Bodies on stage between presence and absence

Abstract

European theatre engages with the problems of our time with ever greater commitment and responsibility, crucial both on the existential and the social level. At the same time it is researching and experimenting with a language suited for the communicative and aesthetic horizon of our age. This essay, intended to inaugurate in this journal a series of critical studies of the theatre, analyses two works, highly successful internationally, emblematic both by their theme (the body, death, memory) on which they invite the spectators to reflect and the experimental technique through which they involve audiences. The performances analysed are “La Merda” by the Italian Cristian Ceresoli, interpreted by Silvia Gallarani and “Nachlass” by the Swiss-German Stephen Kaegi for the Berlin group Rimini Protokoll.

Keywords

• theatre
• body
• death
• memory