Amfiteater Journal of Performing Arts Theory
International Academic Symposium
Comedy Survival
5 and 6 October 2023
Slovenian Theatre Institute, Ljubljana
In 1961, George Steiner finally buried the tragedy. After several centuries of crisis and the slow death of the once most prestigious drama genre, even the staunchest defenders of the traditional division of genres finally had to admit that the Aristotelian dichotomy no longer exists on modern stages. The process of its theoretical abolition (in theater practice, of course, the division was never completely consistent), which was first started by the romantics in their reaction to classicism, was completed by the last of the modernists, the absurd dramatists. By emphasizing tragicomedy and grotesque, the binary opposition tragedy-comedy, which with its iconography has even become the most recognizable visual symbol of the theater, was successfully put into the dustbin of literary history.
However, even a very superficial look at the theater repertoires of the third millennium quickly shows that at least comedy survived the attempt to abolish it. Although in the postmodern environment it is supposed to be replaced by more elusive genre texts, comedy, even that which is described in the theater papers without an adjective and is only interested in entertaining the audience, still regularly appears on the stage. Moreover, in many respects comedy has remained more or less unchanged since the first plays of Aristophanes, Menander, Plautus, and Terence. Even avant-garde authors and experimental theaters, for example Charles Ludlam or 26000 couverts, return again and again to well-tested comic characters and forms. Does this mean that there is no symmetry in dramatic genres?
If Jacques Derrida is right when he says that "texts without genre do not exist" and immediately adds that "such participation does not mean belonging", then the tenacity of comedy could be explained simply as a consequence of the fact that, in principle, it is only interested in participation – the participation of the audience with laughter – and that he never strives to belong. Comedy is a genre that exists only in the here and now, which its viewers can only fully understand in a certain historical moment and cultural context. In all other cases, he necessarily adapts: either to language differences or to a foreign environment and new social conditions. And that is precisely why it is so well prepared for survival. While even such popular and important literary genres as tragedy or epic have slowly lost their validity and often eventually even disappeared, comedy continues to successfully defy the pressures of development.
This year's Amphitheater Symposium will therefore primarily be interested in the following research questions:
• How did theater comedy react to the emergence of new media (film, radio, television, internet)?
• What's really new in new forms of comedy like sketch, standup, and improv?
• Is comedy necessarily liberating, or is it actually always defending mediocrity?
• Did the decline of modern rationalism and Enlightenment ideas affect the development of comedy?
• Will the culture of cancellation ("cancel culture") also succeed in canceling the sense of humor?
• Can comedy survive a stage crash?
• How does comedy deal, or should it deal, with difficult topics and content?
• How is social criticism and/or political activism manifested through comedy?
• Does the comic subject change or remain static?
• Normalization of comic characters in modern drama
• Types of comedians in modern Slovenian comedy
• Intimate and social in contemporary Slovenian comedy
• Philosophical and sociological views on comedy
• How is the attitude towards the body and the physical manifested in grotesque theatre/drama?
• What is the modern grotesque?
• Is there still an interest in the grotesque today or is it a category committed to romantic (Wolfgang Kayser) and (post)modernist understanding of the world (carnivalism - Bakhtin)?
PROGRAMME
Thursday, October 5, 2023
10:00 a.m
Welcome addresses:
order prof. Tomaž Gubenšek, UL AGRFT
Gašper Troha, PhD, SLOGI
10.20
Plenary lecture
Lada Čale Feldman: Alceste à bicyclette and Molière's Melancholic Comedy - Rejuvenation or Shutdown?
11.10: discussion
11:30 a.m.: coffee break
11:45 a.m
First session
Moderator: Maja Murnik
Lyudmil Dimitrov: Chekhov: the birth of comedy from the living corpse of tragedy
Mateja Pezdirc Bartol: Gender stereotypes in contemporary Slovenian comedy
Tomaž Toporišič: Paratactic absurdism and (no longer) dramatic comedy from Jesih to Semenič and beyond
12.45: discussion
13.15: lunch
15:00
Second session
Moderator: Jure Gantar
Radka Kunderová: Numb laughter? Comedy and politics in Peter Léblo's staging of Our Bullies
Gašper Troha: Socially critical potential of comedy on the example of ecological themes
Ana Kocjančič: Edmond Audran: La Mascotte (Lucky girl), an operetta that became a modern commedia dell'arte under the direction of Bratko Kreft (1905–1996)
Martina Peštaj, Benjamin Zajc: Comedy in art for children and young people: how children and young people perceive and respond to humour
16.20: discussion
16.45: coffee break
17:00-18:30
Roundtable on comedy with guests: Gregor Moder, Iva Š. Glossary
Moderator: Jakob Ribič
Friday, October 6, 2023
10:00 a.m
Plenary lecture
Jure Gantar: Anatomy of a fiasco
10.50: discussion
11.10: coffee break
11:30 a.m
Third session
Moderator: Gašper Troha
Jakob Ribic: Brecht and comedy
Maša Radi Buh, Nik Žnidaršič: Where are the boundaries? – cancel culture ("cancel culture") and comedy
Oleami only: Improvisational comedy beyond unification on the lowest common denominators - the practice of Maja Dekleva Lapajna
12.30: discussion
13.00: closing discussion of the symposium
Videos of the symposium
Symposium leader: Jure Gantar
Preparatory committee: Jure Gantar, Mateja Pezdirc Bartol, Blaž Lukan, Maja Murnik, Gregor Moder, Gašper Troha, Miha Čepeljnik
Contact:
Maja Murnik
Slovenian Theater Institute (SLOGI)
Mestni trg 17, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
E amphiteater@slogi.si
T +386 31 504 432
The symposium is organised by:
Slovenian Theater Institute (SLOGI) is a national public institution founded in 2014
as the legal successor of the Slovenian Theater Museum. The institute's mission is the development of theater culture and the promotion of theater art, which is realized through research, study, interpretation, promotion, preservation, documentation and presentation of Slovenian theater culture, theater heritage and theater art in the Slovenian and international space.
Academy for Theatre, Radio, Film and Television of the University of Ljubljana performs educational, artistic and research work in the field of theatre, radio, film and television. From its founding in 1945 until 1975, it operated as an independent higher education institution with a rector, after which it became a member of the University of Ljubljana. Amphitheater is a scientific journal that publishes original articles in the field of performing arts in a wide range from dramatic theatre, drama, dance, performance to hybrid arts. Authors can analyze the forms and contents of works of art and artistic phenomena from the field of performing arts, their history, present and future, as well as their relationship to other artistic fields and the wider (social, cultural, political...) context.
The symposium is being prepared in cooperation with UL AGRFT within the framework of the research program Theater and inter-art research (P6-0376), which is co-financed by the Public Research Agency of the Republic of Slovenia from the state budget.
