Performance, Theater and Politics

3.0 credits · Undergraduate

As Schiller's famous treatise on the stage as moral institution (1784) depicts it, Germanophone theater fulfills a particularly strong moral, pedagogical, public task. The landscape of German theater is unique because of a political commitment to (and subsidies for) this, the maybe most social art form. The course will explore the particular history of German theater and the texts that form its aesthetic and theoretical basis (Schiller, Brecht). How does the form of the drama change with historical and political changes (from identification or catharsis to alienation and participation)? How does theater change when not "text" but "performance" becomes a focus, pushing against the 4th wall, and spilling onto the streets? Authors/performers include: Friedrich Schiller, Bertolt Brecht, Marieluise Fleisser, Heiner Müller, Kathrin Röggla, René Pollesch, Dinçer Güçyeter/Hakan Savas Mican. Taught in German.