Singular Plural Theatre: Representation, Identity Politics and Appropriation in Contemporary Theatre and Theory after Brecht and Marx

Abstract

The topic of this contribution is the so-called ‘Identity Politics’ currently being discussed with regard to theatre and the visual arts at numerous places: who is allowed to represent whom on stage and in the arts in general? And how should we deal with the alterity of the Other(s) on stage? Since the election of Donald Trump, debates about representation, alterity and the issue of appropriation have been mixed with a second series of questions. According to some theorists and theatre people, this is due to its continuing and increasingly exclusive interest in issues of identity politics, to the extent that the political left has forgotten social issues. Against the backdrop of these debates, and taking up the argumentation of – amongst others – Spivak, in my essay I argue that theatre’s contribution to the debate on identity and diversity lies in its questioning of the very logic of identity as such. With regard to Jan Lauwers’ production Blind Poet and referring briefly to some other examples, I will try to show that theatre has the privilege of questioning these boundaries by confronting us with the foreign Other within ourselves, with an originary de-position of those origins on which our identities are based. Lauwers and the Needcompany are working on a form of performance art, at the centre of which we find the singular plural (Nancy) of each character.