Introduction

Abstract

Jean Genet: Performance and Politics is intended for an English-speaking audience, and the logic for doing so is compelling. Despite endorsements from avant-garde practitioners in theatre and film (Richard Schechner, Peter Sellars, Todd Haynes), ‘alternative’ rock stars (Patti Smith, David Bowie, Shane MacGowan), and television makers (Nigel Williams, Melvyn Bragg), Anglo-American culture has paid little attention to Genet’s performance work since the 1970s, preferring instead to read him as a gay novelist.1 When Genet’s theatre is taught and staged in Anglophone countries, the texts in question are predictably—and somewhat tediously—Deathwatch and The Maids, early plays which are best regarded as apprentice pieces to his more challenging and experimental theatre of the 1950s and 1960s. Although the film Un chant d’amour is a major exception in that it is taught on many undergraduate courses, Genet’s crucial influence on contemporary theatre, film, dance and performance art has been seriously underestimated and misrepresented in North America and the United Kingdom.KeywordsPolitical TheatrePolitical SignificanceUnfinished BusinessPalestinian Liberation OrganizationAnglophone CountryThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.