On Regie, Directing & Dramaturgy by Peter M . Boenisch
Directing Scenes and Senses: The Thinking of Regie
As European theatre directors become a familiar presence on international stages and a new genera... more As European theatre directors become a familiar presence on international stages and a new generation of theatre makers absorbs their impulses, this study develops fresh perspectives on Regie, the Continental European tradition of staging playtexts. Leaving behind unhelpful clichés that pit, above all, the director against the playwright, Peter M. Boenisch stages playful encounters between Continental theatre and Continental philosophy.
The contemporary Regie work of Thomas Ostermeier, Frank Castorf, Ivo van Hove, Guy Cassiers, tg STAN, and others, here meets the works of Friedrich Schiller and Leopold Jessner, Hegelian speculative dialectics, and the critical philosophy of Jacques Rancière and Slavoj Žižek in order to explore the thinking of Regie – how to think Regie, and how Regie thinks. This partial and ‘sideways look’ invites a wider reconsideration of the potential of ‘playing’ theatre today, of its aesthetic possibilities, and its political stakes in the global neoliberal economy of the twenty-first century.
'We all have difficulty understanding the differences between directing, staging, devising, performing, or between performance and mise en scène. Peter Boenisch’s new book on Regie discusses how contemporary theatre-makers engage with plays, materials or events that they want to 'put on stage'. As theatre-goers are themselves more and more expected to 'stage' their own impressions and insights, this is a most timely and necessary book for anyone interested in contemporary European theatre.'
Patrice Pavis, Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Kent
Contents:
Preface. The dissensus of Regie: Re-thinking “directors’ theatre”I. Mise en scène to mise en sens: Towards an aesthetic politics of Regie
1. Regie beyond representation: Directing the ‘sensible’
2. The restless spirit of Regie: Hegel, theatrality, and the magic of speculative thinking
3. Theatre as dialectic institution: Friedrich Schiller and the liberty of play
4. The essence of the text and its actualisation: Leopold Jessner, the playwright’s radical servant
II. The theatral appearing of ideas: Regie in contemporary European theatre
5. The tremor of speculative negation: On Regie, truth, and ex-position
6. Seeing what is coming: On Regie, playing, and appearing
7. The intermedial parallax: On Regie, media, and spectating
8. Theatre in the age of semiocapitalism: On Regie, realism, and political critique
Afterthought: The future of Regie?
The contemporary Regie work of Thomas Ostermeier, Frank Castorf, Ivo van Hove, Guy Cassiers, tg STAN, and others, here meets the works of Friedrich Schiller and Leopold Jessner, Hegelian speculative dialectics, and the critical philosophy of Jacques Rancière and Slavoj Žižek in order to explore the thinking of Regie – how to think Regie, and how Regie thinks. This partial and ‘sideways look’ invites a wider reconsideration of the potential of ‘playing’ theatre today, of its aesthetic possibilities, and its political stakes in the global neoliberal economy of the twenty-first century.
'We all have difficulty understanding the differences between directing, staging, devising, performing, or between performance and mise en scène. Peter Boenisch’s new book on Regie discusses how contemporary theatre-makers engage with plays, materials or events that they want to 'put on stage'. As theatre-goers are themselves more and more expected to 'stage' their own impressions and insights, this is a most timely and necessary book for anyone interested in contemporary European theatre.'
Patrice Pavis, Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Kent
Contents:
Preface. The dissensus of Regie: Re-thinking “directors’ theatre”I. Mise en scène to mise en sens: Towards an aesthetic politics of Regie
1. Regie beyond representation: Directing the ‘sensible’
2. The restless spirit of Regie: Hegel, theatrality, and the magic of speculative thinking
3. Theatre as dialectic institution: Friedrich Schiller and the liberty of play
4. The essence of the text and its actualisation: Leopold Jessner, the playwright’s radical servant
II. The theatral appearing of ideas: Regie in contemporary European theatre
5. The tremor of speculative negation: On Regie, truth, and ex-position
6. Seeing what is coming: On Regie, playing, and appearing
7. The intermedial parallax: On Regie, media, and spectating
8. Theatre in the age of semiocapitalism: On Regie, realism, and political critique
Afterthought: The future of Regie?
The Play of Regie Some notes on a new theory of Regie, prompted by contemporary directions in German “directors’ theatre”
Reclaiming Regietheater: The Dialectics of Directing
Regie, i.e. the collaborative mise en scène of a playtext, in particular from the canonical drama... more Regie, i.e. the collaborative mise en scène of a playtext, in particular from the canonical dramatic repertoire, staged by an ensemble of resident artists, usually at one of the publicly funded theatres of Continental Europe, is regularly met with harsh rejection, especially by Anglo-American audiences and critics. Or, the very same directors pathologically rejected by some, find themselves idolised by others as prophets of the theatre of the future. Quite curiously, the same pathology emerges at the faultlines of the Anglo-American pragmatic tradition of realist, analytic thinking, and Continental speculative philosophy. My paper draws on this fascinating parallel world of rejections and allegiances that interlinks the present vogue and concurrent hatred of figures such as, say, Jacques Rancière and Thomas Ostermeier. I will outline my attempts to reframe the discourse on “directors’ theatre” by offering a perspective that avoids the persistent slippage into a handful of clichéd criteria, such as ‘authorship’ and ‘truthfulness’. Disappointingly, or perhaps not so, my argument will suggest that far from being simple translations in different languages, the terms Regie, directing and mise en scène in fact disclose three fundamentally different ‘partitions of the sensible’, which is why any assertion of a general, universal principle of ‘theatre directing’ must remain futile.
Peter M Boenisch is Professor of European Theatre at the University of Kent, where he was, with Paul Allain and Patrice Pavis, one of the founding co-directors of the European Theatre Research Network (ETRN). His primary interest is in the intersections between aesthetics and politics in contemporary theatre, drawing on critical philosophy by Hegel, Žižek, Rancière and others. His research focuses on directing, mise en scène, Regie and dramaturgy, with a particular focus on the German- and Dutch-speaking European countries. He currently completes a monograph Regie: Directing Scenes and Senses in European Theatre, and prepares a book on German theatre director Thomas Ostermeier. At Kent, he is involved in the new interdisciplinary Critical Thought Research Centre.
Peter M Boenisch is Professor of European Theatre at the University of Kent, where he was, with Paul Allain and Patrice Pavis, one of the founding co-directors of the European Theatre Research Network (ETRN). His primary interest is in the intersections between aesthetics and politics in contemporary theatre, drawing on critical philosophy by Hegel, Žižek, Rancière and others. His research focuses on directing, mise en scène, Regie and dramaturgy, with a particular focus on the German- and Dutch-speaking European countries. He currently completes a monograph Regie: Directing Scenes and Senses in European Theatre, and prepares a book on German theatre director Thomas Ostermeier. At Kent, he is involved in the new interdisciplinary Critical Thought Research Centre.
Critical Stages, Dec 29, 2012
Maintaining a central focus on the performance as principal object of analysis, her emphasis has ... more Maintaining a central focus on the performance as principal object of analysis, her emphasis has now, however, shifted from an analysis of the (semiotic) structure of the work to the (largely phenomenal) event of the performance itself, or in German terms: from a structural dissection of the Inszenierung towards an experiential recording of the individual Aufführung. The latter became, not only for Fischer-Lichte, the core aspect that signifies theatre as an art form. She firmly locates the characteristic of theatre's specific mediality in what she describes as the 'bodily co-presence of actors and spectators.' The classic semiotic investigation of the production, communication and reception of meaning is hence transferred to what Fischer-Lichte calls the 'emergence' of a meaning localized directly within spectating considered as active participation in the process of making meaning, stimulated by an 'exchange of energies' and 'bodily sensing' (leibliches Spüren) (cf Fischer-Lichte 2008, Ch. 5, "The Emergence of Meaning,. In place of the traditional idea of a unidirectional transfer of meaning from a single 'sender' (in our case, the playwright or director) to many receivers, Fischer-Lichte now posits a dynamic 'auto-poietic feedback loop' that connects the stage with the auditorium, and the performers with the spectators.
Acts of Spectating: The Dramaturgy of the Audience’s Experience in Contemporary Theatre (reprint 2014)
, in Katalin Trencsényi and Bernadette Cochrane, eds, New Dramaturgy: International Perspectives on Theory and Practice. London: Methuen, 2014, 225-41. ISBN 978-1-4081-7709-9.
Towards a theatre of encounter and experience: Reflexive dramaturgies and classic texts
Contemporary Theatre Review, 2010
Theatre in the UK has today become predicated, to a degree unknown to other European theatre cult... more Theatre in the UK has today become predicated, to a degree unknown to other European theatre cultures, on the ossified antagonism of supposedly innovative experiments with bodies and images on the one hand, and text-based theatre on the other, which, for ...
Exposing the classics: Michael Thalheimer's Regie beyond the text 1
Contemporary Theatre Review, 2008
Within half a decade, the trained actor Michael Thalheimer (b. 1965, Frankfurt, Main) has become ... more Within half a decade, the trained actor Michael Thalheimer (b. 1965, Frankfurt, Main) has become a celebrated (and controversial) shooting star of German theatre, rising from an insider's tip directing in the regions to be appointed Artistic Co-Director of Deutsches Theater Berlin in 2005. ...
Thomas Ostermeier: Mission Neo(n)realism and a theatre of actors and authors
Contemporary European Theatre Directors, 2010
... (Schaubühne 2000: 15) German theatre history of the twentieth century thus, in a curious way,... more ... (Schaubühne 2000: 15) German theatre history of the twentieth century thus, in a curious way, came full circle. ... By the fin de siècle, this spirit had waned. ... actresses of Peter Stein's Schaubühne era back to their old stage, with Kirsten Dene (as Gunhild) and Angela Winkler (as ...
Jan Fabres Affirmationsfalle: von der (Un-) Möglichkeit politischen Theaters im Zeitalter der Toleranz
... Von Peter M Boenisch und Christel Stalpaert Was Jan Fabre dem Publikum seiner Orgy of Toleran... more ... Von Peter M Boenisch und Christel Stalpaert Was Jan Fabre dem Publikum seiner Orgy of Tolerance mit Nachdruck ins Gedächtnis brennt, ist ... Christel Stalpaert ist Professorin für Theaterwissenschaft am Department für Performance Studies der Universität Gent in Belgien. ...
On Performance Philosophy by Peter M . Boenisch
Who's Watching? Me! - Theatrality, Spectatorship and the Zizekian Subject
Broderick Chow and Alex Mangold, eds, Žižek & Performance, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave 2014, 48-60. ISBN 9781137410900., 2014
This chapter outlines a Žižekian analysis of theatre performance that goes beyond disclosing the ... more This chapter outlines a Žižekian analysis of theatre performance that goes beyond disclosing the ideological workings of the symbolic and imaginary orders at the level of plots, characters, and representation. Linking Žižek’s revision of Hegelian (negative) subjectivity with approaches from German ‘theatrality studies’, I instead focus on the (formal) level of theatral presentation. Discussing Flemish director Guy Cassiers’s intermedial production of Robert Musil’s novel The Man Without Qualities (2009-12), I argue that the dynamic force of ‘thea’ creates a reflexive experiential loop of ‘watching ourselves watching’. This induces a parallax split, which dramatizes the negative dialectic force of Hegelian-Žižekian subjectivity.
On Thomas Ostermeier by Peter M . Boenisch
‘The More Political We Are, the Better We Sell’: A Conversation about the Political Potential of Directing Classical Drama and the Nasty Traps of Today’s Cultural Industry’
Performance Paradigm 10 (2014), 2014
On German Theatre by Peter M . Boenisch
Jews and the Making of Modern German Theatre
Contemporary Theatre Review, 2012
Page 1. JEWS nnD THE MAKING OF MODERN GERMAN THEATRE EDITED BV JEANETTE R . MALKIN &a... more Page 1. JEWS nnD THE MAKING OF MODERN GERMAN THEATRE EDITED BV JEANETTE R . MALKIN & FREDDIE RDKEM STUDIES IN THEATRE HISTORV AND CULTURE Page 2. Jews and the Making of Modern German Theatre Page 3. ...
• ‘What happened to our Nation of Culture? Staging the theatre of the Other Germany ‘, in Nadine Holdsworth, ed., Theatre and National Identity: Re-Imagining Conceptions of Nation, Abingdon and New York: Routledge 2014, 145-160, ISBN 978-0-415-82299-2
On intermediality by Peter M . Boenisch
Theater als Medium der Moderne? Zum Verhältnis von Medientechnologien und Bühne im 20. Jahrhundert
Boenisch, PM (2003) Theater als Medium der Moderne? Zum Verhältnis von Medientechnologien und Büh... more Boenisch, PM (2003) Theater als Medium der Moderne? Zum Verhältnis von Medientechnologien und Bühne im 20. Jahrhundert. In: Balme, Christopher and Fischer-Lichte, Erika and Gratzel, Stephan, eds. Theater als Paradigma der Moderne? Positionen zwischen historischer ...
Mediation Unfinished. Choreographing Intermediality in Contemporary Dance Performance
Mediation Unfinished. Choreographing Intermediality in Contemporary Dance Performance.Boenisch, P... more Mediation Unfinished. Choreographing Intermediality in Contemporary Dance Performance.Boenisch, PM (2006) Mediation Unfinished. Choreographing Intermediality in Contemporary Dance Performance. In: Kattenbelt, Chiel and Chapple, Freda, eds. ...
Aesthetic art to aisthetic act. Theatre, media, intermedial performance
Aesthetic art to aisthetic act. Theatre, media, intermedial performance. Boenisch, PM (2006) Aest... more Aesthetic art to aisthetic act. Theatre, media, intermedial performance. Boenisch, PM (2006) Aesthetic art to aisthetic act. Theatre, media, intermedial performance. In: Kattenbelt, Chiel and Chapple, Freda, eds. Intermediality in Theatre and Performance. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. ...
coMEDIA electrONica: Performing Intermediality in Contemporary Theatre
Theatre Research International, 2003
... Page 12. 6 Herbert Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy. The ... conveyer. As we cannot esc... more ... Page 12. 6 Herbert Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy. The ... conveyer. As we cannot escape from the time axis, we focused first on the time.' (Ishiyama) 17 See KodwoEshun, More Brilliant Than The Sun (London: Quartet, 1998). ...
Choreographing Intermediality in Contemporary Dance: William Forsythe, Xavier Le Roy, Lynda Gaudreau
On Dance by Peter M . Boenisch
ElectrONic bodies. Corpo-realities in contemporary dance performance
Moving Bodies. Performance Research, 2003
ElectrONic bodies. Corpo-realities in contemporary dance performance. Boenisch, PM (2003) ElectrO... more ElectrONic bodies. Corpo-realities in contemporary dance performance. Boenisch, PM (2003) ElectrONic bodies. Corpo-realities in contemporary dance performance. Moving Bodies. Performance Research, 8 (4). 33 -41. ISSN 0-415-32133-6. ...