Divadelní revue (Czech Theatre Review) 2018 · no 1
vol. 29 · august 2018 · no 1Summary
The first issue of 2018s Theatre Review brings forward two academic papers by Clare Wallace and Milan Pospíšil. Clare Wallace’s “Together on the edge: Precarious Community in Recent British Theatre” considers how contemporary British theatre manifests an intensified concern for community that is expressed in representational strategies which emphasise “states of precarity”. The paper first looks back to the broad contours of In-Yer-Face theatre in order to contrast the provocations associated with 1990s new playwriting, with the altered textures of the theatre of the 2000s. It then maps some key ways in which community has been conceived in philosophical and theatrical discourse, before bringing these ideas into conversation with specific works from the last decade of British theatre. Focusing on Tim Crouch’s The Author (2009), David Greig’s The Events (2013) and Caryl Churchill’s Escaped Alone (2016), it analyses how these plays invite engagement with experiences of being together on the edge, be it the edge of the sympathetic and the repulsive, of hospitality and hostility, or at the tipping point between the familiar and apocalyptic. Milan Pospíšil’s “Die Schweizerfamilie. The history of the libretto and the opera’s performances in Prague” focuses on Joseph Weigl’s opera Die Schweizerfamilie (1809) and the sources that inspired the libretto. The paper also assesses the significance of the first production of the opera Die Schweizerfamilie at the Estates Theatre in Prague, in Czech, titled Rodina Švejcarska (1823). It pays attention to the singers, the responses to the production in the press and in the correspondence of the Czech patriotic society, and the libretto’s translation. The issue contains two essays by Lenka Jungmannová and Jan Hyvnar. In her essay “Postdramatic theatre as a term, or Post-theatrology?” Jungmannová re-examines Hans- -Thies Lehmann’s concept of postdramatic theatre, which he presented in the 1999 seminal and world-famous monograph Postdramatic Theatre. Jugmannová particularly focuses on what she classifies as a terminological inconsistency (chaos) of Lehmann’s book that lacks a scientific, both theoretical and methodological rigour, and as such casts over the academic discipline, i.e. Theaterwissenschaft, shades of scepticism. She closely analyzes Lehmann’s use of the term “text” in relation to drama and theatre. For Jungmannová, Lehmann’s book rises a question whether Theaterwissenschaft, following the trends of Western theatre studies, entered an era of globalized post-theatrology, which rejects its own former approaches and results. Jan Hyvnar’s “Notes on the Encyclopedia of Non-verbal Theatre” introduces a project conducted by the Department of Non-verbal Theatre of HAMU, Prague (Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts). In his overview, Hyvnar discusses several topics related to the methodological, theoretical, and historical background of the project, namely the historical development of non-verbal theatre, its gradual emancipation and transformation. Hyvnar brings forward topics such as mimetic and performative aspects of non-verbal theatre, presentation, materiality and representation or performative turn, de-semantisation. This issue contains two interviews with the well-known theatre director and a founder of Odin Teatret Eugenio Barba and Odin Teatret’s musician, composer, actor and director Kai Bredholt called “Barter” (translated from Polish by Jana Pilátová), and an interview with Petr Pavlovský, Czech theatre theorist, aesthetician and reviewer, former university professor, and political commentator. In this issue, we re-print the results of a survey initiated by the Theatre Review and Czech Association for Theatre Research. The questionnaire, which consisted of one question – “What are the crucial, inspiring or remarkable achievements of Czech theatre studies (and sister areas) over the last five years and why?” – was addressed to a wide number of scholars, reviewers, researchers, pedagogues and practitioners. The issue contains Miloš Mistrík’s review of Czech translation of Georges Banu’s monograph Les voyages du comédien.
analyses
Clare WallaceTogether on the edge: Precarious Community in Recent British Theatre [peer-reviewed article]
Milan Pospíšil
Die Schweizerfamilie. The history of the libretto and the opera’s performances in Prague [peer-reviewed article]
essays
Lenka JungmannováPostdramatic theatre as a term, or Post-theatrology? [essay]
Jan Hyvnar
Notes on the Encyclopedia of Non-verbal Theatre [essay]
interview
with Eugenio Barba and Kai Bredholt: Barter (Magdalena Hasiuk and Krystyna Ułamek)interview
with Czech theatre theorist, aesthetician and reviewer, university professor and political commentator Petr Pavlovský: When I stab someone in his back, it’s not theatre… (Lenka Jungmannová)review
Miloš MistríkLes voyages du comédien according to Georges Banu (Georges Banu: Nepodrobený herec) [review]
new book releases (February—May 2018)
Resumes of peer-reviewed articles
Clare WallaceTogether on the edge: Precarious Community in Recent British Theatre
Clare Wallace: Together on the edge: Precarious Community in Recent British Theatre. The paper considers how contemporary British theatre manifests an intensified concern for community that is expressed in representational strategies which emphasise states of precarity. This concern is shaped by a strong sense that the space of the communal is one of simultaneous promise and threat, obligation and risk. The paper first looks back to the broad contours of In-Yer-Face theatre in order to contrast the provocations associated with 1990s new playwriting, with the altered textures of the theatre of the 2000s. It then maps some key ways in which community has been conceived in philosophical and theatrical discourse, before bringing these ideas into conversation with specific works from the last decade of British theatre. Focusing on Tim Crouch’s The Author (2009), David Greig’s The Events (2013) and Caryl Churchill’s Escaped Alone (2016), it analyses how these plays invite engagement with experiences of being together on the edge, be it the edge of the sympathetic and the repulsive, of hospitality and hostility, or at the tipping point between the familiar and apocalyptic.
Contact: Clare Wallace | Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures, Charles University Prague, Czech Republic | wallace[at]ff.cuni.cz
Milan Pospíšil
Die Schweizerfamilie. The history of the libretto and the opera’s performances in Prague
The first part of the essay on Joseph Weigl’s opera Die Schweizerfamilie (1809) focuses on the sources that inspired the libretto. Initially, the true story of Swiss lovers in 18 th ‐century France inspired the Marquise de Travanet to compose the popular romance Pauvre Jacques. Sewrin and de Chazet treated the story and the romance in the vaudeville Pauvre Jacques (1807), which was adapted in Vienna by Ignaz Franz Castelli, to a text of a “lyric opera”. The second part of the study assesses the significance of the first production of the opera Die Schweizerfamilie at the Estates Theatre in Prague, in Czech, titled Rodina Švejcarská (1823). It pays attention to the singers, the responses to the production in the press and in the correspondence of the Czech patriotic society, and the libretto’s translation. The translator Simeon Karel Macháček proved the suitability of Czech for opera singing. At the end of Act 3, the printed translation (1824) contains an added scene, serving to attest to the specific nature of the Prague interpretation tradition.
Contact: Milan Pospíšil | Kabinet pro studium českého divadla, Theatre institute, Prague, Czech Republic | pospisil.milan.phdr[at]seznam.cz