States of emergency: performing crisis

Abstract

The crisis of theatre might well be its constant condition, determined by its own fatigue and opportunism, the economic constraints of show biz, the fragility of the inspiring artistic talent tending to slide into routine, and orchestrated by the overwhelming indifference to theatre of most potential viewers. But the theatre of crisis, the theatricalization of a crisis is no fancy and no myth but a viable option, given some distance, necessary for the collective and individual memory of the traumatizing experience to settle only to be unsettled again by the strikes of the stage acts. And the theatre of crisis, be it war, hunger, epidemics or civil unrest, can make sense if the artists focus not on the unfolding tragedy itself but on the ways it is being presented, reported, perceived and metaphorized by other dominant discourses.