The first issue of Amfiteater journal in 2022 brings alarge thematic block on Contemporary Drama after the year 2000. The thematic part is complemented by two discussions, each of which in its own way completes it. Matic Kocjančič analyses the productions of Sophocles’s Antigone on Slovenian professional stages, and Luka Benedičič reopens the theme of the ethical and political dimension of theatre by attempting to link Brecht’s notion of Gestus with ritual and taboo.
Radical changes are taking place in 21st-century drama in Slovenia, as well as elsewhere in Europe and the Western world. The relationship between the dramatic text and the stage is becoming more and more complex, swinging from the text to the theatrical event. Several of the approaches or perspectives on the dramatic text are intertwined, interchange and produce new challenges for both playwriting and performance.
Published papers raise four fundamental themes:
- How do we analyse a theatrical event for which the text is only a starting point and is essentially determined by an autopoietic feedback loop? How do we approach these performance texts at all?
- To what extent is post-dramatic theatre really a break, or can its break with representation be traced back to the tradition of metadrama?
- How radically does post-dramatic theatre break with some of the fundamental elements of drama theory (e.g., with dramatic character)?
- What are the characteristics of form and contents in plays written by the youngest generation of the so-called millennials?
Aleksandra Jovičević, who researches contemporary performance texts, opens the first topic. She argues that such analyses must consider both the changes in the textual template in the performance and the active role of the audience, who co-creates this hypertext. This reflection is complemented by studies by Zuzana Timčíková, Zala Dobovšek and Hana Strejčková.
Lada Čale Feldman opens the second theme as she discusses the contradiction between representation and presentation in post-dramatic theatre and wonders whether a departure from representation could be found already in metadramatic texts of the past. Similar themes are analysed by Krištof Jacek Kozak and Lara Jerkovič.
Jure Gantar outlines the third theme with a reflection on dramatic character, which in post-dramatic theatre is disintegrating or becoming more and more fragmented, yet in post-dramatic comedy seems not entirely the case. Pavel Ocepek and Hanna Veselovska analyse different thematic issues of contemporary drama.
The fourth theme is first discussed by Lucija Ljubić and Martina Petranović with an analysis of the poetic tendencies in contemporary Croatian drama. Varja Hrvatin, Maša Radi Buh and Jakob Ribič and Benjamin Zajc also discuss the texts of the youngest generation of writers.
This issue unpacks many issues and draws a complex picture of playwriting over the last twenty years.
O Contemporary Drama after the Yer 2000
Articles
Contemporary Drama after the Year 2000
Aleksandra Jovičević
From Stage to Page: New Forms of the Performance Text
Lada Čale Feldman
Jure Gantar
The Death of Character in Postdramatic Comedy
Lucija Ljubić, Martina Petranović
Poetic Tendences in Contemporary Croatian Playwriting
Krištof Jacek Kozak
Post-postdramatic Reincarnations of Classic Tragedies: Jelinek, Hertmans, Möderndorfer
Lara Jerković
Dramatic Form and the Ethnical Dimension of the Text the feast by Simona Semenič
Pavel Ocepek
The Sexually Liberated Woman: Sexuality and Sexual Cultures in T Simone Semenič
Zuzana Timičková
Authenticity in Authorial Works of Devised Theatre: Approaches of the Millennials
Zala Dobovšek
The Bailiff Jernej (2018): Documentary Representation of Poverty and Social Shame
Hana Strejčková
Hanna Veselovska
The 21st Century Drama and the New Reality of Social Networks
Varja Hrvatin, Maša Radi Buh, Jakob Ribič
Benjamin Zajc
The Substance of Millennial Playwriting in Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia
Articles
Matic Kocijančič
Sophocles’s Antigone on Slovenian Professional Stages
Luka Benedičič
Gestus and Taboo: A Study of Bertolt Brecht
Essays
Ivanka Apostolova Baskar
Ljudmil Dimitrov
Editor-in-Chief: Gašper Troha, PhD, Assist. Prof. (University of Ljubljana)
Editorial Board: Zala Dobovšek, PhD (University of Ljubljana), Primož Jesenko, MA (Slovenian Theatre Institute), Matic Kocijančič, PhD (Slovenian Theatre Institute), Bojana Kunst, PhD, Prof. (Justus-Liebig University Gießen, DE), Blaž Lukan, PhD, Assist. Prof. (University of Ljubljana), Aldo Milohnić, PhD, Assoc. Prof. (University of Ljubljana), Maja Murnik, PhD (Institute of New Media Art and Electronic Literature), Barbara Orel, PhD, Prof. (University of Ljubljana), Mateja Pezdirc Bartol, PhD, Prof. (University of Ljubljana), Maja Šorli, PhD (University of Ljubljana), Tomaž Toporišič, PhD, Prof. (University of Ljubljana)
International Editorial Board: Mark Amerika, MFA (University of Colorado, US), Marin Blažević, PhD, Assoc. Prof. (Sveučilište u Zagrebu, HR), Ramsay Burt, PhD (De Montfort University, GB), Joshua Edelman, PhD (Manchester Metropolitan University, GB), Jure Gantar, PhD (Dalhousie University, CA), Anna Maria Monteverdi, PhD (Università degli Studi di Milano, IT), Janelle Reinelt, PhD (The University of Warwick, GB), Anneli Saro, PhD (Tartu Űlikool, EE), Miško Šuvaković, PhD, Prof. (Univerzitet Singidunum, RS), Stephen Elliot Wilmer, Prof. (Trinity College Dublin, IE)
Published by: Slovenian Theatre Institute (represented by Mojca Kreft, Director) and University of Ljubljana, Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television (represented by Tomaž Gubenšek, Dean)