The Possibilities of Contemporary Dialectical Theatre: The Example of Representing Neonazism in Germany

Abstract

This article opens with a contextualizing examination of dialectics in the theatre and the ways that the category can function politically. It then analyses four examples of theatre works that confront the German Neonazi terrorist cell, the National Socialist Underground. It argues that representing the cell and the various social and political forces that allowed it to function for over a decade can best be apprehended by a dialectical approach that resists determinism and engages in grounded speculation. The four pieces in question exemplify the breadth of dramaturgical possibilities employed by the different theatre-makers, moving from the documentary to the fictional. The varieties of dialectical theatre discussed are contrasted with the limitations of Brecht’s practices in order to re-introduce the category to contemporary theatre-making. Consequently, the article notes some of the formal commonalities in the pieces it considers and proposes that these might offer ways of approaching other contemporary political issues on stage.