Theatre of the Real [Paperback]

This book proposes a new way to consider theatre and performance that claims a special relationship to reality, truth and authenticity. It documents innovations in devising and staging theatre and performance that takes reality as its subject, cultural shifts that have generated theatre of the real, some of its problems and some possibilities.List of Illustrations Series Preface Acknowledgements Theatre of the Real: An Overview The Theatricalization of Public and Private Life After the Fact: Technology, Memory, Experience Apart From the Document: Representation of Jews and Jewishness Occupying Public Space Seems Like I Can See Him Sometimes: Theatre of Revelation Works Cited Index

'In Theatre of the Real, Carol Martin addresses a perennial problem in the medium of theatre: its access to, reliance on, and use, representation, and betrayal of the real. Eschewing a merely generic argument, Martin moves beyond the terminology of documentary or verbatim theatre to analyze the complex ways performance invokes contemporary politics, biography and autobiography, historical events and personal memory. Richly positioned in the history of modern theatre, ranging across four decades of performance, The Theatre of the Real suggestively explores an essential dimension of the contemporary stage.' - W. B. Worthen, Alice Brady Pels Professor in the Arts, Barnard College, Columbia University, USA

'The book provides an ideal conceptual framework within which to view and understand a variety of performances that have erupted in Egypt since the dawn of the so-called Arab Spring. Martin's profound, insightful and lucid investigation of the elusiveness of truth in relation to the staging of 'reality' makes it a must read for artists/activists in the Arab world and similarly beleaguered countries and for anyone, anywhere, who still believes in the political potency of theatre.' - Nehad Selaih, Professor of Drama and Criticism, Cairo Academy of Arts, Egypt