His/story, Her/story, Theatre Histories

Copublisher: Universitaria Publishing House, Craiova,
The studies in this volume employ a common methodology, known as the Philther, which regards the performance as the object of theatre studies. We interpret its cultural context, directorial and dramaturgical characteristics, the actors’ performances, sight and sound exclusively from the perspective of the work of art, and we trace its impact from the perspective of the performance as a whole. The analytical methodology is based on simple observations: if art historians document the nature of aesthetic impact, and the history of art works traces the history of a genre or an artist’s oeuvre, then histories of the theatre must also focus on the works—which in this case are theatrical performances. In this volume, readers will find analyses of theatrical works that, by examining productions from Transylvania, Vojvodina, and Hungary, trace a shared history of theatre: the history of Hungarian-language theatre. We will bring together the joint research of three theatre studies workshops and present the findings of three Philther Hubs, showcasing the diversity of approaches to writing theatre history, for which in most cases Philther provides the interpretive framework. You can read analyses of the first theatre of Târgu-Mureş, a contemporary dance performance, 19th-century drama, the characteristics of Molière performances under state socialism, the avant-garde under control, and the performativity of political upheavals; yet what all these essays have in common is that they view and reveal the community’s cultural customs, theatrical repertoire, and traditions of stage expression through the history of performances. The introductory essay to the volume was written by Andreas Kotte, who recognizes the distinctive features of the historiography conveyed through the performances and thus situates the Philther method within the framework of contemporary theatre studies. Philther’s systematic approach, consisting of six criteria, allows the work of art to be linked to events in literary history, the history of an institution, or an actor’s career, while also permitting the analysis to highlight the potentially varying proportions among the six criteria. The strength of this volume lies in the fact that it brings together the writings of researchers who have been shaped by diverse educational and academic traditions; while they conduct their official business in three different countries and in three languages—Hungarian, Romanian, and Serbian—theatre history is presented to us through performances staged in Hungarian or featuring Hungarian artists. This Hungarian, steeped in multilingualism, may even be discernible in the analyses translated into English.