Urbuild and Eccentrics: On Romeo Castellucci’s Œuvre in Theatre

Editors: Árpád Kékesi Kun and Zsófia Emma Szilágyi

This collection of studies is devoted to Romeo Castellucci, whose productions both evoke archaic patterns of human existence undivided by geographical, cultural or other boundaries and constitute compelling or unsettling, but invariably extraordinary, idiosyncratic worlds. Castellucci has himself been inspired by numerous other artists – above all visual artists, film directors and writers – while in turn providing inspiration for a whole range of scholars across Europe, Asia and the Americas. The work of some of these scholars has gained greater visibility than that of others, largely because of linguistic barriers and the limited accessibility of certain publications, and it is this latter anomaly that the present collection seeks, in part, to redress. The idea for this book originated at the Doctoral School of the University of Arts Târgu Mureș, where some professors and their students have been engaged with the work of the Italian director for a decade and a half. One of the volume’s explicit aims is to reach an international readership. In our view, Romanian and Hungarian scholars have produced a considerable body of important writing on individual works by Castellucci and on his theatrical thinking, work that deserves greater visibility rather than remaining confined, because of linguistic limitations, to the spheres of theatre research and higher education in the two countries. This is why the contributions collected in the volume have been translated into English. Most were also revised for publication in English, and throughout the editorial process we have sought to take the needs of Anglophone readers into account.