Theatre of Real People: Diverse Encounters at Berlin’s Hebbel am Ufer and Beyond

Description

Theatre of Real People offers fresh perspectives on the current fascination with putting people on stage who present aspects of their own lives and who are not usually trained actors. After providing a history of this mode of performance, and theoretical frameworks for its analysis, the book focuses on work developed by seminal practitioners at Berlin’s Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) production house. It invites the reader to explore the HAU’s innovative approach to Theatre of Real People, authenticity and cultural diversity during the period of Matthias Lilienthal’s leadership (2003–12). Garde and Mumford also elucidate how Theatre of Real People can create and destabilise a sense of the authentic, and suggest how Authenticity-Effects can present new ways of perceiving diverse and unfamiliar people. Through a detailed analysis of key HAU productions such as Lilienthal’s brainchild X-Apartments, Mobile Academy’s Blackmarket, and Rimini Protokoll’s 100% City, the book explores both the artistic agenda of an important European theatre institution, and a crucial aspect of contemporary theatre’s social engagement. Cover page Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Dedication page Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction Setting the scene The Theatre of Real People mode and Authenticity-Effects Authenticity-Effects and the unfamiliar A new approach to Theatre of Real People and its social engagement Conceptual frameworks and methods Objects and structure of the analysis Notes 1 A Historical Perspective on Theatre of Real People First wave: socially useful art and cultures of authenticity Second wave: counter-culture and theatricalization of everyday life Third wave: socio-economic crises, global mobility, and cultures of artifice 2 Theatre of Real People at the HAU A realist credo Approaches to the real and Theatre of Real People at the HAU Note 3 Theatre and Authenticity-Effects The idealizing approach to Authenticity-Eff ectsand its critics Sceptical approaches to Authenticity-Effects: potential invitations and outcomes Authenticity-Effects and recent German theatre theory and practice Comparing Authenticity-Effects withreality effects and V-effects 4 Encounters with Cultural Diversity at the HAU Discourses about a changing world and the HAU Negotiating the opportunities and pitfalls of cultural encounter Note 5 Berliners with an ‘Authenticity Guarantee’:Cultural Complexity in 100% Berlin and 100% City The individual versus the collective in 100% Berlin Celebrating the Hebbel Theater with 100% Berlin 100% City: an evolving format Developing a playful destabilization of Authenticity-Effects in 100% Melbourne Challenging audience expectations of authenticity Vulnerability and authenticity 6 Meeting Unfamiliar Residents in Berlin: Playing with Frames of Reference in X-Apartments Removing clear frames of reference for the audience Ayşe Polat’s production: Frau Barthelmess’s flat in Reichenbergerstraße, Lichtenberg ‘Authentic’ encounters with diverse unfamiliar people in Lichtenberg Fatih Akın and Feridun Zaimoglu’s God’s Warriors (Gottes Krieger) Voyeurism and the unfamiliar close-by in X-Apartments 2004 and 2008 7 Unsettling Journey into the Unfamiliar: Ambiguous Guides to the City in CallCutta: Mobile Phone Theatre Encounters with unfamiliar call-centre performers in India Encountering the unfamiliar within one’s own culture through a German-Indian story 8 Getting Closer to the Subjects of Migration: Partial Proximity in Blackmarket No. 7 and Mr Dağaçar and the Golden Tectonics of Trash Blackmarket encounter with the (culturally)unfamiliar and an alternate economy Rimini Protokoll’s encounter with the precarious stranger Partial proximity, distance, and a destabilizing approach to Authenticity-Effects Inviting alternative encounters with the unfamiliar through (un)mediated dialogue, partially genuine texts, and semi-graspable language Overt artistry and partial proximity Conclusion Authenticity-Effects and encounter with the unfamiliar at the HAU Theatre of Real People and socio-political potential: some criticisms and opportunities Bibliography Index