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THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION
TO CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN
THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE
Ralf Remshardt is an Emeritus Professor of Theatre in the School of Theatre and Dance at
the University of Florida, USA.
Aneta Mancewicz is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance Studies at Royal Hol-
loway, University of London, UK.
THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION
TO CONTEMPORARY
EUROPEAN THEATRE
AND PERFORMANCE
Edited by
Ralf Remshardt and Aneta Mancewicz
Designed cover image: Winterreise, by Yael Ronen & EXIL ENSEMBLE.
Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, 2017 © Ute Langkafel
First published 2024
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2024 selection and editorial matter, Ralf Remshardt and Aneta
Mancewicz; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Ralf Remshardt and Aneta Mancewicz to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
DOI: 10.4324/9781003082538
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
CONTENTS
PART I
Mapping the continent 11
1 Albania 13
Ermir Jonka and Evi Stamatiou
2 Austria 18
Brigitte Marschall and Gabriele C. Pfeiffer
3 Belarus 25
Tania Arcimovich
4 Belgium 31
Karel Vanhaesebrouck and Kurt Vanhoutte
6 Bulgaria 44
Kamelia Nikolova
v
Contents
7 Croatia 51
Una Bauer and Goran Pavlić
8 Cyprus (Greek) 56
Maria Hamali
9 Czech Republic 61
David Drozd
10 Denmark 66
Annelis Kuhlmann
11 Estonia 73
Anneli Saro
12 Finland 79
Hanna Korsberg
13 France 85
Eliane Beaufils
14 Germany 94
Peter W. Marx
15 Greece 102
Avra Sidiropoulou
16 Hungary 109
Jozefina Komporaly
17 Iceland 116
Magnús Thór Thorbergsson
18 Ireland 122
Tanya Dean
19 Israel 130
Naphtaly Shem-Tov
20 Italy 136
Anna Maria Cimitile
21 Kosovo 144
Jeton Neziraj
vi
Contents
22 Latvia 149
Zane Kreicberga
23 Lithuania 156
Jurgita Staniškytė
24 Malta 163
Vicki Ann Cremona
25 Moldova 168
Paula Erizanu
26 Montenegro 173
Janko Ljumović
29 Norway 188
Ine Therese Berg
30 Poland 196
Marcin Kościelniak
31 Portugal 203
Francesca Rayner
32 Romania 209
Jozefina Komporaly
33 Russia 216
Julia Listengarten
34 Serbia 224
Maja Milatović-Ovadia
35 Slovakia 229
Ján Šimko
36 Slovenia 234
Barbara Orel
vii
Contents
37 Spain 239
Simon Breden
38 Sweden 247
Rikard Hoogland
39 Switzerland 254
Beate Hochholdinger-Reiterer
40 Türkiye 261
Seda Ilter
41 Ukraine 267
Olga Danylyuk
PART II
Charting themes 285
A. Context 287
43 1989 and after: East-West intercurrents at the turn of the millennium 288
Vessela S. Warner
viii
Contents
58 Regietheater 394
Peter M. Boenisch
ix
Contents
x
Contents
PART III
Surveying the creators 515
77 Gianina Cărbunariu, D
irector-Playwright 531
Cristina Modreanu
79 dreamthinkspeak 544
Rebecca McCutcheon
xi
Contents
92 The theatre of Rimas Tuminas: Play, romanticism, and the absurd 636
Ramunė Balevičiūtė
Index 655
xii
FIGURES
48.1 A police vehicle turned upside down and graffitied. June 2, 2013. Photo:
Işıl Eğrikavuk 324
51.1 Oslo Opera House. Photo courtesy of Snøhetta 346
52.1 Immer noch Sturm by Peter Handke, director: Dimiter Gotscheff,
scenography: Katrin Brack, Thalia Theater Hamburg, 2011. Photo: Armin
Smailovic 355
52.2 Service/No Service (partial view), Bert Neumann Estate/Volksbühne
Berlin, distinguished with the Special Award of the Prague Quadrennial
Jury, 2019. Photo: S. Kloevekorn 356
52.3 Oracle, by Susanne Kennedy. AI project and immersive installation; spatial
concept by Markus Selg, 2020, produced by the Münchner Kammerspiele
in collaboration with Olhares Instituto Cultural and in cooperation with
BIG PICTURE GmbH and ONSEI GmbH. Photo: Judith Buss 357
57.1 The four Salomés in Reading Salomé, by Müller/R innert. Photo: Florian Krauss 391
79.1 dreamthinkspeak, Absent (2009−2016). Photo: Jim Stephenson 545
79.2 dreamthinkspeak, Don’t Look Back (2003−2008). Photo: Gideon Mendel 548
83.1 Hvorfor bliver det nat Mor (W hy does night come mother), 1989. Photo:
Roberto Fortuna 576
83.2 War Sum Up. Photo: Gunars Janaitis 578
85.1 La falsa suicida, by Angélica Liddell. Photo: ATRA BILIS 588
85.2 The Scarlet Letter. Photo: Bruno Simão 591
86.1 La Mélancholie des dragons, by Philippe Quesne. Photo: Martin Agyroglo 596
86.2 Crash Park, La vie d’une île, by Philippe Quesne. Photo: Martin Agyroglo 598
90.1 Testament. Photo: Dorothea Tuch 625
90.2 Hexploitation. Photo: Dorothea Tuch 627
xiii
CONTRIBUTORS
Tania Arcimovich is a PhD Candidate at the International Centre for the Study of Culture
( Justus-Liebig-Universität, Germany). She graduated from the Belarusian State Academy of
Arts in Minsk (H istory of Theatre) and received a Master’s in Sociology (Cultural Studies)
from the European Humanities University (Vilnius, Lithuania). Her articles about contem-
porary Belarusian theatre appeared in various Belarusian and international journals and book
series, such as Platform East European Performing Arts Companion, Status Research Platform, Peter-
burgskij Teatralnyj Zhurnal, pARTisan_ka, Zbor (Kalektar), and Blok magazine. Her book Belar-
usian Experimental Theatre in the Thaw Period: Between Modernism and Avant-garde (European
Humanities University, Vilnius, 2020) is published in Russian.
Katia Arfara is an Assistant Professor of Theatre, Performance Studies, New York University
Abu Dhabi, and an independent curator of performing and visual arts. She holds a PhD in Art
History, a BA in Classics, and a BA and MA in Theatre. As the Theatre and Dance Artistic
Director and Curator of the Onassis Stegi (2009–2019), she initiated and curated numerous inter-
national festivals at the intersection of art, science, and civic practice, such as the Fast Forward Fes-
tival. She is the author of Théâtralités contemporaines, the editor of ‘Scènes en transition-Balkans et
Grèce’ for Théâtre/Public, and the co-editor of Intermedial Performance and Politics in the Public Sphere.
Ramunė Balevičiūtė, PhD, is a theatre researcher and critic. She is an Associate Professor
of theatre studies and the v ice-rector for art and research at the Lithuanian Academy of Music
and Theatre. She is also the E ditor-in-Chief of the main Lithuanian theatre magazine Teatro
žurnalas. Besides academic articles, she has published two monographs: Henrikas Kačinskas
(2006) and Rimas Tuminas: Theatre More Real Than Life. Play in Rimas Tuminas’ Theatre (2012).
Together with Ramunė Marcinkevičiūtė, she edited the book in English titled Contemporary
Lithuanian Theatre. Names and Performances (2019). Her research areas of interest include act-
ing, artistic research, and theatre for young audiences.
Una Bauer is a theatre scholar and writer based in Croatia. She holds a PhD from Queen
Mary, University of London. She is an Assistant Professor at the Academy of Dramatic Art
(Zagreb). Her first book on theatre and everything else, including tea cosies and bicycles,
Priđite bliže: o kazalištu i drugim radostima (Come Closer: on Theatre and other Joys) was
xiv
Contributors
published in 2015. Her second book, a series of interviews with BADco. members, BADco.:
Vježbanje nemogućeg (BADco.: Practicing the Impossible) was published in 2021.
Eliane Beaufils is a habilitated Professor in Theatre and Performance Studies at the Uni-
versity Paris 8, and v ice-head of the doctoral school of the arts EDESTA. After her thesis on
‘Violence on Contemporary German Stages’, her research fields comprised European con-
temporary theatre and performance, mainly in relation to violence, war, poetry, resonance,
and the meaning and means of criticality today. Her most recent publication are Being With in
Contemporary Performing Arts (w ith E. Holling), Berlin: Neofelis, 2018; Scènes en partage (w ith
Alix de Morant), Montpellier: Deuxième Epoque, 2018; and in 2021 Touching by thinking.
Critical Stages and Poetic Resonance (Toucher par la pensée. Théâtres critiques et résonances poétiques,
Paris: Hermann, 2021. Since 2018 she has directed two research projects on ‘Theatre with
regard to the Climate Future’ and ‘Stages of possible worlds’.
Synne K. Behrndt is an Assistant Professor in Performing Arts at the University of the Arts,
Stockholm. She has published and presented papers and workshops on dramaturgy interna-
tionally. She is the c o-author of the book Dramaturgy and Performance (Palgrave, 2008/2016)
and a joint editor of Palgrave’s book series ‘New Dramaturgies’. As a dramaturg, she has
worked on devising and dance in the UK, Denmark, and Germany.
Ine Therese Berg is an Associate Professor in the Department of Drama and Theatre at the
Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. She completed her
PhD in 2020, examining audience participation in contemporary theatre and performance.
Berg has a broad background in the Norwegian and Nordic dance and theatre fields, with an
interest in strengthening the discourse on the art form through criticism, as well as debates,
seminars, and conferences. Her research explores intersections between institutional structures
and artistic practices, and the production of value across discursive contexts. From 2020 to 2021,
she authored a report on the dissemination of Norwegian performing arts in collaboration with
researchers at Telemark Research Institute. Her contribution to this volume was developed
while she worked as a curator of theatre history and performance for Oslo Museum in 2020.
Ruud van den Beuken is an Assistant Professor of English Literature at Radboud Uni-
versity Nijmegen (the Netherlands). He was awarded the 2015 New Scholars’ Prize by the
Irish Society for Theatre Research, and he held a Visiting Research Fellowship at the Moore
Institute (National University of Ireland, Galway) in 2018. His monograph Avant-Garde Na-
tionalism at the Dublin Gate Theatre, 1928–1940 was published by Syracuse UP in 2020. He
has also co-edited four volumes, including Cultural Convergence: The Dublin Gate Theatre,
1928–1960 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) and A Stage of Emancipation: Change and Progress at the
Dublin Gate Theatre (Liverpool UP, 2021).
xv
Contributors
Simon Breden is a translator, director, and Doctor Encargado at the Universidad de De-
usto, Spain. He has combined academia and theatre practice throughout his career. As a
translator, he has worked with The Gate Theatre and Royal Court Theatre in London and
the Teatro de la Abadía and Fundación Siglo de Oro in Spain. He is the author of The Creative
Process of Els Joglars and Teatro de la Abadía: Beyond the Playwright (Tamesis, 2014), Doctor Faustus
de Christopher Marlowe: creación, traducción y escena (Guillermo Escolar, 2017), and El Unity The-
atre y la Guerra Civil Española (Guillermo Escolar, 2020), and a number of articles including:
‘La presencia de Lope de Vega en El Ministerio del Tiempo’ for ProLope’s Anuario Lope de Vega
(2018); ‘El Lope era un figura: fingiendo lo verdadero’, in Cascajosa Virino’s book Dentro de
El Ministerio del Tiempo (2015); ‘Las transformaciones del diablo y su relación con el Gracioso
en el teatro del Siglo de Oro’ in INTI Revista de Literatura Hispánica (2016); and ‘El demonio
del teatro del Siglo de Oro en la escena contemporánea: la dificultad de montar El condenado
por desconfiado’ in Comedia Performance (2016).
Edith Cassiers has a PhD in Theatre Studies and Literary Studies from the University of
Antwerp and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) on the subject of theatrical creative pro-
cesses and director’s theatre. She is a Lecturer in performance analysis, performance history,
dramaturgy, acting training, and dance research at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp and
the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. In her research, she focuses on performance
(genesis) and womxn’s histories, feminisms, and queer studies. She works as a theatre-maker
and dramaturg for different national and international directors, choreographers, and the-
atre companies. Her writings have been published in different media, both academic and
non-academic.
xvi
Contributors
Dr Adam Czirak is a Senior Lecturer at the Department for Theatre Film and Media Stud-
ies at the University of Vienna. He wrote his dissertation on participative practices of looking
in intersubjective-based art and received a PhD in Theatre Studies at Freie Universität Ber-
lin. In 2020, he finished his habilitation project on the history of performance art in Eastern
Europe. Guest lectureships led him recently to Tokyo, Lisbon, and Budapest. His research
focuses on aesthetics of contemporary theatre and dance, dramaturgy, and performance art
in Eastern Europe. He works also as dramaturg in Naoko Tanaka’s and Doris Uhlich’s per-
formance productions.
Rui Pina Coelho is an Assistant Professor at the School of Arts and Humanities of the
University of Lisbon (Portugal), Head of the Centre for Theatre Studies (FLUL) since 2019,
and Director of Sinais de Cena: Performing Arts and Theatre Studies Journal (2015–2022). He has
coordinated the volume Contemporary Portuguese Theatre: Experimentalism, Politics and Utopia
[working title] (TNDMII/Bicho do Mato, 2017). He coordinated the Theatre Writing Lab-
oratory of the D. Maria II National Theatre (2015–2019). Since 2010, he has been collabo-
rating regularly with TEP – Teatro Experimental do Porto – as a playwright and dramaturg.
Vicki Ann Cremona is Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Malta. She was ap-
pointed as an Ambassador of Malta to France between 2005 and 2009 and to Tunisia between
2009 and 2013. Her current research focuses on the relations between theatre and power. She
has published internationally, mainly about theatrical events and public celebration, particu-
larly carnival, commedia dell’Arte, theatre anthropology, Maltese theatre, and costume. Her
most recent book publications include Carnival and Power: Play and Politics in a Crown Colony
(Palgrave Macmillan 2018).
Dr Olga Danylyuk is a British Academy researcher at Risk Fellow in RCSSD and Research
Fellow at Birkbeck School of Arts, London. Olga completed her PhD using PaR methodol-
ogy at the University of London, under the title: ‘Virtually True’: Intermedial Strategies in the
Staging of War Conflict (2015). She continued her fieldwork as a volunteer with CIMIC unit
in the war zone in Eastern Ukraine. Her performative research resulted in large-scale perfor-
mances with teenagers from the frontline towns: Letters to an Unknown Friend from New York
(2018) and Contact Line (2020). Her new documentary performance A Visit to the Minotaur
was presented at Voila Europe Festival, London (2022).
Tanya Dean is a Lecturer and Programme Coordinator for Drama in the Conservatoire
of the Technological University Dublin (Ireland). She completed her Doctor of Fine Arts
at Yale School of Drama in 2016, where she also received her Master of Fine Arts in Dra-
maturgy and Dramatic Criticism in 2011. Tanya has worked extensively as a freelance dra-
maturg in Ireland, the UK, the USA, and Iceland. From 2015 to 2017, Tanya served as a
committee member for #WakingTheFeminists and was a Research Associate on the report,
Gender Counts: An Analysis of Gender in Irish Theatre 2006–15.
Chloé Déchery is a performance maker, writer, and lecturer in theatre studies at the
University of Paris 8 in France. Her research interests include the body in performance;
collaboration and authorship; autobiographical performance, documentation and ar-
co-
chival performance, and creative labour in the neoliberal era as well as ecological perfor-
mance. She has a particular interest in practice (as) research and, with her long-standing
performance research project Performer Les Savoirs, actively seeks areas of intersection
xvii
Contributors
David Drozd is an Associate Professor of theatre at the Department of Theatre Studies, Ma-
saryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. He focuses on the theory of theatre and drama,
specialises in history and reception of Czech theatre structuralism, performance analysis,
and on the history of Czech theatre directing. He has edited Theatre Theory Reader: Prague
School Writings (2017) and also translated English and Scottish plays (M. Crimp, S. Kane, D.
Harrower, D. Greig, L. Lochhead, S. Glover) that have been staged in leading theatres Czech
theatres and published in regional publishing houses. He occasionally works as a dramaturg.
Paula Erizanu is a Moldovan author and journalist based in London. She has written on
Eastern European politics, arts, and culture for The Guardian, LRB, CNN, Aeon, Dazed,
The Architectural Review, and other publications. Since 2019, she has been the Culture Edi-
tor of The Calvert Journal. Erizanu did her BA in History with English and History of Art
xviii
Contributors
at the New College of the Humanities in London, and her MA in Magazine Journalism
at City University London. She published a book on the 2009 protests in Moldova, This is
My First Revolution: Steal It (Cartier, 2010, trilingual edition), a poetry collection, Take Care
(Charmides, 2015, Romanian), a historical novel, The Woods Are Burning (Cartier, 2021, Ro-
manian), and has coordinated the t hree-part anthology A Century of Romanian Poetry Written
by Women (Cartier, 2019, 2020, Romanian), together with Alina Purcaru. In 2019, she was
shortlisted for the Words by Women award as UK’s culture journalist of the year.
Isabel Guerrero is an Assistant Professor at the UNED (Spain). Her research focuses on
Shakespeare in contemporary performance, with special interest in Shakespeare’s in theatre
festivals and the links between the stage and reality in contemporary performance. She is
one of the co-founders of CIJIET (Congreso Internacional de Jóvenes Investigadores en
Estudios Teatrales/International Conference for Young Researchers on Theatre Studies),
held annually in Spain since 2016. She is a managing editor of the Yearbook of the Spanish and
Portuguese Society for English Renaissance Studies (SEDERI Yearbook). She is the project leader
xix
Contributors
of ‘RealTeaXXI’, a research project on theatre and reality in the t wenty-first century funded
by the UNED. Beyond her academic career, she is also a theatre director.
Philip Hager is a European theatre and performance scholar whose work revolves around
the politics of contemporary theatre and performance with a particular focus on European
contexts. He is the co-editor of Performances of Capitalism, Crises and Resistance: Inside/O utside
Europe (Palgrave, 2015) and of the special issue ‘Dramaturgies of Change: Greek Theatre
Now’ ( Journal of Greek Media and Culture 3:2, 2017). He is the co-founder and co-convener of
the Inside/Outside Europe research network and has c o-convened the Performance, Identity,
Community working group at the Theatre and Performance Research Association.
Maria Hamali studied Modern and Byzantine Greek Literature and obtained a Master’s degree,
followed by a PhD, in Theatre Studies from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
(Greece). Since 2003 she has been working in secondary education in Cyprus, teaching modern
and ancient Greek, as well as theatre history. She participated in national and international con-
ferences and published many theatrical articles and essays. Since 2017, she has also been a regular
contributor to one of the major newspapers in Cyprus as a theatre critic for domestic and inter-
national productions. Since 2022 she is a member of the International Association of Theatre
Critics (IATC). Her book (in Greek) entitled American Dramaturgy and Greek Stage (1931–1965):
Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller was published in 2021 by Sokoli Publications.
Dr Dorita Hannah is a designer and independent academic based in New Zealand whose
international practice and research – operating across the spatial, performing, culinary, and
visual a rts – focus on performance space and spatial performativity. Her projects range from
theatre architecture (space-in-action) to orchestrated events (action-in-space), addressing the
dynamics, politics, and intermediality of the public realm. Hannah has published on Perfor-
mance Design and Event-Space, with her creative work gaining awards and citations. She has
regularly exhibited in World Stage Design and the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design &
Space (PQ), for which she was Architecture Curator in 2011 and Theory Curator in 2015.
Hannah co-chairs working groups for the International Federation for Theatre Research
(IFTR) (Theatre & Architecture) and PSi (Performance + Design).
verity healey is a writer, filmmaker, and journalist based in London, UK. She is interested
in theatre about human rights, artivism, and post-war and dictatorship zones. Since 2015 she
has worked extensively with Belarus Free Theatre in Belarus and the UK and pursues an ac-
tive interest in Slavic and Balkan theatre. She has written for The Stage, What’s On Stage, The
British Council, and Open Democracy and is also a contributor to Howlround Theatre Commons
anthology (published 2022).
xx
Contributors
theatre. Since August 2020, she has represented the focus area of theatre history. Her research
interests include theatre history, gender studies, and the history of theatre studies. She is a
board member of the Swiss Society for Theatre Culture and was Vice President of the Society
for Theatre Studies from 2016 to 2022.
Seda Ilter is a Lecturer in Theatre and Performance Studies at Birkbeck College, University
of London, UK. Her research interests include theoretical and aesthetic implications of tech-
nology and media culture in theatre, dramaturgy and new writing, and contemporary the-
atre in Turkey. Seda is also interested in translating and directing. She directed Tim Crouch’s
The Author in Istanbul (2015). Her writing has been published in Contemporary Theatre Review,
Modern Drama, and Performance Research, among others. Seda’s monograph Mediatized Drama-
turgy: Evolution of Playtexts in the Media Age was published by Bloomsbury in August 2021.
Zoltán Imre received his PhD from Queen Mary College, University of London (2005),
and is now an Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and Culture
at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest (Hungary). He has published various articles and
books on Hungarian and European theatre.
Anwen Jones graduated from Bristol University and went on to complete a doctorate at Ab-
erystwyth University, Wales. She is a Professor of Theatre Studies and Pro Vice Chancellor
for the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Aberystwyth University. She publishes scholarly
work in both English and Welsh in the area of Welsh drama and theatre within a European
comparative context. She is the editor of the interdisciplinary Welsh language e-journal,
Gwerddon. She is a National Library of Wales trustee, a Director of the Coleg Cymraeg
Cenedlaethol, committee member for DASSH, and panel Chair for the assessment of Athena
Swan applications across the HE sector.
Ermir Jonka is an Albanian actor and creative who has worked internationally across stage
and screen. He is a graduate of the MA in Drama and Dramatic/Theatre Arts from the
xxi
Contributors
Jozefina Komporaly is a Lecturer in Performance at the University of the Arts London and
a translator from Romanian and Hungarian into English. She is the editor of the antholo-
gies Matéi Visniec: How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients and Other Plays
(Seagull, 2015) and András Visky’s Barrack Dramaturgy: Memories of the Body (Intellect, 2017)
and author of numerous publications on theatre and adaptation, including the monographs
Staging Motherhood (Palgrave, 2007) and Radical Revival as Adaptation (Palgrave, 2017). Her
stage translations were produced in London and Chicago, and recent translations include
Mr K Released by Matéi Visniec (Seagull, 2020) and The Glance of the Medusa by László F.
Földényi (Seagull, 2020).
Hanna Korsberg has been a Professor of Theatre Research at the University of Helsinki
since 2008. Her research interests include the relationship between theatre and politics in
Finland, a topic which she has studied in two monographs. She is also the author of several
articles discussing theatre history, historiography, and performance. She has been an ac-
tive member of IFTR Historiography Working Group since 2001, an executive committee
member in 2007–2015 and Vice President during 2015–2019. She has served as a member of
the advisory boards for Contemporary Theatre Review and Nordic Theatre Studies. She is
also a member of the Teachers’ Academy at the University of Helsinki.
Zane Kreicberga has been trained as a theatre director at the Latvian Academy of Cul-
ture (LAC) where she currently is a professor in contemporary theatre. Since 2012, she has
been a research assistant at the LAC Research Centre. Her research interests include acting
techniques, theatre education, and the role of the theatre in the social and political context.
xxii
Contributors
Margherita Laera is a Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at the University of Kent,
UK, and Co-Lead of Kent’s Migration and Movement Research Theme. She is author of
Playwriting Europe: Dramaturgy, Translation and the Fabulamundi Project (2022); Theatre & Trans-
lation (2019); and Reaching Athens: Community, Democracy and Other Mythologies in Adaptations
of Greek Tragedy (2013); and editor of Theatre and Adaptation: Return, Rewrite, Repeat (2014).
Margherita also works as a theatre translator from and into Italian and English. She won the
TaPRA Early Career Research Prize in 2018.
Aneta Mancewicz is a Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University
of London. Her research focuses on staging Shakespeare, digital technologies, and European
theatre. She is the author of Intermedial Shakespeares on European Stages (Palgrave Macmillan,
2014) and Biedny Hamlet [Poor Hamlet] (2010). She also c o-edited two collections of essays:
Intermedial Performance and Politics in the Public Sphere and Local and Global Myths in Shakespear-
ean Performance, both published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2018. As an associate dramaturg,
she supported mixed reality adaptations of Shakespeare, such as CREW’s Hamlet (2017 and
2018) and Nexus Studios’ The Tempest (2020). https://orcid.org/0 000-0 002-9025-5394.
xxiii
Contributors
Kate Marsh is a disabled dance artist with over twenty years of experience in performing,
teaching, and making dance. Her interests are centred around perceptions of the body in the
arts and notions of corporeal aesthetics. Specifically, she is interested in each of our lived ex-
periences of our bodies, and how this does (or doesn’t) inform our artistic practice. Her PhD
focuses on leadership in the context of dance and disability and draws strongly on the voices
of artists to interrogate questions around notions of leadership, perceptions, and the body.
https://orcid.org/0 000-0 002-3175-2921.
Prof Dr Peter W. Marx holds the Chair for Media and Theatre Studies at the University
of Cologne. He is also the director of the Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung Cologne,
one of the largest archives for theatre and performance culture in Germany. He received his
PhD from Mainz University in 2000. He held a Junior Professorship in Mainz from 2003
to 2008. He was a visiting scholar (Feodor-Lynen-Fellow) at Columbia University in the
City of New York and held visiting professorships in Vienna, Hildesheim, and at the Freie
Universität Berlin.
From 2009 to 2011, he was an Associate Professor of Theatre Studies at the University
of Berne (Switzerland). His focus of research is theatre historiography, Shakespeare in per-
formance, and the formation of theatre as a cultural practice in the Early Modern Period.
In 2018, he published Hamlets Reise nach Deutschland. In 2020, he published his monograph
Macht|Spiele: Politisches Theater seit 1919 and edited the volume Dokumente, Pläne, Traumreste,
a comprehensive catalogue and essay collection, celebrating the centenary of the Theaterwis-
senschaftliche Sammlung. In Fall 2020, the Handbook on Theatre and Performance Historiography
(co-edited with Tracy C. Davis) was published with Routledge. Following his dissertation,
Marx has worked on theatre history, with a special focus on German-Jewish artists in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Two books stem from this interest: Max Rein-
hardt (2006) and Ein theatralisches Zeitalter (2008). He is the editor of Age of Empire (2017) on
the nineteenth century in the Cultural History of Theatre-series, edited by Christopher Balme
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Contributors
and Tracy C. Davis. In 2023, his long-essay Early Modern Media Ecology is forthcoming with
Cambridge UP.
Yana Meerzon is a Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is the
author of three books, most recently Performance, Subjectivity, Cosmopolitanism (Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2020). She co-edited nine collections of articles, including Handbook on Theatre
and Migration (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023; with S. E. Wilmer). Her current research project
is entitled ‘Between Migration and Neo-Nationalism(s): Performing the European Nation –
laying a Foreigner’, which has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
P
Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Maja M ilatović-Ovadia is a theatre director and a visiting Lecturer at the Royal Central
School of Speech and Drama, UK, where she is also writing her PhD. Originally from for-
mer Yugoslavia and currently based in London, she has directed numerous projects, working
in a range of contexts, including devised work, classical and contemporary text-based the-
atre, music theatre, experimental opera, and community theatre. Her socially engaged art
projects focused on the use of comedy and humour within collaborative theatre practice that
supports processes of reconciliation. Her articles on t heatre-making were published in several
theatre and peacebuilding journals, such as Research in Drama Education, Critical Survey, and
Journal of Arts & Communities.
Cristina Modreanu is a curator, theatre critic, and expert in performing arts based in Bu-
charest, Romania. She is the author of six books and many articles on Romanian Theatre.
She wrote A History of Romanian Theatre from Communism to Capitalism: Children of a Restless
Time, published by Routledge in 2020. She is a Fulbright Alumna and was a visiting scholar
at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Performance Studies Department, New York 2011–2012.
Modreanu is currently the editor of the Performing Arts Magazine Scena.ro which she co-
founded in 2008 and an associated researcher at Babeș-Bolyai University. www.cristina-
modreanu.com.
Jeton Neziraj is the Director of Qendra Multimedia, having served as the Artistic Director
of the National Theatre of Kosovo from 2008 to 2011. He has written over 20 plays that have
been widely staged in Europe and in the USA. He has worked with several leading theatres,
including La MaMa in New York, Volksbühne Berlin, and Piccolo Teatro di Milano. His
plays have won numerous prizes and have been performed at theatre festivals throughout Eu-
rope. The German theatre magazine Theater der Zeit described him as ‘K af ka of the Balkans’,
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Contributors
while Los Angeles Times called him ‘a world-class playwright who challenges our compla-
cency at every twist and turn’.
Kamelia Nikolova is a Professor of European Theatre and Head of Theatre Studies De-
partment at the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia, Research Fellow at
the Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and a visiting Professor at other
universities. Her research concerns the history of European and Bulgarian theatre, theat-
rical avant-garde, theory of drama and performance, directing, new theatre practices, and
independent stage. Her publications appeared in over ten languages and include ten books,
i.e., The Other Name of Modern Theatre: Stage Director (1995), Expressionist Theatre and the Body
Language (2000), Bulgarian Theatre after 1989 and New British Drama (2013, 2018), and many
studies and articles in Bulgarian and international specialised press.
Barbara Orel is a Professor of Performing Arts and head of the research group of the
AGRFT at the University of Ljubljana. Her main areas of research are experimental theatre,
avant-garde movements, and performance across disciplines. She participated in the research
projects of the Theatrical Event working group of IFTR. She was also a c o-founder of the
journal of performing arts theory Amfiteater (editor in 2008–2010) and a selector of the
Slovenian national theatre festivals Week of Slovenian Drama (Teden slovenske drame) in
2006–2007 and the Maribor Theatre festival (Borštnikovo srečanje) in 2008–2009.
Anette Therese Pettersen is a theatre and dance researcher, critic, editor, and curator.
Currently, she holds a PhD research fellowship at the University of Agder in Norway. She
is the co-founder of projects of criticism such as Writingshop, Critics in Conversation,
Dansekritikerrørsla (Dance Critic Movement), and Performing Criticism Globally. Her latest
publication is Criticism for an Absent Reader (editor, 2018).
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Contributors
(Der Mohr im Mor. Interkulturelles Theater in Theorie und Praxis, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang,
1999), Pfeiffer enrolled in doctoral studies. She graduated with honours with a dissertation
about the radical Italian theatre practitioner Carmelo Bene (1937–2002) Non esisto dunque
sono. Her habilitation project negotiates theatrical concepts of being. Theatre Anthropo-
logical Discourses and Performing Arts, financed by the Elise Richter Programme (F WF)
and titled Ephemer und leibhaftig. Schauspielerische Erkundungen von Ariane Mnouchkine, Carmelo
Bene und Jerzy Grotowski at the University of Vienna, published in 2021 (Göttingen: F&R
unipress).
Trish Reid is a Professor of Theatre and Performance and Head of the School of Arts and
Communication Design at the University of Reading, UK. She has published widely on
contemporary theatre and performance in Britain, with a particular focus on Scotland, and
is the author of Theatre & Scotland (2013) and The Theatre of Anthony Neilson (2017). She is the
co-editor of the forthcoming Routledge Companion to T wentieth-Century British Theatre, and
with Liz Tomlin, of the Cambridge series, Elements in Theatre, Performance and the Political.
Trish is from Glasgow.
Anneli Saro is a Professor of Theatre Research at the University of Tartu (Estonia). She
has published articles and books on Estonian theatre history and system, performance the-
ory, and audience research. Her two current projects are a comparative analysis of amateur
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Contributors
theatre fields in small European countries and poetics of playing. She has been a convener
of international working groups: Project on European Theatre Systems (2004–2008, 2017–)
and Theatrical Event (2011–2017). She was the Editor-in-Chief of Nordic Theatre Studies
(2013–2015) and a member of the executive committee of IFTR (2007–2015).
Azadeh Sharifi is a theatre scholar, researcher, and lecturer. She is currently teaching at
the Department of Theatre Studies, L udwig-Maximilians-University Munich. She is also
working on the project (Post)m igrant Theater in German Theatre H istory – (
Dis)Continuity
of aesthetics and narratives. Her work engages with (post)colonial and (post)m igrant theatre
history, performances by artists of colour, and the intersections of race and gender in con-
temporary European performances. She was a Fellow at the International Research Center
Interweaving Performance Cultures at Free University Berlin.
xxviii
Contributors
and delivered invited lectures in different parts of the globe and was a Japan Foundation Fel-
low at the University of Tokyo. In 2020, she was nominated for the League of Professional
Theatre Women Gilder/Goigney International Award.
Mgr. Ján Šimko, PhD, is a Lecturer in the theatre studies department, Academy of Per-
forming Arts in Bratislava (Slovakia). In teaching, he focuses on contemporary European
drama, theatre, and performance, documentary theatre, and dramaturgy. His other fields of
research interest are aesthetics, psychology, theatre, and media theory. He combines research
with active artistic practice in the fields of writing, directing, dramaturgy, and curating. He
founded the theatre group Tucet (Dozen) and created various projects for theatres in Slovakia
and the Czech Republic. He curated international projects middentity and Parallel lives for the
international theatre festival Divadelná Nitra.
Evi Stamatiou is a practitioner-researcher of actor training. During her eighteen years of in-
ternational experience as an actor and creative, she has won international awards and her work
has been funded by the Arts Council of England and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. She is
a Senior Lecturer and course leader of the MA Acting for Stage and Screen at the University of
East London. She has a PhD from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University
of London. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is a conference plan-
ner and Incoming Chair of the Acting Focus Group at the Association for Theater in Higher
Education. She has published in academic books and journals, currently writing the monograph
Bourdieu in the Studio: Towards Decolonising and Decentering Acting Training, and co-editing with
Lisa Peck the volume Critical Acting Pedagogies: Shifting Epistemologies with Intersectional Approaches.
Jurgita Staniškytė is the Head of the Faculty of Arts and Professor of the Theatre Studies
Department at Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania). She has published four monographs
and several scholarly articles and reviews on contemporary Lithuanian theatre in the context
of the processes of Baltic stage art, performative aspects of post-soviet Lithuanian culture,
creative communication, and audience development. She serves as the Board member of
HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area) and the Governing Board member of
EU Joint Programming Initiative ( JPI) on Cultural Heritage and Global Change. She also
chairs the Board of ‘K aunas the European Capital of Culture 2022’.
Edīte Tišheizere, PhD, is a Latvian theatre scholar and critic. She graduated from the State
Institute of Theatre Arts in Moscow (GITIS, 1976–1985) and is a senior researcher and the
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Contributors
Head of the Department of Arts at the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University
of Latvia, and Editor-in-Chief of the theatre magazine Teātra Vēstnesis. Her list of publi-
cations includes three books, recently Neatkarības laika teātris (The theatre of the period of
Independence, 2019). She has also contributed to numerous collective monographs in Latvia
and abroad on directing, scenography, the history of Latvian theatre, and the historical a vant-
g arde. She received the National Award for the Art Criticism in 2017.
Kristof van Baarle is a dramaturg and postdoc researcher at Antwerp University’s Re-
search Centre for Visual Poetics, where he also teaches. Together with Kris Verdonck, he is
conducting a three-year research project on the convergences between Samuel Beckett and
Noh-theatre. As a dramaturg, Kristof is a longtime collaborator of Kris Verdonck/A Two
Dogs Company, and Michiel Vandevelde. Kristof has published about his research in book
chapters and various academic journals such as Performance Research and Arts Journal. He is c o-
editor, with Peter Eckersall, of Machine Made Silence: The Work of Kris Verdonck (Performance
Research Books, 2020) and of Performance and Posthumanism: Staging Prototypes of Composite
Bodies (w ith Christel Stalpaert and Laura Karreman, Palgrave MacMillan, 2021).
Karel Vanhaesebrouck is a Professor and the Chair of Theatre and Performance Studies
at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He is the Director of the Research Centre for Film
and Performance Studies (CiASp). He also teaches at the theatre schools RITCS (Brussels)
and ESACT (Liège). Vanhaesebrouck has published extensively, both in books and journals
like TDR/D rama Review, Théâtre/Public, Critique, Visual Studies, and Poetics, tackling subjects
related to both theatre history (w ith a special focus on early modern theatre culture) and
contemporary theatre (most notably but not exclusively Flemish theatre). For several years,
he has been a jury member of the Flemish Theatre Festival, which every year selects the most
notable productions in Flanders and the Netherlands.
Kurt Vanhoutte is a Professor and the Chair of Theatre and Film Studies at the University
of Antwerp. He is the Director of the Research Centre for Visual Poetics. Vanhoutte’s basic
line of research investigates processes of intermediality emerging under the cultural and
technological conditions of modernity and late modernity. He has published many book
chapters and articles on both the history and the contemporary condition of theatre in jour-
nals including Early Popular Visual Culture, Contemporary Theatre Review, and Foundations of
Science. Vanhoutte is currently writing a book on scientific fiction, tracing the history, actu-
ality, and the prospect of a theatrical genre aimed at mediating scientific revolutions through
performance.
Vessela S. Warner, PhD, is a Professor of theatre history and dramatic literature at The
University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA. Her research focuses on Southeast European
theatre and performance. She co-edited Staging Postcommunism: Alternative Theatre in Eastern
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Contributors
and Central Europe after 1989 (University of Iowa Press 2020). Besides this international col-
lection, Warner has contributed to Contemporary Balkan Cinema: Transnational Exchanges and
Global Circuits (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy
(Routledge, 2015), International Women Stage Directors (University of Illinois Press, 2013), and
Theatre and Performance in Eastern Europe: The Changing Scene (Scarecrow Press, 2008), among
others.
Rose Whyman is a Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Bir-
mingham, UK, and a specialist in Russian Theatre. Her research focuses on the science of
actor training. She is a member of the Professional Association of Alexander Teachers and
her teaching includes practical acting courses based on the work of Stanislavski and Michael
Chekhov and the Alexander Technique. Her publications include The Stanislavsky System of
Acting; Legacy and Influence in Modern Performance (CUP 2 008). Anton Chekhov (Routledge
2010). Stanislavski – t he Basics (Routledge 2012). Recent publications include a translation
of Biomechanics for Instructors by N.A. Bernstein (Cham: Springer International Publishing,
2020). and a c o-authored chapter ‘Serafima Birman, Sofia Giatsintova, Alla Tarasova and
Olga Pyzhova: “Second Wave” Russian and Soviet Actresses, Stanislavsky’s System and the
Moscow Art Theatre’ for The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Women on Stage, edited by Jan
Sewell and Clare Smout (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). She is currently working on a
monograph entitled Performance in Revolutionary Russia: the Art and Science of Biomechanics, for
Routledge.
Birgit Wiens (Dr phil. habil.) is a Senior Researcher (PD) at LMU Munich, School of Arts,
and Visiting Professor and Lecturer at the ZHdK Zurich, the Norwegian Theatre Acad-
emy at Østfold University College, and the Institute for Media Cultures and Theatre at the
University of Cologne. Her academic work focuses on acting and performance theory,dra-
maturgy, the history and theory of scenography (western and non-western), eco-design as
well as digital art and culture. Recent publications include her edited volume Contemporary
Scenography. Practices and Aesthetics in German Theater, Arts and Design (2019) 2021, which was
shortlisted for the Best Publication Award (special category) at the Prague Quadrennial for
Performance Design and Space 2023.
meLê yamomo is an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the Univer-
sity of Amsterdam, the author of Sounding Modernities: Theatre and Music in Manila and the Asia
Pacific, 1
869–1946 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), and project leader of the European JPI Cul-
tural Heritage ( J PICH) project Decolonizing Southeast Asian Sound Archives (DeCoSEAS).
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Contributors
Antine Zijlstra works as a researcher and project leader of field research on ‘Re-voicing
cultural landscapes: narratives, perspectives, and performances of marginalized intangible
cultural heritage’, focusing on Frisian spoken theatre ( JPICH, Horizon 2020) at the Uni-
versity of Groningen (the Netherlands). She has a PhD in the field of theatre studies and arts
marketing. Her thesis, titled Serious happiness, towards a model for the analysis of value hierarchies
in theatre use, concentrates on the values of theatre attendance and the way they interact with
personal values. She also works at the Department of Art in Education at the NHL Stenden
University of Applied Sciences (the Netherlands). Zijlstra is a member of STEP (Project on
European Theatre Systems) and co-authored ‘I was utterly mesmerised’: Audience experiences of
different theatre types and genres in four European cities (Amfiteater, 2015).
xxxii
INTRODUCTION
From euphoria to d
isillusionment – a European
dramaturgy
When German director Karin Beier staged a dazzling production of Shakespeare’s Midsum-
mer Night’s Dream, a play in which the protagonists overcome strife and confusion to arrive
at a celebratory resolution in a new Athenian state of amity, it was rightly seen as an allegory
of a particular, unprecedented European moment. The 1996 production at the Düsseldorf
Schauspielhaus, subtitled ‘a European Shakespeare’, featured fourteen actors from different
European theatres, speaking nine languages from around Europe. This was ‘the height of
German Euro-enthusiasm’ (Boecker 2018, 28), when the images of the spectacle of 1989
were still fresh in mind. From a Western point of view, the Berlin Wall had cracked open
like a proscenium behind which an entire half-continent became visible which had been too
long offstage. From the East, the breach of the Wall spotlighted the promise of freedom and
abundance many long dreamt of in the midwinter of the Cold War. The Schengen Agree-
ment and the Maastricht Treaty were only recent events, and it seemed that the unstoppable
pressure of capital-H ‘H istory’ had created a new and equitable playing field on which the
European drama would now unfold like some exquisite multilingual text. Beier’s production
was invited to Berliner Theatertreffen in 1996.
Twenty-three years later in 2019, the disillusionments with the European drama regis-
tered heavily in Croatian director Oliver Frljić’s (⇒ Chapter 80) project Imaginary Europe at
the Schauspielhaus Stuttgart. Part of a larger initiative of the European Ensemble, a collabo-
rative effort between Stuttgart, the Nowy Teatr Warsaw, and the Zagreb Youth Theatre, in
associated partnership with the National Theatre of Athens, Imaginary Europe again presented
an international and multilingual ensemble with two Croatian, two German, and two Polish
actors. But in this production, the dominant language was English, the language of neolib-
eral empire, and the view of the European project was dim: tossed between The Raft of the
Medusa by Géricault and Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix – two paintings referenced in
the show – Europe appeared here not only as a frantic spectacle but also a spectral, insubstan-
tial imaginary, a continent tearing itself apart once again, the confused nightmare sequel to
Beier’s summery dream. The contrast is stark everywhere: where Beier’s production received
the imprimatur of German institutional culture with its appearance at the Theatertreffen,
the European Ensemble initiative was cut short by the C OVID-19 pandemic.
Europe’s conflicted sense of its identity, ideals, and purpose has frequently been the sub-
ject of European theatre-maker(s) in recent years, often in the guise of the myth of Europa,
DOI: 10.4324/9781003082538-1 1
Ralf Remshardt and Aneta Mancewicz
the Phoenician princess stalked and raped by Zeus. The Europa myth is so suggestive be
cause its elements of displacement, flight, migration, and violence interweave the moment
of the continent’s legendary founding with its present predicament. This mythical treatment
gained currency, especially after a great influx of migrants and refugees in 2015 strained the
self-image of Western European democracies as a welcoming sanctuary, representing the
Greek ideal of hiketeia. In Elfriede Jelinek’s Die Schutzbefohlenen (The supplicants, Thalia
Theater Hamburg, 2015, directed by Nicolas Stemann), Europa was just another among the
refugees. In South African artist Brett Bailey’s installation performance Sanctuary, 2015, the
labyrinth of the Minotaur had morphed into a hostile and intractable EU bureaucracy. In
This is Europe?, a dinner-performance by Strefa Wolnosłowa in collaboration with Warsaw
Improvisers Orchestra, 2015, the spectators listened to refugee stories interspersed with ex
cerpts from Voltaire’s Candide, as they were invited to critically consider the idea of Europe
as a safe haven. Yael Ronen’s production of Winterreise at Berlin’s Gorki Theater in 2017
chronicled a bus tour by members of the theatre’s Exilensemble (exile ensemble), a group of
refugee artists who engage ironically with the unfamiliar German reality, exposing its Euro-
centric blind spots. In these and other productions, the European outward gaze on the Other
is reversed. With refugees populating (often literally) the stage, Europe becomes a kind of
strange spectacle, the target of a searching inquiry by refugees, migrants, and aspirants from
outside of the privileged sphere that Europe represents. At the same time, the notion of
European safety, stability, and unity is being questioned not only by those outside but also by
those on the inside, both in the centre and on the margins. In Zinnie Harris’s How to Hold
Your Breath (Royal Court 2015, directed by Vicky Featherstone), an apocalyptic financial
crisis exposes European citizens themselves to extreme poverty, violence, and exploitation,
forcing them to flee the continent. Kosovan playwright Jeton Neziraj’s (⇒ Chapter 21) 55
Shades of Gay (2017) satirises the extent to which communities outside the EU are willing
to betray their illiberal values in pursuit of inclusion into the union. In the play, a gay Italian
businessman is planning to build a condom factory with European funds in the Kosovan
provinces. When he asks the homophobic mayor to perform a gay wedding as a test of his
fidelity to EU human rights, chaos predictably ensues. In all of these productions, what
emerged was a Europe in perpetual crisis.
2
Introduction
structuring nodes in the web of European identity formation. Theatre and performance
thrive on crisis, on o pposition – the Attic theatre of the fifth century BCE, after all, saw its
greatest blossoming when Athens was most under assault, both from Peloponnesian enemies
and from demagogues corroding its fledgling democracy.
But apart from crises on the m acro-level, those that are the stuff of geopolitical headlines,
the theatres of Europe have also been subjected to a series of critical shocks that have mani-
fested most strongly in the institutional realm, as analysed by Christopher Balme and Tony
Fisher in their Theatre Institutions in Crisis: European Perspectives (Routledge 2021). There they
propose four key factors that have inflected performance-making a nd -watching in the cur-
rent age: ‘enculturative breakdown’, leading to shifts in theatre-going; social media’s radical
‘reorganisation of the public sphere’; ‘heterogeneity in models of labour’ triggered by neo-
liberal politics and subsequent austerity economics; and ‘new aesthetic techniques and pro-
duction processes’ (2021, 2). And so, in this Companion, too, the heuristic value of crises both
political and institutional often informs and guides the analysis of European performance.
When we set out to commission the contributions, the freshest ruptures lay only a few
years in the past: the massive migration of populations from the Middle East and Global South
as a result of warfare, famine, and ecological and economic catastrophe, culminating in a
large resettlement of refugees in 2015, and the 2016 referendum in the UK triggering Brexit.
As we set to work, the coronavirus mutated from a distant news event in Asia into a threat
to health and life that rapidly engulfed the continent, and indeed the world. As we finished,
Mariupol and Kherson had been devastated and Kyiv entered a bitter winter of blackouts and
food shortages. In each instance, performers and theatre-maker(s) responded, and we sought,
accordingly, to reflect these developments in the texts we solicited for this project, to live
up to the objective of offering a contemporary analysis. Correspondingly, readers will find in
this volume astute chapters on migration in performance, on theatrical reactions to Brexit,
on performance in the pandemic, on activist performance, and many more. The chapters on
Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, too, take the present war and suffering, as well as the coura-
geous stance of theatre-maker(s) in the face of oppression and silencing, into full account.
The choice of 1989, as of any historical starting point, may seem somewhat arbitrary,
given that the upheavals associated with that year, symbolised by the breaching of the Berlin
Wall, did not universally resonate in all European countries as a rupture, and left some quite
untouched. Or indeed, in some instances, the historical processes then set in motion created
a delayed reaction, as in the dissolution of the Soviet Union (which also was its earlier, prox-
imate cause in the policy of glasnost), or in the fierce and bloody wars of independence that
seized the Balkans states in the 1990s. Nonetheless, the subsequent convolutions in Euro-
pean history are unthinkable without the events of 1989 (⇒ Chapter 43). In 2004, ten new
countries joined the EU, including the Baltic states, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia,
Slovenia, and Hungary. Romania and Bulgaria followed in 2007. The stern opposition of
ideological blocs gave way to a more malleable and shifting Europe that transformed itself
internally as it responded externally to a globalising world and an embrace of neoliberal eco-
nomic p olicies – Thatcher and Reagan were followed by Clinton and Blair who sold neolib-
eralism as Hayekian economic policies in a guise even left-leaning elites could swallow. But
unfettered markets and the staggering rapacity and indiscipline of the international financial
sector led to the subprime mortgage crisis in the USA which spilled into Europe with often
devastating consequences, degrading public credit. The Great Recession that followed trig-
gered multi-year regimes of fiscal austerity starting in 2009 which lasted the better part of the
subsequent decade; Greece in particular, squeezed by harsh conditions linked to EU bailouts,
suffered financial and personal disruptions which tore at the fabric of civil society and also
3
Ralf Remshardt and Aneta Mancewicz
tested the bonds of European solidarity. As mentioned above, stress on those political bonds
and the institutions that sustained them was further exacerbated by dual events in the middle
of the decade, the unprecedented influx of ca. 1.3 million migrants from the conflict zones
of Syria and Afghanistan as well as the Global South in 2015 (many absorbed by Germany),
and the 2016 Brexit referendum in the UK that caused a schism not just in the EU but in the
UK itself. The decade was capped by the outbreak of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic
in 2020 which resulted in lockdowns and a forced cessation of social and cultural activities.
All of these global-scale developments were significant for theatre companies and cultures
in many European nations. Migration became both a thematic and structural focal point of
theatre-making (⇒ Chapter 62). The decimated cultural budgets that quickly followed the
imposition of economic austerity are a constant refrain in the chapters of Part 1, but austerity
protests themselves also took on a quasi-performative nature (⇒ Chapter 48). Neoliberal
politics and Brexit not only put economic pressure on theatres but also served as material
for performances (⇒ Chapter 46) (⇒ Chapter 49). The pandemic curtailed or eliminated
artistic travel and performance projects throughout the continent, even as it initiated new
modes of theatrical communication (⇒ Chapter 50). Of equal weight were the powerful,
if sometimes inchoate, social movements that sprang from flashpoints laying bare the injus
tices and inequalities pervasive throughout Western democracies, especially the Black Lives
Matter and #metoo movements. Though both originated in the USA (following the killing
of Black civilians by police and the increased public discussion of systematic sexual abuse of
women), each resonated strongly throughout European societies. In Poland, #metoo became
a rallying cry against systemic violence and sexual harassment in a country still dominated
by patriarchal structures and religious orthodoxy, but it was also consequential in beginning
to dismantle a culture of male domination and the tacit tolerance of abusive behaviour in
theatre companies (⇒ Chapter 30). Germany, in the initial phases of facing up to its colo
nial past, saw Black Lives Matter protests that connected with the decolonial project (⇒
Chapter 61). Some practices of theatrical representation which had been deployed without
questioning for years – for example the use of ‘blackfacing’ – came to be recognised as
anachronistic and discriminatory and were eliminated (⇒ Chapter 63).
4
Introduction
most European countries introduced state subsidies for cultural organisations and their staff,
many artists were not eligible precisely because of their precarious employment status pre-
pandemic. As the global economy slowed down and the recession was on the horizon, the
arts sector continued to face funding challenges. It will be increasingly difficult for artists and
institutions to work on a long-term, exploratory basis, and they will have to further adapt
their workflows and aesthetic approaches as a result.
In response to the funding cuts and the ongoing neoliberalisation of the European cul
tural sector, many theatre-makers in Europe have already decided to stage their works out
side theatrical buildings, inviting spectators to museums, galleries, warehouses, abandoned
factories, prisons, parks, and streets – in short, different kinds of repurposed and found
spaces (⇒ Chapter 51). In doing so, they have challenged market-driven business models
of cultural production, but they have also opened their practice to new forms of audience
interaction and engagement. For instance, Lotte van den Berg, a Dutch practitioner, has ex
perimented with different kinds of spaces outside theatre institutions to address the questions
of intimacy, collectivity, human connection, and care (⇒ Chapter 93). A British company,
dreamthinkspeak, has in turn explored the layered histories and material structures of the
buildings in which they worked to present theatrical, classical, and contemporary references,
often through the inclusion of digitally produced realities (⇒ Chapter 79). Many of these
companies have been part of the immersive theatre or ‘theatre of experience’ phenomenon
(Groot Nibbelink 2012, 416), which emerged in the UK, the Netherlands, and Flanders, and
which has situated audiences in carefully curated or chosen surroundings, where the partici
pants have often been able to move and act freely. According to Adam Alston, this immersive
trend has linked theatre with neoliberal values, ‘such as entrepreneurialism, as well as the
valorization of risk, agency and responsibility’ (Alston 2013, 128), responding directly to
economic and political shifts post-1989.
The growing interest in non-theatrical spaces in contemporary European theatre has been
accompanied by the changing relationship with the text in performance. Hans-Thies Leh
mann’s Postdramatic Theatre, originally published in German in 1999 and in English in 2006,
was fundamental in terms of framing the debate about contemporary theatre experimenta
tion (⇒ Chapter 53). Lehmann identified different examples of theatre, performance, and
dance that have questioned the dominance of the dramatic text and explored alternative tex
tualities, forms of staging, and audience engagement. As part of this phenomenon, there has
been greater emphasis on the processes of devising and collaborative models of performance
creation (⇒ Chapter 54). Many cutting-edge practitioners, including Belarus Free Theatre
(⇒ Chapter 75), Hotel Pro Forma (⇒ Chapter 83), Marta Górnicka (⇒ Chapter 81), Milo
Rau (⇒ Chapter 87), She She Pop (⇒ Chapter 90), and THEATER HORA (⇒ Chapter 91)
have experimented with the creation of performance text, dramaturgy, and forms of repre
sentation on stage.
The investigation of dramatic form has also led, among other things, to the popularity of
documentary performance as a way of capturing the real through the inclusion of witness
accounts, records, and documents, in an effort to establish the perception of authenticity on
stage (⇒ Chapter 55). The phenomenon is a manifestation of what Andy Lavender describes
as ‘a turn to testimony’ in the final decades of the twentieth century, which became even
more prominent in the twenty-first century, when individuals gained voice and visibility on
an unprecedented scale due to the emergence of multiple social platforms (2016, 35). At the
same time, in a period marked by austerity, gentrification, and disenfranchisement, the rise
of documentary performance became an important means for creating the sense of commu
nity and cultural participation.
5
Ralf Remshardt and Aneta Mancewicz
6
Introduction
within theatre-making, both in particular countries and across borders, that are shaping
European stage practice in the twenty-first century. It will give undergraduate and graduate
students as well as researchers and practitioners an indispensable reference resource that can
be used broadly across curricula and in the profession.
The challenges and opportunities of producing a single volume on contemporary Euro
pean theatre are several. First, the theatre scene in Europe is extremely dynamic, so main
taining a volume that retains currency depended on balancing broader, historically situated
contributions with up-to-the-minute materials. Second, as sketched above, the geography,
geopolitics, and cultural politics of Europe are more unsettled now than at any time in recent
memory. Consequently, any division or delineation of theatrical cultures that merely broke
them down by nation states would instantly be fraught and would fail to account for regional
distinctions and transnational or transcultural work. However, national performance scenes
had to be represented in the book’s structure to ensure that smaller nations and their respec
tive performance cultures are included. It was crucial that the volume did not privilege a
handful of dominant Western European theatres but instead presented a more inclusive and
richer image of Europe: Europe is not the EU.
The primary difficulty of assembling such a volume is also its chief rationale. To compile
a reasonably comprehensive book on contemporary European performance means to con
front these fault lines head-on; it means presenting original, illuminating connections and
discourses rather than merely rehearsing settled knowledge; it means serving as the point
of departure for debates as much as being a point reference for inquiry. Given that factual
information is easily available through online sources, a Companion must feature carefully
curated, interpretive content by an international body of scholars and practitioners. It can
provide access to the state of the performing arts throughout Europe without suggesting
closure or completeness; it can give voice in the lingua franca of English to theatrical cultures
apart from those to which the academic mainstream pays attention. We believe this volume
does so.
The book was tasked, first of all, with defining what is ‘contemporary’ theatre. To com
plement existing research on European theatre, the timeframe of this Companion is post-1989
with an emphasis on the twenty-first century. A previous comprehensive survey, also pub
lished by Routledge, appeared in 1994 (second edition 2001) as World Encyclopedia of Con
temporary Theatre Volume 1: Europe (editors Peter Nagy and Philippe Rouyer). By necessity,
its coverage extended only to the 1990s, though its thorough country-by-country treatment
suggested the structure of the present volume’s Part 1. Both Contemporary Theatres in Europe
(2006, editors Joe Kelleher and Nicholas Ridout) and Contemporary European Theatre Directors
(second edition 2020, editors Maria M. Delgado and Dan Rebellato) introduced significant
practitioners across the continent and did much to advance the idea of a transnational aes
thetics. Other publications have examined European playwrights, dramaturgs, and design
ers. This volume was composed with those precedent sources in mind and positions itself
within their coverage, attempting, where possible, to avoid duplication or redundancy.
Within that frame, the main objectives of the volume are:
7
Ralf Remshardt and Aneta Mancewicz
- to feature artists and collectives that are producing some of the most distinctive work in
Europe and that represent a diverse range of perspectives.
We felt that the was most appropriate to capture the complexities of the current European
scene was a tripartite structure that not only explicitly took into account national and re
gional performance cultures but also deliberately went beyond such boundaries to reflect the
increasing importance of multilingual (⇒ Chapter 44) and transnational (⇒ Chapter 45)
theatre-making on the continent as a consequence of institutional collaborations, artistic
migration, and international festivals (⇒ Chapter 69). We particularly encouraged contrib
utors to cultivate an awareness of postcolonial, diverse, and inclusive practices in European
performance as an important thread running through all three sections. While the parts and
chapters are separately conceived and can be read independently, we found it useful to in
clude signposts to other chapters parenthetically throughout the book (as for example earlier
in this paragraph) to emphasise the interdependence of the material.
In Part 1 of this book, ‘Mapping the continent’, readers will find a comprehensive listing of
European nations with a chapter dedicated to each. ‘Comprehensive’ however is not complete:
on the one hand, some of the smaller sovereign nations such as Luxembourg or Liechtenstein
have been omitted, based partly on the difficulty of obtaining sufficient material or writers
with specific expertise, and partly on the need to keep the length of the project at a tolerable
limit. No offence is meant to the vitality of the theatre-making scenes in those countries.
On the other hand, we felt it justifiable to expand the cultural concept of Europe somewhat
beyond its strict geopolitical boundaries and to include two countries outside of the European
mainland, Turkey and Israel. It will emerge from those chapters how closely the theatre there
is tied to European performance in a series of mutual intersections of aesthetics and migration.
The chapters in this section were subject to more stringent scaffolding to ensure a uni
tary appearance; thus, each contributor was asked to address Context, Cultures of Theatre-
Making, and Institutional Structures in their respective chapter, though they had much
latitude in how to apply these headings to their topic. In selecting and commissioning con
tributors, primary attention was placed on finding authors who could speak from ‘inside’
the countries, at least in terms of deep cultural and social knowledge. Nonetheless, these are
not encyclopaedia entries but subjective discussions in the best sense, often full of passion,
advocacy, and pointed observations. Readers perusing the chapters dedicated to countries
that composed the former Yugoslavia, for instance, will see reflected there contentious and
sometimes contradictory assessments of their respective (theatre) histories.
It was our considered decision to list the countries in alphabetical order for the reader’s
ease of use and to avoid the potential biases that are inherent in any geographical taxon
omy. Similarly, keeping the length of each chapter to about 2,000–4,000 words makes for
a compact reference in every instance but generally benefits the smaller nations since it
mitigates the perceived weight of the more dominant theatre cultures, which are generally
well-covered in academic publications. In that sense, putting together a project such as this
is also a commitment to a greater equity of representation for theatre-makers in often un
derrepresented nation states.
Part 2, ‘Charting themes’, is in many ways the core of the volume. In it, we were seeking
an informed (and sometimes polemical) response to the dynamic developments in European
theatre, especially during the last decade. The section above has outlined some significant
shifts, such as the move away from theatre buildings to found and repurposed spaces, the im
portance of postdramatic theatre and new models of creation and devising, the popularity of
documentary theatre, the growing emphasis on ecodramaturgies and sustainability, and the
8
Introduction
expansion of intermedial theatre. This part of the book is further divided into four sections,
which to large extent mirror the composition of chapters in Part 1. The entries in Part 2
address broader theoretical and cultural issues alongside selected case studies from different
countries and cultures.
Section A, ‘Context’, offers concise and curated discussions of some of the key events and
phenomena which have impacted twenty-first-century performance in Europe, such as the
climate crisis, Brexit, and the pandemic. Section B, ‘Cultures of theatre-making’, is devoted
to fundamental aspects of theatre production and reception that have to do with the space,
the text, the audience, and the modes of performance. Section C, ‘Inclusive and diverse
practices’, examines a number of topics that address the issues of representation, inclusion,
and diversity in theatre, such as queer performance or disability in the arts, but as an inclusive
section on inclusion, it also addresses practices often perceived as marginal, such as amateur
theatre. Finally, Section D, ‘Institutional structures’ is devoted to the discussion of theatre as
a system involving multiple stakeholders and structures, such as festivals and curation, per
formance training, or (online) criticism.
For Part 3, ‘Surveying the creators’, we have made a selection of twenty artists or groups
who not only currently enjoy a high profile in their countries of origin but also, and im
portantly, represent a newer crop of theatre-makers who see themselves as European art
ists and who work both locally and transnationally. We also did not want to be repetitive
by including those who are already subjects of numerous scholarly studies, such as Katie
Mitchell, Thomas Ostermeier, Rimini Protokoll, Ivo van Hove, or Romeo Castellucci,
though of course a case could be made for each one of these distinguished artists or groups.
Rather, working from a broad geographical framework stretching East to West from Russia
to Portugal and North to South from Norway to Italy, we attempted to represent diverse
nationalities, genders, and aesthetic approaches, from Marta Górnicka’s choral performances
to Philippe Quesne’s theatrical habitats, from Belarus Free Theatre’s radical political allego
ries to Vinge and Müller’s explosive-cartoonish dramaturgy. We fully appreciate that this
listing can only be a momentary snapshot that needs to evolve in subsequent editions (if any),
and we hope that in time, women and artists of colour will continue to enrich the dynamic
scene that is contemporary European theatre and performance. Similarly, we are aware that
the ideas and insights presented in the volume are subject to transformation and, in some
cases, reassessment. After all, the subject of this Companion continues to be in constant flux –
geographically, historically, and critically.
Bibliography
Alston, Adam. 2013. ‘Audience Participation and Neoliberal Value Risk, Agency and Responsibility in
Immersive Theatre.’ Performance Research, 18 (2): 128–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2013.
807177.
Balme, Christopher, and Tony Fisher. 2021. Theatre Institutions in Crisis: European Perspectives. London:
Routledge.
9
Ralf Remshardt and Aneta Mancewicz
Boecker, Bettina. 2018. ‘“Europe Speaks Shakespeare” – Karin Beier’s 1996 A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, Multilingual Performance and the Myth of Shakespeare’s Linguistic Transcendence’. In
Local and Global Myths in Shakespearean Performance, edited by Aneta Mancewicz and Alexa Alice
Joubin, 25–39. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89851-3_2.
Groot Nibbelink, Liesbeth. 2012. ‘Radical Intimacy: Ontroerend Goed Meets the Emancipated Spec
tator’. Contemporary Theatre Review 22 (3): 412–420.
Lavender, Andy. 2016. Performance in the Twenty-First Century: Theatres of Engagement. London: Routledge.
The Theatre Green Book. 2022. https://theatregreenbook.com.
10
PART I
DOI: 10.4324/9781003082538-3 13
Ermir Jonka and Evi Stamatiou
14
Albania
with librettist Arian Krasniqi and composer Fatos Lumani, about the life of the Albanian
hero Skanderbeg who led the rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth century.
The real shift in theatre-making came from directors who work outside of text-based
frameworks. Gjergj Prevazi, who established the first Albanian dance company, Albanian
Dance Theatre Co, not only draws on dance theatre to develop his own productions but also
influences the overall style of Albanian theatre through his movement direction of several
productions. Ema Andrea blends theatre with performance art to bring the voices of the
actors and local communities to the forefront (⇒ Chapter 73). Andrea’s work is also lead
ing on the representation of female voices on stage (⇒ Chapter 64), in a patriarchal society
where the progress of seeing women in decision-making, politics, and other life structures is
progressing steadily but slowly. In 2015, Andrea directed the performance Prag (Eve) which
brought the stories of women in prison on the stage of Tirana National Theatre, performed
by the detainees. Another initiative that involved theatre in the fight against patriarchy was
the staging of Edna Mazya’s play Games in the Backyard with amateur actors during massive
protests that followed a rape case and resulted in changes in the law. A more recent initiative
is the staging of the FemFest festival by the theatre company BashArt in March 2022. Such
a celebration of female voices in various indoor and outdoor spaces around Tirana shows a
growing interest in using theatre for social change.
15
Ermir Jonka and Evi Stamatiou
inspire the exploration of alternative ways of theatre-making and the nurturing of grassroots
theatre, paving the way for a new era for Albanian theatre. However, and perhaps for reasons
that have to do with fundraising and audience engagement, there is resistance to abandon-
ing traditional ways of theatre-making and taking risks to produce more experimental and
community-based work.
Nevertheless, the independent scene got a good amount of attention. A prominent non-
p rofit organisation is the Multi-d isciplinary Arts Foundation (M.A.M.), which was founded
in September 2013 in Tirana ‘by Albanian contemporary artists in a spirit of commu-
nity, hoping to assist and encourage innovation, experimentation and potential in the arts’
(https://multidisciplinaryarts.org). Under the direction of Ema Andrea, M.A.M. continues
to nurture young actors, training them on new styles of performance inspired by theatre
practitioners who worked against the canon, such as Eugenio Barba, Jerzy Grotowski, and
Pina Bausch. M.A.M. organises the Performance Festival Tirana (PAFT). Among other
things, PAFT showcases and celebrates the efforts of Albanian artists in the last decade to
fuse theatre and performance art.
Even though certain theatres offered contemporary repertoires, there are parts of the the-
atre industry that are under development, such as the critical engagement with productions
from theatre specialists or audiences, and an understanding of theatre happening outside of
established buildings and organisations. For example, several TV news programmes cover
new premieres in Tirana, but they rely only on the information from press offices of the
venues and ignore theatrical activities outside the capital (Ymeri 2017). As Albanian theatre
is looking for its contemporary identity, key venues remain at the centre of focus.
Tirana National Theatre was built during the Italian occupation between 1939 and 1943
and was primarily used as a cinema and theatre during the communist era. After the fall of
the dictatorship, the building faced a lack of financing (Kristo and Perna 2021, 87) but in
2000, it was included within the Tirana Historic Centre. Local communities and interna-
tional organisations resisted the government’s plans in 2018 to demolish it (Pompejano and
Macchioni 2021). Actors and activists started the movement ‘The Citizen’s Alliance for the
Theatre’ to defend the building, but it was eventually demolished in May 2020 (Kristo and
Perna 2021). The government plans to build a contemporary building with multiple stages
where Tirana National Theatre and Kujtim Spahivogli National Experimental Theatre will
host their programmes. In the meantime, these two institutions perform their shows in
a temporary venue called ArTurbina. When the construction of the contemporary venue
is completed, it is hoped that ArTurbina will be used as an alternative space for smaller
productions.
Even though the demolition of Tirana National Theatre is emblematic of how the neo-
liberal economy problematises artistic activities, it invited Albanian theatre-makers to create
theatre outside buildings and funding structures. The most significant initiative of contem-
porary Albanian theatre since the 1990s is the development of grassroots or community-
based theatre.
16
Albania
questioned and resisted. The main problem remains the limited repertoire. Theatre shows
mostly rely on national funds and consequently run for a maximum of twenty-five perfor-
mances. There are no strategies or initiatives for audience development, or even touring
and festival participation. In general, theatre work in Albania is isolated, short-lived and
still not able to speak for its people, as the political stronghold still echoes old leadership.
Another challenge is the low interest in producing Albanian plays, be they old or new. The-
atre programming lacks the representation of Albanian authors, creating a vacuum in the
effort towards a grassroots movement. The challenges seem insurmountable, and Albanian
theatre-makers have felt disheartened at times. However, their focus on community initia-
tives shows resilience and commitment to what matters long-
term. The focus on grassroots
theatre develops the audiences, the artists, and the Albanian theatre of the future.
Bibliography
Çapaliku, Stefan, and Anna Couthures-Idrizi. 2017. Trilogia Albanica. Paris: Éditions l’Espace d’un
instant.
Dervishi, Driada. 2019. ‘“Allegretto Albania”-Stefan Capaliku’s Serious Comedy Under the Direc-
tion of Altin Basha’. Anglisticum Journal 8 (5): 10–22. https://doi.org/10.5281/Z ENODO.3265446.
Elsie, Robert. 2004. ‘Enver Hoxha’s Dictatorship Stifles Albanian Theatre’. In History of the Literary
Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries, edited by
Marcel Cornis-Pope and John Neubauer, 231–234. J. Benjamins Pub. http://w ww.elsie.de/pdf/
a rticles/A 2007AlbanianTheater.pdf.
Frei, Matt. 1992. ‘In Albania’. London Review of Books, May 14, 1992. https://w ww.lrb.co.uk/the-
paper/v14/n09/m att-f rei/d iary.
Klosi, Iris. 2018. ‘Translation and Theatre Performance of Arthur Miller’s Plays in Albania’. European
Journal of Language and Literature 4 (4): 7. https://doi.org/10.26417/ejls.v4i4.p10-16
Kristo, Saimir, and Valerio Perna. 2021. ‘The National Theatre of Tirana: A Non-Normative DNA’. Forum
A+P: International Journal of Architecture and Built Environment 22: 86–88. https://w ww.researchgate.
net/profile/ Valerio-Perna/publication/3 49396555_FORUM_AP22_Foreseeing_Uncertainty_
Design_and_non-normativity_ISSN_2227-7994/l inks/6 02e566b299bf1cc26d2bb1d/FORUM-
A-P22-Foreseeing-Uncertainty-Design-a nd-non-normativity-ISSN-2227-7994.pdf#page=86.
Pompejano, Federica, and Elena Macchioni. 2021. ‘Past, Present, and the Denied Future of Tirana
National Theatre’. In Current Challenges in Architecture and Urbanism in Albania, edited by Anna
Yunitsyna, Artan Hysa, Edmond Manahasa, Fabio Naselli, Odeta Durmishi Manahasa, and Sokol
Dervishi, 1 37–148. Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer International Publishing.
Ymeri, Anisa. 2017. ‘Television as an Extension of the Office of Promotion of Cultural Institutions in
Albania’. Tirana: University of Tirana. https://d space.a ab-edu.net/bitstream/handle/123456789/
1037/A nisa%20Ymeri.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
Further reading
Duro, Herida. 2013. ‘Art and Cultural Education in Albania’. In The 1st International Conference on
Research and Education–Challenges Toward the Future (ICRAE2013): 24-25.
Puka, Gezim. 2013. ‘Some Modern Dramatic Forms in the Albanian Theatre’. European Scientific Jour-
nal 9 (11). https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/328023594.pdf.
17
Other documents randomly have
different content
especially as she has Briny with her.”
So said Miss Margaret, and she did not feel at all sweet tempered
as she said it. But Annie speedily smoothed her ruffled plumes, and
then she continued without interruption: “Captain Gerard called to
see us one evening, and explained a great deal that had transpired
during his last voyage. As you are already aware, he also said that
he had seen Captain Cochrane in London. You may be sure that we
recommended a vigorous search, and only yesterday that search
ended satisfactorily. Our man was discovered close to the house in
which his sister lives, and was only captured after a very desperate
resistance. Unfortunately for his future chances of defence, he at
once conjectured the cause of his arrest, and protested that the
passenger of the ‘Merry Maid’ was the only man to blame for the
steward’s disappearance. Even if this were true, though, he tacitly
admitted himself to be an accessory to crime after the fact, and very
plainly showed that he had regarded himself as liable to arrest on
suspicion at any moment. Probably Hugh Stavanger may try to place
the onus of guilt upon the captain. But, however this part of this
long string of troubles turns out, there will be quite enough evidence
elicited to prove that the diamond merchant’s son left England with a
great deal of the stolen property in his possession. Our solicitors
have already moved for a new trial, and we have secured several
important witnesses, Captain Gerard having been very helpful to us.
His motives must be regarded as quite disinterested, too, for he has
been promised the permanent command of the ‘Merry Maid,’ Captain
Cochrane’s resignation having been sent in. Your father saw this
resignation at the office of the shipowners, to whom he had
explained our whole story, but as there was no address of his on the
document, it gave us no clue to the man’s present whereabouts. He
just seems to have hidden himself in obscure lodgings, and to have
imagined that our pursuit of him would soon be abandoned. You are
to see Harley to-morrow. He knows something of what has been
going on, as we thought it cruel to refuse him a gleam of hope, now
that things have progressed so well. I am not sure that he won’t
worship you, when he sees you.”
“By no means, my dear,” objected Mr. Cory. “A cry will do the child
good. Our presence would only impose restraint upon her. Depend
upon it, she will come down soon, all the better for giving way for
once. God knows she must have had nerves of iron lately, and it was
high time that her work was done. She has borne up splendidly, but
to have continued the strain under which she has lived since Harley
was committed would have killed her.”
And Mr. Cory was quite right. The girl had borne as much as she
could. But she came back presently, quite composed, and ready to
talk things over quietly. Mrs. Riddell had gone to bed, but, even after
supper was over, Annie proved herself an insatiable listener.
“How is the Stavanger family going on?” she asked.
“Yes; but we could not be sure of that until lately. The capture of
both the culprits was hardly to be hoped for. Come in!”
“Annie,” said Mr. Cory, as soon as the servant had closed the door
behind her, “this is the agent who has been working for us at
Boulogne. Perhaps he has some fresh discoveries to report.”
JUBILATE.
The Court was crowded in every part. For the trial of Hugh
Stavanger and Captain Cochrane upon various indictments had
aroused immense public interest, and countless rumours were afloat
respecting the wonderful acumen, devotion, and heroism of Miss
Annie Cory. She was inundated with applications for interviews, and
greatly as she disliked much of the questioning to which she was
subjected, she submitted to it with the best grace she could muster,
for Harley’s sake. Soon she found herself a popular idol. Her sayings
and doings were recorded in every paper in the land that could
obtain authentic information on the subject, and some of the more
obscure journals that were endowed with smart editors determined
to rescue them from their obscurity, published racy accounts of
fictitious interviews with her, which were so extraordinarily full of
favourable criticism that none but her enemies could have taken
serious exception to them. She was photographed so often that at
last she rebelled, and vowed that she would never enter a
photographer’s studio again. She figured as Miss Una Stratton, as
Miss Cory, and as Mr. Bootle, her various presentments being so
totally different that curiosity to see her rose to its highest pitch, and
caused her every movement to be watched with the keenest
interest. Briny, too, came in for his share of attention. For had it not
transpired that his mistress in all probability owed her life to him?
And that he was a cordially beloved member of the Cory family?
Through the publication of his history a curious thing came to pass.
“But you won’t take him away from us?” pleaded Miss Margaret,
anxiously.
“My dear madam,” quoth Mr. Woodstock, “do you take me for a
heathen?”
“He is recovering; but will never be the same man again. They say
that his illness has changed him in many respects, and that he has
vowed never to look upon his son again.”
Their persuasions were most kindly meant. But the firmness with
which they were resisted convinced them that they were also ill-
judged. One of Mrs. Riddell’s sons was to have his fate decided that
day—either as a free man, or as a confirmed felon. And two men
were to be arraigned for depriving her of her other son. It would be
dreadful to look upon that son’s murderers. But it would be
intolerable anguish to remain at home in ignorance of what was
being done.
The prisoners were on their trial, the one for the diamond-robbery,
and the other for being accessory after the fact. On the morrow they
were to take their trial for the suspected murder of Hilton Riddell.
Somehow, however, the proofs which had been deemed so
overwhelming by Harley’s friends, did not appear as if they were
going to be sufficient to compass the conviction of Hugh Stavanger
for the robbery. There was plenty of proof that he had had a great
many diamonds in his possession, and his evident desire to evade
observation argued guilt on his part. But there was no one who
could or would prove that the jewels in Hugh Stavanger’s possession
were the jewels that had been stolen. Both his father and his uncle
had suddenly disappeared, and their evidence was unavailable. This
disappearance confirmed everybody’s moral conviction that Hugh
Stavanger was guilty.
But moral conviction is not proof, and without proof no man may
be judged. Accused’s counsel began to be very hopeful. Presumably
everything would have turned upon Hilton Riddell’s evidence, and,
curiously enough, the lack of evidence was likely not merely to fail in
proving Stavanger’s guilt, but to be the actual means of proving his
innocence. It was fully explained why he had joined the “Merry
Maid.” But although he might have gained important evidence, he
had not returned with it, and was, therefore, useless as a witness. It
being impossible to prove that Mr. Hilton Riddell was possessed of
any information likely to be detrimental to Mr. Hugh Stavanger or to
Captain Cochrane, it naturally followed that a motive for his
supposed murder was wanting. Given no motive, only absolute proof
that the men had been seen to commit the murder would be
sufficient to secure their committal upon the capital charge, and
though all the world felt morally convinced of their guilt, the men
had capital counsel who knew, none better, how to make black look
like white, and whose professional reputation was staked upon the
winning of such a desperate looking case.
There was also a certain judge on the bench with whom the words
“justice” and “moral conviction” became obsolete terms as soon as
he entered upon the study of “law.” He also prided himself upon his
ability to enforce the dictates of law in all their naked severity, in
spite of all the clamourings of public opinion. Nay, public opinion was
his especial bugbear, and his judicial eye always rested with
particular disfavour upon anyone unfortunate enough to be deemed
a popular favourite. He had read all about Annie’s adventures, and
had at once dubbed her in his own mind an unwomanly schemer. He
didn’t like unwomanly women. They set a bad example to others.
Therefore an example must be made of them, and they must be
shown that the dictum of one of her Majesty’s judges cannot be
lightly upset. Poor man! He was but human, and he could hardly be
expected to view with favour an attempt to upset the judgment he
had himself given when Harley Riddell was tried for the diamond
robbery. Do not mistake me, dear reader, our noble judge would
sacrifice his own private feelings if law bade him do so. But law must
be paramount, and if law was ever doubtful, it must always consider
itself opposed to sentimentalism and unwarranted interference.
Hilton Riddell was that day a name to conjure with, and even the
judge himself permitted his mind to entertain emotions that were
not strictly of a legal tendency. But how describe the joy and delight
of the mother who had pictured him lying dead at the bottom of the
sea? Of the brother who thought that for his sake he had perished?
Of the friends who now saw light ahead for Harley? Or the dismay of
the two scoundrels who, though they were freed from the weight of
bloodguiltiness, yet saw condemnation in store for them as the
result of the evidence of this man, who had been given up by the
sea for their undoing?
All this happened some time ago. And our friends may be
supposed to have settled down to the freedom and joy which is
theirs. But even yet they cannot think calmly of the events of that
wonderful day when blind justice seemed to be balancing her scales
against them again, and when Hilton’s opportune return wrought the
condemnation of villainy, and re-united every member of a now
happy family. Hugh Stavanger has ample time now in which to
contemplate the fate he so ruthlessly inflicted upon another. And
Captain Cochrane often laments the day that cupidity stole such a
sorry march upon him.
Miss Una Stratton and Mr. Ernest Bootle have been relegated to
the phantoms of the past, and even Miss Annie Cory has been
merged into Mrs. Harley Riddell. Her husband has quite recovered
his former health and good looks, though he is perhaps of a more
serious disposition than of yore. He does not care to lead an idle life,
but is at the head of a lucrative business established for him by his
father-in-law. Needless to say, the said father-in-law did not care to
be parted from his daughter, and the three live very happily
together.
Mr. and Mrs. Woodstock live next door to the house in which Mr.
and Mrs. Harley Riddell and Mr. Cory reside, and it is questionable
which of the homes Briny claims as his own.
Mr. and Mrs. Twiley, and Mrs. Dollman (on her marriage to a
worthy young friend of the sergeant-major) received some very
handsome presents from the Corys, and Hilton Riddell is not likely to
forget all he owes to a certain worthy Captain Quaco Pereiro and his
steward.
THE END.
Transcriber’s Note
Page 1
further belate his arrivel
changed to
further belate his arrival
Page 13
my suspicions are centreing
changed to
my suspicions are centring
Page 20
is much higher that hers
changed to
is much higher than hers
Page 34
pretty confident now of suc cess
changed to
pretty confident now of success
Page 43
but the bo’sen was telling
changed to
but the bo’sun was telling
Page 48
in fixing the guitl changed to
in fixing the guilt
Page 48
hole has served his purpose
changed to
hole had served his purpose
Page 57
toading to wealth and positon
changed to
toading to wealth and position
Page 61
We musn’t let him changed to
We mustn’t let him
Page 123
evidence that was forthcomng
changed to
evidence that was forthcoming
Page 124
to write on his arrrival changed
to
to write on his arrival
Page 125
entitled to lodgings in goal
changed to
entitled to lodgings in gaol
Page 170
The Babel of voices changed to
The babel of voices
Page 174
guardian and beloved portégé
changed to
guardian and beloved protégé
Page 225
his judical eye changed to
his judicial eye
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