou le plaidoyer pour une vie seconde : le théâtre

"Madame de Staël or the Necessity of a Second Life: The Theatre. Our contribution proposes an incursion into literary history at the time of the First Wave of French Romanticism. The subject of the investigation is Madame de Staël’s experimental theatre and the dramatic seasons that she organized between 1804 and 1811 in Coppet and Geneva. Our conclusions are twofold: on the aesthetic side, Coppet’s dramatic representations had the role of changing the aesthetic and literary canons of the early 19th century; on the historical side, the Coppet Group is one of the first romantic cenacles whose resounding literary activity was the theatre. Keywords: Madame de Staël, Coppet, Geneva, experimental theatre, French Romanticism, aesthetic and literary canons, 19th century literature, romantic theatre."

Strategies for Working with Soviet Past in the Post-Soviet Cultural Space (The Cases of TV-series Thaw, Kolyma Tales Performance by Yeltsin Centre’s ‘V tsentre’ theatre studio and Yury Dud’s YouTube film Kolyma – Birthplace of Russia’s Fear)

This article explores some of the strategies used to reconstruct the Soviet past in contemporary Russian culture. Soviet past is ubiquitous in contemporary Russia. Over the past decades, it has become simultaneously an object of nostalgia, an object of mythologisation, and an object of myth deconstruction. This article analyses the concepts of nostalgia, mythologisation and demythologisation and explores the strategies for aesthetisation, glamorisation, critique and deconstruction of the past. The research presented here is based on the analysis of creative texts produced in different art forms: cinema and drama, as well as various communication media that cater to different audiences – traditional one (film screenings, TV broadcast, stage plays) and new/younger one (video bloggers on YouTube). This article suggests that the strategies employed by various authors who work with the Soviet past depend not only on their value attitudes but also on their chosen communicative channels. Thus, the ‘traditional’ audience of mass TV channels is exposed to openly nostalgic interpretations of Soviet past, while the ‘younger’ audience of experimental theatre studios and YouTube channels, which lacks direct experience of Soviet period, requires different approaches. However, in all these art forms it is possible to move beyond nostalgia producing works that challenge retro-expectations. Keywords: nostalgia, mythologisation, deconstruction, The Thaw TV series, Kolyma Tales performance, Yury Dud

Eugene O’Neill: Superpersonalisation and Racial Spectacularism

Playwright Eugene O’Neill jumpstarted his career and had his first major successes in and from the little art colony in Provincetown; this chapter focuses on O’Neill, the Provincetown Players’ most prominent member, who lived and worked there between 1916 and 1922. The chapter shows how the compressed scale and distinctive mobility of Provincetown’s creative community was crucial to O’Neill’s success. There, O’Neill was exposed to the art colony’s distinctive amalgamation of modern and experimental theatre practices, including those dealing with writing, staging, and promotion. His own work built upon these: he was especially adept at harvesting, adapting, and exporting these practices from the rural outpost to the metropolitan hub of modernist activity in New York. This chapter argues that the formal and topical elements of O’Neill’s notorious play The Emperor Jones (conceived and written in Provincetown), along with its production and promotional strategies, were distinctive to the little art colony. There, O’Neill cultivated and marketed to a ‘special audience,’ drew topical inspiration from long-simmering racial anxieties in the region, and expanded upon the Provincetown Players’ theatrical practice of superpersonalization: a writing and staging strategy that amplifies the bleed between character and actor in order to heighten the audience’s engagement in the play. These strategies kindled his white audience’s ‘racial feelings’: a move that brought the relatively unknown O’Neill into the national and international public consciousness and created a still-resonant sensation about his work.

Being European: "Hamlet" on the Israeli Stage

One of the most prolific fields of Shakespeare studies in the past two decades has been the exploration of local appropriations of Shakespeare’s plays around the world. This article, however, foregrounds a peculiar case of an avoidance of local appropriation. For almost 60 years, repertory Israeli theaters mostly refused to let Hamlet reflect the “age and body of the time”. They repeatedly invited Europeans to direct Hamlet in Israel and offered local audiences locally-irrelevant productions of the play. They did so even though local productions of canonical plays in Israel tend to be more financially successful than those directed by non-Israelis, and even when local national and political circumstances bore a striking resemblance to the plot of the play. Conversely, when one Israeli production of Hamlet (originating in an experimental theatre) did try to hold a mirror up to Israeli society—and was indeed understood abroad as doing so—Israeli audiences and theatre critics failed to recognize their reflection in this mirror. The article explores the various functions that Hamlet has served for the Israeli theatre: a rite of passage, an educational tool, an indication of belonging to the European cultural tradition, a means of boosting the prestige of Israeli theatres, and—only finally—a mirror reflecting Israel’s “age and body.” The article also shows how, precisely because Hamlet was not allowed to reflect local concerns, the play mirrors instead the evolution of the Israeli theatre, its conflicted relation to the Western theatrical tradition, and its growing self-confidence.