After '89: Polish theatre and the political (Theatre: Theory – Practice – Performance)

This monograph takes as its subject the dynamic new range of performance practices that have been developed since the demise of communism in the flourishing theatrical landscape of Poland. After 1989, Lease argues, the theatre has retained its historical role as the crucial space for debating and interrogating cultural and political identities. Providing access to scholarship and criticism not readily accessible to an English-speaking readership, this study surveys the rebirth of the theatre as a site of public intervention and social criticism since the establishment of democracy and the proliferation of theatre makers that have flaunted cultural commonplaces and begged new questions of Polish culture. Lease suggests that a radical democratic pluralism is only tenable through the destabilization of attempts to essentialize Polish national identity, focusing on the development of new theatre practices that interrogate the rise of nationalism, alternative sexual identities and forms of kinship, gender equality, contested histories of antisemitism, and postcolonial encounters. Lease elaborates a new theory of political theatre as part of the public sphere. The main contention is that the most significant change in performance practice after 1989 has been from opposition to the state to a more pluralistic practice that engages with marginalized identities purposefully left out of the rhetoric of freedom and independence. Cover -- Half-title -- Series information -- Title page -- Copyright information -- Table of contents -- List of figures -- Acknowledgements -- Note on the text -- Introduction: really existing democracy -- Political names -- Transformations of the political -- Defining the political theatre -- Overview -- Notes -- 1 The move to neoliberalism -- Shock therapy -- Corporeal readings -- Teatr na lewo -- Notes -- 2 No more heroes -- Eschewing patriotism -- Contesting Romanticism -- Solidarity in dispute -- Notes -- 3 Beyond a teatr kobiecy -- Difficult optimism -- Gendered subjects -- Beyond the nuclear -- Notes -- 4 Gay emancipation and queer counterpublics -- Producing counterpublics -- Challenging politics -- Future potentials -- Notes -- 5 Rethinking Polish/Jewish relations -- Memory and repetition -- Who is our class? -- Collusion and guilt -- Dybbuks -- Postmemory -- Polin/Polonia -- Notes -- 6 Equivalencies of exclusion -- In Desert and Wilderness -- Phallic divestiture -- Trans-European migration -- Notes -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index After '89 takes as its subject the dynamic new range of performance practices that have been developed since the demise of communism in the flourishing theatrical landscape of Poland. After 1989, the theatre has retained its historical role as the crucial space for debating and interrogating cultural and political identities. Providing access to scholarship and criticism not readily accessible to an English-speaking readership, this study surveys the rebirth of the theatre as a site of public intervention and social criticism since the establishment of democracy and the proliferation of theatre makers that have flaunted cultural commonplaces and begged new questions of Polish culture. Lease argues that the most significant change in performance practice after 1989 has been from opposition to the state to a more pluralistic practice that engages with marginalized identities purposefully left out of the rhetoric of freedom and independence. After '89 takes as its subject the dynamic new range of performance practices that have been developed since the demise of communism in the flourishing theatrical landscape of Poland. After 1989, the theatre has retained its historical role as the crucial space for debating and interrogating cultural and political identities. Providing access to scholarship and criticism not readily accessible to an English-speaking readership, this study surveys the rebirth of the theatre as a site of public intervention and social criticism since the establishment of democracy and the proliferation of theatre makers that have flaunted cultural commonplaces and begged new questions of Polish culture. Lease argues that the most significant change in performance practice after 1989 has been from opposition to the state to a more pluralistic practice that engages with marginalised identities purposefully left out of the rhetoric of freedom and independence. This Volume Provides An Exceptional Introduction To Polish Theatre Since The Fall Of Communism, Exploring How Theatre Goes Beyond Norms And Nationalistic Concepts To Intersect With Politics, Feminism, Queer Identities, The Rise In Anti-semitism, Ethnicities And History. Bryce Lease. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 205-215) And Index. This book provides an exceptional introduction to Polish theatre since the fall of communism, exploring how theatre goes beyond norms and nationalistic concepts to intersect with politics, feminism, queer identities, the rise in anti-Semitism, ethnicities and history. -- .