Reflections on Theatricality, Identity, and the Modern Jewish Experience

Abstract

It would not be exaggeration, I believe, to argue that the theatre and issues associated with theatricality and performativity are intimately bound to, and illuminate, central dimensions of the modern West and Central European Jewish experience itself. For what are the dynamics of assimilation—or of acculturation or integration (the exact term is not at issue here)—if they are not about basic questions and conflicts of character and role transformation, the gestural and linguistic remaking and re-presentation of the individual and Jewish self? Doesn’t the story of Jewish modernization revolve around the complex negotiations, metamorphoses, and stabilizations of roles and identities and the constant contestation as to their nature and authenticity? This, I would like to suggest, is the defining existential framework of the history of Jews on the German stage, in both the literal and figurative senses of the term.KeywordsJewish IdentityCultural CreativityJewish ExperienceRole TransformationFigurative SensThese 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.