Europe's Staging – Staging Europe

Abstract

Europe's Staging – Staging Europe Nicole Haitzinger (bio) and Stella Lange (bio) In the context of contemporary performing arts it should, firstly, be stated that theatre is declared as the venue of negotiation for political and social questions and that, secondly, as a consequence, Europe is staged in specified ways; thematic positing such as negotiations of borders, construction of identities or history that weave between fact and fiction are worth mentioning here. It is no coincidence that models of theatre resonate with contemporary playwriting and staging practices where theatre and politics have been articulated explicitly or alternative models of society have been designed. They carry, among others, documentary, historical, commemorative, and utopian features. Transitions from reality to fiction appear blurred, concealed or seemingly defini ve. In some cases, contemporary playwriting and staging procedures refer explicitly to historical European theatrical forms such as the Attic tragedy and frequently to the tragic or mournful. This "(dis)course on Europe" tested in specific European Countries and particularly at international theatre festivals over the past few years faces, with exceptions, however, a hitherto virtually undifferentiated state of research. The relevance of the topic can also be tracked in a series of recent conferences, newly founded journals, and associations, as well as prominent writers and artists who proclaim their manifestos on theatre and Europe in an avant-garde manner. This edition focuses on those theatrical works that thematically discuss "Europe" and its social, political, economic, and cultural questions through a comparative, transnational, or decolonial perspective oriented towards performance analysis. Particular attention is paid to narrative, structural, and aesthetic strategies as well as alterations that the text is subjected to right up to the production and performance on stage. Both aspects should, thus, be taken into account: the relative source text and the theatrical event. More specifically, it begs the question whether theatrical structures, staging practices, and aesthetic parameters initiate a historical reflection on Europe in the context of theatre. With regard to the inquiry of a European or cosmopolitical society, the additional question arises which homogenous or heterogeneous forms of representation can be found for the individual, the group, or community within the theatre and how traditional theatre forms, most notably tragedy, are revisited and undergo a revaluation and update. Thisis, notleast, becausethechoiceof genre, resources, imagery used, and, finally, theatre aesthetics and implication is subject to specific teleological narratives or societal processes of inclusion and exclusion. Europe's Staging: Three Trends in Contemporary Theatre In contemporary theatre, the staging of Europe is to be situated in the complex constellations of politics and aesthetics. If theatre is defined as a practice distinguishable from politics – and we think that in the perspective of theatre, literary studies, and the recognition of numerous historical resonances in the dispositive of a Europeanoriented contemporary theatre, it is imperative in the widest sense – then various trends can be differentiated. We would like to [End Page 125] introduce three trends briefly that can neither be classified in distinct categories of political or agitational theatre, nor can they be identified with the assertion that in theatre every position, posture, or action/movement is political per se. (1) Documentary and Investigative Theatre, Documentality, and Forms of Documented Unreliability It is not surprising that the contemporary staging of Europe starts with a revision of documents and their function within different theatrical narratives. The archive of Europe has been grown in size since 1990 and been challenged with transnational narratives and documents from non-European countries – of course not only since the increasing migration to Europe at the end of the 20th century. Furthermore, the constitution of the archive has changed with the cultural turn that strives to give attention to objects beyond the written paper when thinking only of oral and performative history or the inscription in a global and digital world. Eventually, with the reprise of the new 'real' or 'reality' in all arts, documents have become the prioritized reference point. Some producers refer to the genre of 'documentary theatre' claiming specifically the reference to lived 'reality' and 'truth'. Others return to documentary theatre and its last remaining witnesses in order to rewrite national history in a transnational European History. However, as Hito Steyerl...