Supliciul corpului: spectacol teatral, spectacol politic

Abstract

The Torment of the Body: Theatrical Performance, Political Performance
We commonly say that there is no drama or theatre without conflict. Conflicts can be physical, psychological, symbolic. Analyzing physical conflicts, we could say that they bring to the surface, by association, a side of physical suffering. What this physical suffering is, is not at all hard to guess, if we look anywhere around us, from reality to fiction. It is precisely with this obviousness in mind, that we propose to go a little further and sketch out a concept: the ordeal of the body as a theatrical performance and a political performance. Thus, we propose to investigate not those dramaturgies where the overt violence of suffering is the subject in itself, but those situations in which the ordeal of the body allows us to glimpse subtle connections with something else. As we shall see, these connections most often refer to the realm of the political, but they can also create deeper connections with theatricality, where the torment of the body coexists with essential questions about the theatre. In terms of links with politics, we have the example of ancient drama, in “Antigone” where the dead body of Polynices, forbidden to be raised from the dust, makes us aware of the political implications of this decision. It is also the case in Shakespeare’s Renaissance, where Coriolanus refuses to expose his scars to the plebs in exchange for political office, or in “Hamlet”, which makes us see through the eye of the needle the reality of torture. In the 20th century, the torment of the body appears in a new form with Antonin Artaud and Jerzy Grotowski, who will inaugurate a new theatricality centered around the archetypal body. And finally, the choreographer Pina Bausch, who returns to the earlier link between theatre and politics in terms of the torment.