18
UDC 792.02:82.09-2 
UDC 82.09-2:792.02 
DOI 10.51937/Amfiteater-2022-1/18-28
The paper deals with different forms of the performance text, still a new phenomenon 
in contemporary theatre, which requires new instruments for its analysis. The structural 
transformation of the written text into the performance, including the role of the spectator 
in it, confirms the fact that the performance text does not simply mean a new kind of 
the written text – and even less a new type of theatre text, but rather an essentially 
changed hypertext. Instead, the performance text could also be called an open text of 
the performance, in the sense that it requires spectators to become its active co-writers. 
Can we, therefore, define the performance text as a scenic écriture, collective writing, 
hypertext, stretch text, or even écriture corporelle? Furthermore, how can it be translated 
from stage to page to be preserved for future studies?
The performance text is impossible without its author(s). Therefore, the paper deals with 
the performances of The Wooster Group, Motus, René Pollesch, Joris Lacoste, Milo Rau and 
Oliver Frljić, who are all constantly producing performance texts with their actors, without 
separating the process of writing from directing.
Keywords: contemporary theatre, performance art, theatre play, theatre directing, 
performance text, hypertext, dramaturgy, crystal image, storytelling, archive, repertory, 
performer, actor, narractor, theatre spectator
Aleksandra Jovićević is a full professor of performance studies at the Department of History 
Anthropology Religion Arts Performance (SARAS) at La Sapienza University of Rome and 
the director of the Master in Video Editing, Digital Storytelling for Live Performance at the 
same university. Her book, Orson Welles and Theatre: Shakespeare and Beyond (2022), has 
just been published by Bulzoni Editore in Rome, for whom she is also a curator of the book 
series Politics and Aesthetics of Performance. Aleksandra Jovićević is a visiting professor 
at the Belgrade University of Arts, president of the Dragan Klaić Fellowship Foundation, 
and a member of the scientific committee of the research project INCOMMON. In praise of 
community. Shared creativity in arts and politics in Italy (1959–1979), funded by the European 
Research Council (ERC Starting Grant 2015) and hosted by IUAV, University of Venice.
aleksandra.jovicevic@uniroma1.it

19
From Stage to Page: New Forms of the 
Performance Text 
Aleksandra Jovičević  
La Sapienza University, Rome
1.
For centuries, the theatre was accused of being exceptionally logocentric. The 
theatre play or drama was seen as a primary producer and transmitter of meaning 
and represented the main source of understanding a theatre production. It also 
represented a basic document for the history of the theatre. Yet, theatre and drama are 
two different phenomena, and their relationship to each other remains unresolved. 
According to Bernhard Dort, the unification of text and stage never really took place, 
always remaining a relationship of oppression and compromise (173). Especially 
the contemporary theatre confirms that a harmonious relationship between them is 
impossible but instead that there is a perpetual conflict between text and scene. Being 
a latent structural conflict of any theatrical practice, this inevitability can now become 
“a consciously intended principle of staging” (Lehmann 145). There is a significant 
distinction between two forms of texts: one that precedes the production (i.e., a play, 
dramatic text or any kind of written text) and the other that follows the production 
(text of the performance or the performance text). Therefore, instead of “asking what 
a dramatic text is, and what are the types of existing dramatic texts (a question as vain 
as it is desperate), it would be better to observe what we can do with texts, how mise 
en scène and performance art handle them” (Pavis 248). 
For a few decades now, a dramatic text has completely emancipated itself from the stage 
and became a literary genre just for reading. It is no longer seen as an “authority” that 
controls and governs the process of staging and/or as the central and most important 
element of the theatre production. It is defined as something out of which the staging 
process departs as a source of conception and inspiration, but it can also stand on its 
own as an independent literary form. On the other hand, the performance text is seen 
as the final result of the theatre production, where the bodies of actors, the space, 
and the props have appeared in particular materiality, and thus its written form has 
become redundant or overpassed. During the rehearsals, the actors must internalise 
any kind of text and then externalise a new kind of text, the performance text. This 

20 always happens in traditional or experimental theatre, regardless of whether the text 
is performed in full, with cuts and changes, or interspersed with additional material. 
The actors must seize and incorporate the text, or the texts, and embody them so that 
something other than the written text is created – first the text of mise-en-scène and 
then the performance text.
We could conclude that this tension or rupture with the theatre play started with 
Brecht’s creation of epic theatre. In his analysis of Brecht’s epic theatre, Walter 
Benjamin noted that dialectical images are by no means solely linguistic images 
because the text is no longer a basis of that performance but “a grid on which, in the 
form of new formulations, the gains of that performances are marked” (2). Thus, the 
function of the text in epic theatre is not to illustrate or advance the action but, on 
the contrary, to interrupt it and proceed “by fits and starts, in a manner comparable 
to the images on a film strip” (Ibid. 21). Epic theatre introduced a new way of writing 
that came closest to what we now define as a montage or collage of different texts 
or an anti-linear, fragmentary dramaturgy. Most importantly, it introduced how the 
performer’s body creates meaning and, finally, the codes of meaning produced by 
the performance text. Brecht was probably the first who introduced the ontological 
status of live performance in his work by extensive use of Model books. These 
books came closest to what we today define as the performance text. However, any 
attempt to reproduce exactly how they were annotated always differed from the 
original production, becoming new performances and thus had nothing to do with 
Brecht’s originals.
Hence, the time and space of the performance (here and now), its social and cultural 
context, and the relationship between performers and spectators are all interwoven 
in a texture and cannot be separated, constituting the text of the performance. A 
written and/or verbal text is then transformed into the performance text, which 
includes performers, their movements, their “body language”, their reductions or 
deformations of the linguistic material (pauses, silence, shouts, murmurs), their 
relationship to the space and time of the performance, as well as to the spectators, 
including all the material elements used: costumes, props, lighting, screens, 
microphones, etc. The presence of human and sometimes animal, hybrid and cyborg 
bodies, gestures and voices also transform the written language into a “language” of 
tones, words, sentences and sounds that form a scenic composition through different 
forms of dramaturgy (visual dramaturgy, sound dramaturgy, actors’ dramaturgy, and/
or spectators’ dramaturgy, etc.).
The structural transformation of the written text into the performance, including 
the role of the spectator in it, confirms the fact that the performance text does not 
simply mean a new kind of the written text – and even less a new type of theatre text, 

21 but rather an essentially changed hypertext. Roland Barthes defines the theatre as “a 
kind of cybernetic machine” which, as soon as the curtain rises, emanates a variety 
of simultaneous messages, some of which persist over time (scenography), while 
others change continuously (words and gestures). This informational polyphony, 
this thickness of the signs, is a fundamental characteristic of theatre, which 
constitutes one of the most difficult challenges for the semiotic analysis. Thus, a 
whole performance could be seen as a text, where every structured combination 
of signs, regardless of what sort of signs they are, are seen as a text. From a 
semiotic perspective, however, the written text and the text of the performance are 
two different sign systems. Each has specific characteristics and limitations that 
influence its means of expression. Therefore, several questions arise about the 
function and role of the performance text because any kind of text is incomplete 
when it comes to the performance. 
The performance text could also be defined as a piecing together of different elements, 
material and conceptual alike, that exist only during a performance, in the very act 
of performing, during an event, performance, or in representation that produces 
different performance texts, which Alain Badiou calls theatre-ideas (72). This also 
means that theatre-ideas could not be produced by any other instruments or at any 
other place; none of the elements by itself could produce theatre-ideas or even the 
text of the performance itself. The theatre-ideas come forth only in the (brief) time 
of its performance, of its representation. Therefore, all performance texts could be 
defined as “open” texts since they require the spectators to become active co-writers. 
Can we, therefore, define the performance text as a scenic écriture, collective writing, 
stretch text, or even écriture corporelle? Furthermore, how can it be traced from stage 
to page to be documented and archived for future studies?
Is the performance text a final document of the staging process or an entirely new 
kind of text? No matter how much the practitioners, theorists and critics are trying to 
describe the creation process from page to stage, something always remains lacunose 
and cannot be revealed. Perhaps a fairly recent concept used in the theatre studies – 
“Genetics” (a term borrowed from the study of literary manuscripts to describe the 
genesis of a text from an idea up until the moment of publication), could be applied 
to describe and apprehend this processes (Pavis 82). According to Pavis, in the case 
of the theatre, genetics is concerned with the creation of the text of the performance, 
from the study of everything that precedes the production, from a written text and/
or texts, through the text of mise-en-scène, to the performance text, precisely all that 
is finally presented to the public.
Still lacking the right terms to describe this process from stage to page, perhaps we 
can turn to theories outside of the theatre. For example, the concept of “crystal image” 

22 can come to the rescue when defining the performance text. Not only stage directions, 
the space, lights, sound, the set and costumes, but also the bodily co-presence of the 
performers and the public; altogether, they create that which could be defined as 
a crystal image. Deleuze examines how time discloses itself through the semiotic 
dimension of cinema. Subsequently, Deleuze identifies three distinctly different senses 
of cinematographic time: 1) time as the movement of image; 2) the movement of time-
image; and 3) the appearance of time itself. In the cinema, the crystal image is a shot 
that fuses the past of the recorded event with the presentness of its viewing. Instead, in 
the case of the performance text, we could speak about the fusion of the presentness 
of viewing and its recollection in the future. Both in the theatre and cinema, the 
crystal image is an indivisible unity of the virtual image and the actual image. Based 
on the strength of this method, the main objective is two-fold: to demonstrate that 
the performance text could be approached not only as a special kind of semiotic 
phenomenon but to further our understanding of the materiality and completeness 
of the performance. Precisely, because contemporary theatre increasingly extends 
its borders with the help of visual and sound effects, and with the combination and 
juxtaposition between video and digital projections with the live presence and/or 
liveness of the performance, it has to refer to the performance text as a quality that 
can reflect and testimony its crystal image.
2.
There are many texts used in the landscape of the contemporary theatre, such as 
scenic essays, political speeches, theoretical texts, discursive novels, epic poems, i.e. 
different texts that offer a public reflection on particular themes instead of traditional 
theatre plays. Theoretical, philosophical or aesthetic texts are taken out of their 
familiar context and reintroduced in different productions. Companies and directors 
use the stage to “think aloud” publicly or to exchange their ideas with the audience. 
In this kind of work, one can also find the actors who are more absorbed in different 
social and political debates than in their presentation, as in the works of The Wooster 
Group, Motus, Rimini Protokoll, Forced Entertainment, as well as in the productions 
of René Pollesch, Falk Richter, Joël Pommerat, Milo Rau, Joris Lacoste and Oliver Frljić, 
to name a few artists, who are all constantly making performance texts with their 
actors or companies and who do not separate the process of writing from directing. 
“I do not write plays, I write performances […] the text is what comes afterwards, and 
what remains after the theatre” (Pommerat cited in Pavis 250).

23 In his famous document The Ghent Manifesto, Milo Rau states, 
One: It’s not just about portraying the world anymore. It’s about changing it. The aim is 
not to depict the real, but to make the representation itself real. 
Two: Theatre is not a product, it is a production process. Research, castings, rehearsals 
and related debates must be publicly accessible.
Three: The authorship is entirely up to those involved in the rehearsals and the 
performance, whatever their function may be – and to no one else.
Thus, the contemporary theatre “becomes more presence than representation, 
more shared than communicated experience, more process than product, more 
manifestation than signification, more energetic impulse than information” (Lehmann 
85). This is certainly true for the works of René Pollesch, where, for example, one 
can witness a public debate among the actors about a given subject rather than a 
real theatre production. In all Pollesch’s plays, there is neither a story, nor characters, 
nor a possibility of identification. Pollesch’s characters become objects of total 
capitalisation, multiple interfaces and a presentation of the neoliberal society. In 
productions, actors are more like performance artists because their provocative 
presence and the liveness of their performing come to the forefront, more so than 
representing a character would do. The actors confront the audience, talking about 
their own existence, seeking to transform their ideas/texts into life so that the 
audience may be entirely “drawn” into those texts, which are usually theoretical and 
non-representational.
1
 Therefore, the actors take a specific risk, like in performance 
art, because they never know how the audience will react to their performance and 
how they will end – Pollesch’s performances deliberately seem unfinished, even like 
failures.
2
 A typical Pollesch show is characterised by a fluent, chatty dialogue that 
combines the technological and neoliberal jargon with the philosophical language 
and high-energy performances from a group of charismatic actors whose creative 
input during the rehearsal process effectively makes them co-authors, like in Life on 
Earth Can be Sweet, Donna (2019).
3
This principle of polyglossia proves to be universal for most of the contemporary 
theatre. It is asserted on several levels, “playfully showing gaps, abruptions and 
unsolved conflicts, even clumsiness and loss of control” (Lehmann 147). Most 
of the time, the audience is made aware of the physical, motoric act of speaking 
or reading the text itself as an unnatural, not self-evident process, like in some 
1 Pollesch has written more than hundred plays in a thirty-year career – an average of two per season – and had directed 
nearly all of them.
2 In his play, Pablo in der Plusfiliale (Pablo at a Plus Supermarket, 2004), Pollesch used a selection of writings by a number 
of economics experts on the grey economy in Third World Countries.
3 The staring point was Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto (1985).

24 works of The Wooster Group. They carried out a similar experiment in their 
famous production of Hamlet (2007–2013), based on the film Hamlet, directed 
for television by John Gielgud in 1964, with Richard Burton in the title role. The 
Wooster Group, in its distinctive style of “dance with technology”, used the film as 
a kind of reference text and, projecting it alongside the stage action of the actors, 
created the live interaction in a sort of “very sophisticated form of karaoke”. Thus, 
the show constitutes an emblematic example of the increasingly widespread 
practice of interaction between audiovisual technologies and knowledge 
incorporated in the theatre, a hyper-media show based on the highly refined use 
of the most up-to-date audiovisual technologies.
This sort of “karaoke” was already used in the theatre by the Italian author-actor 
Carmelo Bene, whose favourite technique was a kind of playback that often replaced 
dialogue in his shows. Bene was also famous for his detractions of different texts, a 
process defined by Deleuze as amputation (85). In the process of subtraction, Bene 
took away from classical plays the action, dialogue, characters and even the diction, 
so Deleuze rightly wondered, what was left? Everything, but in a new light, with new 
words, new pronunciations, new sounds, new gestures, new stage and audience 
relationships. There was no longer any dialogue but simultaneous and successive 
voices superimposed and transposed, enclosed in this temporal space of variation. 
The Italian critics have “accused” Bene of carrying out a work of “aphasia” on the 
language (whispers, stammering or deformed diction, barely perceived or deafening 
sounds), and an impediment work on things and gestures, practices that hinder 
movements instead to facilitate them, gestures that are too rigid or excessively weak, 
accessories that move with difficulty. 
Similarly, French author-director, Joris Lacoste, started an ongoing project, 
Encyclopédie de la Parole, in 2002. With a group of poets, musicians, scientists, 
visual artists, theatre and radio directors, dramaturgs, choreographers and 
curators, Lacoste has ever since been collecting audio fragments of what is said or 
uttered in public and private. Lacoste’s work is deeply about language, not about 
what is said and what it means, but about how it sounds. “ All the work I’ve done 
is based on speech, but we never use texts. We use the recordings themselves, as 
a kind of score. Including the pauses, silences and rhythms in what is being said” 
(Lacoste in Ramaer). During the performance, the language does not organically 
reside in the performer’s body but remains outside as a foreign body. Out of the gaps 
in speech emerge stuttering, failures, accents and flawed pronunciation that mark 
the conflict between body and word. The linguistic material and that of the staging 
interact with the theatrical situation, understood comprehensively by the concept 
of the performance text. 

25 Even if the term “text” here is somewhat imprecise, it does express that each time 
occurs a connection and interweaving of (at least potentially) signifying elements. 
In fact, according to Pavis, the texture is a theatrical expression because it links the 
scenes, dialogues and all the materials brought into the space/time of a production/
performance (251). As in texture, when only by touching it can we understand its 
materiality. We only believe in the performance text after we have been witnessing its 
spatial-temporal disposition, rhythmic quality, as well as its visual and sound aspect. 
The experience of seeing, listening, witnessing, perceiving and interpreting leads us 
to an aesthetic experience and the creation of meaning. Textuality, according to Pavis, 
is how verbal, visual, sonic, musical and rhythmic matter is used by authors and actors 
and then picked up by spectators and critics. 
Sometimes, the actor is completely in charge, turning herself into a narractor (Pavis 
147). In the production MDSX, by the Italian theatre group Motus, based on Jeffrey 
Eugenides’ novel Middlesex, the actor Silvia Calderoni inserts her autobiographical 
work, so the spectator is never sure what is her own text and what is the text of the novel. 
To this, Motus also added quotations from Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble and Undoing 
Gender, Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto, Paul B. Preciado’s Manifeste Contra-
sexuel and other bits of the kaleidoscopic universe of Queer. However, Calderoni is 
alone on the scene, embodying and undoing her gender, using her own body to tell a 
story of violence, pain, confusion and acceptance. Thus, she challenges the tradition 
that tends to separate theatre from storytelling, the actor from a storyteller. She moves 
without warning from the role of the narrator-commentator to that of the character, 
without any dramaturgical justification, except for that of telling the story. 
Then, one could ask, who is the real author of the text of the performance? For 
example, when not deconstructing a classical text, Oliver Frljić is presenting his own 
performance texts that are sometimes based on facts and sometimes on invented 
narratives. In several interviews, he stated that he is very sceptical towards theatre 
– for him, theatre is fake as a medium, and he feels embarrassed most of the time 
watching people on stage. It is interesting to note that Frljić, like Pollesch, is never 
concerned with what can be defined as a successful performance. On the contrary, most 
of his productions seem unfinished, a kind of mis-performance, a sort of bad amateur 
theatre, strongly influenced by performance art. The connoisseurs of performance art 
can recognise many citations from the works of Joseph Beuys, Carolee Schneemann, 
Marina Abramović, Vito Acconci, Paul McCarthy, etc. The audience has a similar 
reaction to his productions as it had to these performances: they are disgusted, they 
protest or leave the theatre, but they are never indifferent. Frljić himself claims:
When I started to think about the arts, of what and of how could do things, 
performance art was my first choice because of at least two things. First, it was 
available, you didn’t need anything: it was like conceptual art, you need your idea, 

26
you have yourself as performer, you can perform whenever you want, etc. I prefer the 
original politics of performance art: no repetition, no rehearsing and no recording. So 
the only trace of each performance is an experience shared between you as a performer 
and the audience (Frljić et al.). 
Nevertheless, what are these traces, and how they can be tracked and conserved? 
The central goal of such a reflection should be to analyse with precision the creation 
and meaning of the performance text as a new and unavoidable theatre tool that 
enlarges the definition of contemporary theatre. In her seminal book, The Archive 
and the Repertoire, Diana Taylor provides a new understanding of the vital role 
of the performance (in this case, for the history of the Americas). She argues that 
different performances, from plays to official events to grassroots protests, must be 
taken seriously to store and transmit knowledge. Taylor reveals how the repertoire 
of embodied memory – conveyed in gestures, the spoken word, movement, dance, 
song and other embodied practices – offers alternative perspectives to those derived 
from the written archive. By examining several performances in South America 
and the United States, Taylor exemplifies how people participate in producing and 
reproducing knowledge through performing it. Therefore, if performance could be 
a form that comes closest to the conditions under which we could understand our 
own experience, becoming a repertoire that “enacts embodied memory”, then the 
performance text could serve as its archive. Precisely, the embodied knowledge of 
the repertoire becomes the performance text in which different political, social and 
cultural positions are safeguarded in a kind of archive.
Many of the abovementioned live collaborative practices are made to motivate the 
audience to join in and activate the social context in which these practices unfold. 
According to Boris Groys, the tendency towards collaborative, participatory practice 
is undoubtedly one of the main characteristics of contemporary art and, we could 
add, contemporary performance. “Emerging throughout the world are numerous 
artists’ groups that pointedly stipulate collective, even anonymous, authorship of 
their artistic production” (Groys 200). However, only a few postmodern performance 
artists have tried to regain common ground with their audience by enticing them out 
of their passive roles using political or social engagement. This decision by the artists 
to give up their exclusive authorship would seem primarily to empower the viewer. 
“This sacrifice ultimately benefits the artist, however, for it frees him from the power 
that the cold eye of the uninvolved viewer exerts over the resulting artwork” (Ibid.).
This leads us back to Brecht, according to whom the most successful theatre will be 
the one that enters into a risky association between artists and spectators. It aims 
to realise the intellectual as well as emotional abilities of the spectators, looking for 
that which may be created in a new context of the performance. This position cannot 

27 and may never be neutral. On many occasions, Brecht stressed that “the audience is 
a collection of individuals, capable of thinking and reasoning, of making judgments 
even in the theatre; it treats them as individuals of mental and emotional maturity, 
and believes it wishes to be so regarded” (78). Viewed in this way, the text of the 
performance comes closest to what can be defined as the “efficacy” of the performance, 
which means that the “real” essence of the performance is communicated by its public 
impact and not by the text itself.
Brecht’s demand that authors should not “supply” the theatre with their texts but 
instead change it has been realised far beyond his imagination. The strong urge of 
contemporary artists like Pollesch, Rau or Frljić to make their art useful could be seen 
historically as a new position and requires a new theoretical reflection. Their thesis 
is more or less similar: the theatre rejects the written text as a foreign body, as a 
“world outside the stage”. The central goal of such reflection should be to analyse the 
meaning and political function of the performance text with precision. Only then can 
this dilemma over the performance text be settled and such productions generally 
accepted, even if outside the mainstream theatre.
It should not be forgotten that the current consideration of the performance text 
was prompted by the transformations introduced in the theatre in the 1960s. 
Environmental theatre, participatory theatre, theatre of images, non-verbal theatre, 
documentary theatre, performance art, happenings, assemblages, social theatre, 
etc., all contributed to creating the performance text. Furthermore, scientific 
disciplines such as semiotics, theatre anthropology, theatre sociology, aesthetics and 
performance studies all offered valuable instruments for analysing the performance 
text. However, to invent a more substantial theory of the performance text, we need 
to create a new theoretical framework based on the common ground between artistic 
practice and theory. Without treating it as a side effect of the performance but as 
its vital component, a thorough study of performance text can contribute to a more 
complex dialogue in contemporary theatre. The development of such a theory could 
also contribute to how we look at performances and performance texts in the past. 
The performance text cannot exist without the performance, which is directly related 
to artistic practice. Therefore it is not enough to simply acknowledge its existence but 
to recognise its ability to transform contemporary theatre.

28
Literature
Badiou, Alain. Handbook of Inaesthetics. Stanford University Press, 2005.
Barthes, Roland. Essais critiques. Seuil, 1981.
Bene, Carmello and Gilles Delleuze. Sovrapposizioni. Quodlibet, 2002.
Benjamin, Walter. Understanding Brecht. Verso, 2003.
Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre. Translated by John Willet, Hill and Wang, 1984. 
Brently B. “Looks It Not Like the King? Well, More Like Burton.” New York Times, 
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/theater/reviews/01haml.html. Accessed 
2 Feb. 2022.
Dort, Bernard. La Représentation èmancipée. Actes Sud, 1988.
Fischer-Lichte, Erika. The Semiotics of Theatre. Indiana University Press, 1992.
Frljić, Oliver, Agata Adamiecka-Sitek and Marta Keil. “Whose National Theatre Is It?” 
Polish Theatre Journal, vol. 1–2, no. 3–4, 2017, http://www.polishtheatrejournal.
com/index.php/ptj/article/view/80/530. Accessed 2 Feb. 2022.
Groys, Boris. Introduction to Antiphilosophy. Verso, 2012.
Lehmann, Hans Thies. Postdramatic Theatre. Routledge, 2006.
Pavis, Patrice. The Routledge Dictionary of Performance and Contemporary Theatre. 
Routledge, 2018.
Ramaer, Joost. “We never use texts. We use the sounds of people talking as a kind 
of score.” Culturebot, 18 Nov. 2015, https://www.culturebot.org/2015/11/24966/
we-never-use-texts-we-use-the-sounds-of-people-talking-as-a-kind-of-score. 
Accessed 2 Feb. 2022.
Rau, Milo. “The Ghent Manifesto.” NT Gent, https://www.ntgent.be/en/about/
manifest. Accessed 2 Feb. 2022.
Taylor, Diana. The Archive and Repertory: Performing Cultural Memory in Americas. 
Duke University Press, 2003.



30
UDK 792.02:82.09-2  
UDK 82.09-2:792.02  
DOI 10.51937/Amfiteater-2022-1/30-40
Prispevek obravnava različne oblike uprizoritvenega besedila, kar je še vedno dokaj nov pojav 
v sodobnem gledališču, ki terja nova orodja za analizo. Strukturna transformacija zapisanega 
besedila v uprizoritev, vključno z gledalčevo vlogo pri tem, potrjuje dejstvo, da uprizoritveno 
besedilo ne pomeni preprosto nove vrste zapisanega besedila, še toliko manj pa novo vrsto 
gledališkega besedila, temveč prej neke vrste bistveno spremenjen hipertekst. Uprizoritveno 
besedilo bi lahko poimenovali tudi odprto besedilo uprizoritve v smislu, da zahteva od 
gledalcev, da tudi sami postanejo aktivni so-pisci. Bi lahko potemtakem uprizoritveno besedilo 
definirali kot scenic écriture, kolektivno pisanje, hipertekst ali celo écriture corporelle? In kako 
bi ga bilo mogoče prevesti z odra na papir, da bi ga tako ohranili za prihodnje študije? 
Uprizoritveno besedilo ne more obstajati brez svojega avtorja (ali avtorjev), zato prispevek 
obravnava uprizoritve skupin The Wooster Group in Motus in pa Renéja Pollescha, Jorisa 
Lacoste, Mila Raua ter Oliverja Frljića, ki vsi nenehno proizvajajo uprizoritvena besedila skupaj 
z igralci, pri tem pa ne ločujejo procesa pisanja od režije.
Ključne besede: sodobno gledališče, performans, gledališka igra, gledališka režija, 
uprizoritveno besedilo, hipertekst, dramaturgija, kristalna podoba, pripovedovanje zgodb, 
arhiv, repertoar, performer, igralec, pripovedovalec, gledališki gledalec.
Aleksandra Jovićević je redna profesorica performativnih študij na Oddelku za zgodovino, 
antropologijo, religijo in uprizoritvene umetnosti (SARAS) na univerzi La Sapienza v Rimu 
ter predstojnica magistrskega programa za videomontažo, digitalno pripovedovanje 
zgodb za živo uprizarjanje pri isti univerzi. Pred kratkim je pri založbi Bulzoni v Rimu 
objavila knjigo Orson Welles and Theatre: Shakespeare and Beyond (2022), zanjo pa dela 
tudi kot urednica knjižne zbirke Politika in estetika uprizoritve. Aleksandra Jovićević je 
tudi gostujoča profesorica na Beograjski umetniški univerzi, predsednica Štipendijskega 
sklada Dragana Klaića ter članica znanstvenega odbora pri raziskovalnem projektu 
INCOMMON In praise of community. Shared creativity in arts and politics in Italy (1959–
1979), ki ga financira Evropski raziskovalni svet (začetna štipendija 2015), gosti pa ga 
IUAV, Univerza v Benetkah.
aleksandra.jovicevic@uniroma1.it

31
Z odra na papir: nove oblike uprizoritvenega 
besedila
Aleksandra Jovičević 
Univerza La Sapienza, Rim
1.
Gledališče so dolga stoletja obtoževali izjemnega logocentrizma. Gledališka igra ali 
drama je veljala za primarno točko produkcije in prenašalca pomena, kot taka je 
predstavljala glavni vir razumevanja gledališke izvedbe. Predstavljala je tudi temeljni 
dokument zgodovine gledališča. Vendar pa ni treba posebej poudarjati, da sta 
gledališče in drama dva povsem različna pojava, njuno medsebojno razmerje pa še 
danes ostaja nerazrešeno. Kot pravi Bernhard Dort, nikoli ni zares prišlo do poenotenja 
besedila in odra, njuno razmerje je vedno ostajalo na ravni zatiranja in kompromisa 
(173). Še posebej sodobno gledališče potrjuje, da je harmonično razmerje med obema 
nemogoče, prej bi lahko rekli, da je prisoten nenehen konflikt med besedilom in 
odrom. Kot latentni strukturni konflikt vsake gledališke prakse lahko ta neizbežna 
danost dandanes postane »zavestno hoteno načelo insceniranja« (Lehmann 145). Med 
obema oblikama besedil obstaja pomembna razlika: prva predhaja izvedbo (se pravi 
igra, dramsko besedilo ali pač kakršno koli zapisano besedilo), druga pa sledi sami 
izvedbi (besedilo uprizoritve ali uprizoritveno besedilo). Namesto da se »sprašujemo, 
kaj je dramsko besedilo in kakšne vrste dramskih besedil obstajajo (vprašanje, ki je 
prav toliko jalovo kot obupano), bi bilo bolje opazovati, kaj lahko z besedili naredimo, 
kako jih uporabljata režija in performans« (Pavis 248).
V zadnjih desetletjih se je dramsko besedilo povsem emancipiralo od odra in 
postalo literarni žanr, namenjen zgolj branju. Nič več ne velja za »avtoriteto«, ki 
nadzira in obvladuje proces inscenacije in/ali kot osrednji ter najpomembnejši 
element gledališke izvedbe. Definirajo ga kot nekakšno predlogo, s katero se proces 
inscenacije začne, kot vir koncepta in navdiha, lahko pa velja tudi za samostojno in 
neodvisno literarno obliko. Po drugi strani pa uprizoritveno besedilo velja za končni 
rezultat gledališke produkcije, kjer telesa igralcev, prostor in rekviziti nastopajo v 
svoji partikularni materialnosti, zato sama zapisana oblika postane odvečna ali sploh 
prezrta. Kakršnokoli besedilo že imajo, ga morajo igralci med vajami ponotranjiti, 
potem pa pozunanjiti v novo vrsto besedila, uprizoritveno besedilo. Do tega pride 

32 vedno, tako v tradicionalnem kot v eksperimentalnem gledališču, ne glede na to, ali je 
besedilo uprizorjeno v celoti ali s črtami in spremembami ali prepleteno z dodatnim 
gradivom. Igralci morajo besedilo ali besedila vzeti in inkorporirati ter jih nato utelesiti 
tako, da ustvarijo nekaj drugega od zapisanega besedila – v prvi vrsti besedilo režije, 
potem pa še uprizoritveno besedilo. 
Lahko bi sklepali, da se je ta napetost oziroma prelom z gledališko igro začel z 
Brechtovo stvaritvijo epskega gledališča. V analizi Brechtovega epskega gledališča 
je Walter Benjamin opazil, da dialektične podobe še zdaleč niso zgolj lingvistične 
podobe, saj besedilo ni več podlaga tovrstne predstave, temveč »mreža, na kateri se 
v obliki novih formulacij označijo pridobitve same predstave« (Benjamin 2). Tako 
funkcija besedila v epskem gledališču ni več, da ilustrira dejanje ali ga poganja, temveč 
nasprotno, da ga prekinja, pa tudi, da se odvija »v izbruhih in trzljajih, na način, 
primerljiv s podobami na pasici filma« (Benjamin 21). Epsko gledališče je uvedlo nov 
način pisanja, ki se je še najbolj približal temu, kar danes definiramo kot montažo 
ali kolaž različnih besedil oziroma nelinearno, fragmentarno dramaturgijo, in kar 
je še pomembnejše, predstavljanju načinov, kako telo performerja ustvarja pomen, 
in navsezadnje tudi samim kodom pomena, ki jih proizvaja uprizoritveno besedilo. 
Brecht je bil verjetno prvi, ki je v svoje delo uvedel ontološki status nastopanja v živo 
s pomočjo obsežne uporabe t. i. Modellbücher. Te knjige so se še najbolj približale 
temu, kar danes definiramo kot uprizoritveno besedilo. Vendar pa se je ob vsakem 
poskusu, da bi jih reproducirali natanko tako, kot so bile zabeležene, vedno izkazalo, 
da se razlikujejo od izvorne izvedbe, in tako so nastale nove predstave, ki niso imele 
nobene zveze z Brechtovimi izvirniki.
Tako so čas in prostor predstave (tukaj in zdaj), njen družbeni in kulturni kontekst 
ter razmerje med nastopajočimi in gledalci prepleteni kot v nekakšnem tkanju ter jih 
ni mogoče ločiti in skupaj sestavljajo besedilo uprizoritve. Napisano in/ali verbalno 
besedilo potem preobrazijo v uprizoritveno besedilo, ki vključuje nastopajoče, njihovo 
gibanje, njihovo »telesno govorico«, njihove redukcije ali popačenja jezikovnega 
materiala (pavze, tišine, krike, mrmranje), njihov odnos do prostora in časa uprizoritve 
pa tudi do gledalcev, vključno z vsemi uporabljenimi materialnimi elementi: kostumi, 
rekviziti, lučmi, zasloni, mikrofoni itd. Prisotnost človeških in včasih živalskih, 
hibridnih in kiborških teles, gest in glasov prav tako preobraža zapisani jezik v »jezik« 
tonov, besed, stavkov, zvokov, ki oblikujejo scensko kompozicijo z različnimi oblikami 
dramaturgije (vizualna dramaturgija, zvočna dramaturgija, dramaturgija igralcev in/
ali dramaturgija gledalcev itd.)
Strukturna transformacija zapisanega besedila v uprizoritev, vključno z vlogo, ki jo 
imajo v njej gledalci, potrjuje dejstvo, da uprizoritveno besedilo ni enostavno neka 
nova vrsta napisanega besedila, še manj pa neka nova vrsta gledališkega besedila, 

33 temveč prej nek bistveno spremenjen hipertekst. Roland Barthes gledališče definira 
kot »neke vrste kibernetski stroj«, ki takoj, ko se zavesa dvigne, začne oddajati celo 
vrsto sočasnih sporočil, pri čemer nekatera vztrajajo v času (scenografija), druga pa se 
nenehno spreminjajo (besede in geste). Ta informacijska polifonija, gostota znakov, je 
temeljna značilnost gledališča, kar tvori enega najzapletenejših izzivov za semiotično 
analizo. Celotno uprizoritev tako lahko pojmujemo kot besedilo, v katerem je vsaka 
strukturirana kombinacija znakov razumljena kot besedilo ne glede na to, za kakšne 
vrste znakov gre. Vendar s semiotičnega gledišča zapisano besedilo in besedilo 
uprizoritve predstavljata dva različna znakovna sistema, vsak s svojimi lastnimi 
specifičnimi značilnostmi in omejitvami, ki vplivajo na njuna izrazna sredstva. Tako 
se porodi množica vprašanj o funkciji in vlogi uprizoritvenega besedila, saj je, ko je 
govora o uprizoritvi, vsako besedilo, pa naj bo kakršno koli, vedno nepopolno.
Uprizoritveno besedilo bi lahko definirali tudi kot lepljenko različnih elementov 
(tako materialnih kot konceptualnih, ki obstajajo izključno med uprizoritvijo, v samem 
dejanju uprizarjanja, med dogodkom, uprizoritvijo, ali v reprezentaciji), ki proizvajajo 
različna uprizoritvena besedila, kar Alain Badiou imenuje gledališke ideje (72). To 
pa med drugim pomeni, da gledaliških idej ni mogoče ustvariti z nobenim drugim 
orodjem in na nobenem drugem kraju, pa tudi, da nobeden od elementov ne bi mogel 
proizvesti gledaliških idej samostojno, kaj šele besedila same uprizoritve. Natančneje, 
gledališke ideje se porodijo izključno v (kratkem) času uprizarjanja, predstave. 
Potemtakem bi lahko vsa uprizoritvena besedila definirali kot »odprta« besedila, v 
smislu, da od gledalcev terjajo, naj postanejo aktivni so-pisci. Bi lahko potemtakem 
uprizoritveno besedilo definirali kot scenic écriture, kolektivno pisanje ali hipertekst, 
ali celo kot écriture corporelle? In kako bi mu lahko sledili z odra na papir, da bi ga 
tako dokumentirali in arhivirali za prihodnje študije?
Je uprizoritveno besedilo končni dokument procesa insceniranja ali povsem nova 
vrsta besedila? Ne glede na to, kako zelo se praktiki, teoretiki in kritiki trudijo 
opisati proces prenašanja s papirja na oder, vedno ostane nekaj luknjičastega, česar 
ni mogoče razkriti. Morda bi lahko za opis in razumevanje teh procesov uporabili 
koncept »genetike« (Pavis 82), ki je v teatrologiji še dokaj svež (gre za termin, 
izposojen iz študij literarnih rokopisov; tam opisuje genezo besedila od same ideje 
pa vse do trenutka objave). Kot pravi Pavis, se v kontekstu gledališča genetika ukvarja 
z ustvarjanjem besedila uprizoritve, od študija vsega, kar predhaja sami izvedbi, od 
napisanega besedila in/ali besedil prek besedila režije pa vse do uprizoritvenega 
besedila, se pravi, natanko vsega tistega, kar je nazadnje predstavljeno publiki.
Ker še vedno manjkajo pravi termini za opisovanje tega procesa prenašanja z odra 
na papir, se nemara lahko obrnemo k teorijam izven gledališča. Tako si lahko pri 
definiranju uprizoritvenega besedila na primer pomagamo s konceptom »kristalne 

34 podobe«. Ne samo didaskalije, prostor, luči, zvok, scenografija in kostumi, temveč 
tudi telesna soprisotnost nastopajočih in občinstva, vse to skupaj tvori tisto, kar 
bi lahko definirali kot kristalno podobo. Deleuze preučuje, kako se čas razkriva 
prek semiotične dimenzije kinematografije. Nadalje Deleuze identificira tri izrazito 
različne smisle kinematografskega časa: (1) čas kot gibanje podobe, (2) gibanje 
časa - podobe in (3) pojavljanje samega časa. V kinu je kristalna podoba posnetek, 
ki zlije preteklost posnetega dogodka s prezentnostjo ogledovanja le-tega. Ko gre 
za uprizoritveno besedilo, pa bi namesto tega lahko govorili o zlitju prezentnosti 
ogledovanja in spominjanja le-tega v prihodnosti. Tako v gledališču kot v kinu kristalna 
podoba pomeni nedeljivo enotnost virtualne podobe in dejanske podobe. Glavni cilj, 
ki temelji na odlikah te metode, je dvojni: pokazati, da je mogoče k uprizoritvenemu 
besedilu pristopiti ne le kot k posebne vrste semiotičnemu fenomenu, temveč da pri 
tem še poglobimo razumevanje materialnosti in celovitosti uprizoritve. Prav zato, ker 
sodobno gledališče vedno bolj širi svoje meje s pomočjo vizualnih in zvočnih učinkov 
ter s kombiniranjem in zoperstavljanjem videa in digitalnih projekcij živi prezenci in/
ali živosti same uprizoritve, se mora nanašati na uprizoritveno besedilo kot kvaliteto, 
ki lahko odraža in priča o njegovi kristalni podobi.
2.
Namesto tradicionalnih gledaliških iger se na terenu sodobnega gledališča uporablja 
cela vrsta besedil, na primer scenski eseji, politični govori, teoretska besedila, 
diskurzivni romani, epske pesnitve, se pravi različna besedila, ki nudijo javno 
refleksijo o specifičnih temah. Teoretska, filozofska ali estetska besedila so iztrgana 
iz običajnega konteksta in ponovno uvedena v različne izvedbe. Skupine in režiserji 
uporabljajo oder za »glasno razmišljanje« v javnosti ali da z občinstvom izmenjujejo 
ideje. V tovrstnih delih naletimo tudi na igralce, ki so bolj zatopljeni v raznorazne 
družbene in politične debate kot v lastno predstavitev, to velja na primer za dela 
skupin The Wooster Group, Motus, Rimini Protokoll, Forced Entertainment pa tudi 
za predstave Renéja Pollescha, Falka Richterja, Joëla Pommerata, Mila Raua, Jorisa 
Lacoste in Oliverja Frljića, če naštejemo le nekatere izmed umetnikov, ki nenehno 
ustvarjajo uprizoritvena besedila skupaj z igralci ali skupinami in pri tem procesa 
pisanja ne ločujejo od režije. »Jaz ne pišem iger, pišem performanse [...] besedilo je 
tisto, kar pride kasneje in kar ostane po gledališču« (Pommerat, nav. po Pavis 250).
V slavnem Manifestu iz Ghenta Milo Rau izjavi: »1) Ne gre več zgolj za portretiranje 
sveta. Gre za to, da ga spremenimo. Namen ni orisati realnega, temveč narediti 
reprezentacijo samo realno.« Rau razglasi tudi, da »2) [g]ledališče ni produkt; je 
proces produkcije. Raziskave, avdicije, vaje in s tem povezane debate morajo biti javno 
dostopne« ter »3) [a]vtorstvo je v celoti prepuščeno tistim, ki sodelujejo na vajah in 

35 v uprizoritvi, ne glede na to, kakšna je njihova funkcija – in nikomer drugemu«.
1
 Tako 
sodobno gledališče »postane bolj prezenca kot reprezentacija, bolj deljena kot pa 
komunicirana izkušnja, bolj proces kot produkt, bolj manifestacija kot označevanje, 
bolj energetski impulz kot informacija« (Lehmann 85). To vsekakor velja za dela 
Renéja Pollescha, kjer smo, na primer, namesto prave gledališke predstave lahko priče 
javni razpravi med igralci o določeni temi. V nobeni od Polleschevih iger ni mogoče 
najti ne zgodbe, ne likov, ne možnosti identifikacije. Pri Polleschu liki postajajo objekti 
totalne kapitalizacije, večkratnih vmesnikov in predstavitve neoliberalne družbe. V 
njegovih predstavah so igralci bolj umetniki performansa, saj v ospredje stopi njihova 
provokativna prezenca in živost njihovega nastopanja, bolj kot bi to lahko dosegli z 
reprezentiranjem likov. Igralci se soočajo z občinstvom, govorijo o lastni eksistenci 
in poskušajo preoblikovati svoje ideje/besedila v življenje, tako da bi občinstvo 
povsem »vpotegnili« v ta besedila, ki so po navadi teoretska in nereprezentacijska.
2
 
Igralci torej do neke mere tvegajo, tako kot pri performansu, saj nikoli ne vedo, kako 
se bo občinstvo odzvalo na njihovo uprizarjanje in kako se bo končalo – Pollescheve 
uprizoritve namenoma delujejo kot nedokončane, celo spodletele.
3
 Za Pollescheve 
predstave je značilen tekoč, klepetav dialog, ki združuje tehnološki in neoliberalni 
žargon s filozofskim jezikom, visokoenergetske nastope skupine karizmatičnih 
igralcev, katerih ustvarjalni prispevek med procesom vaj dejansko pomeni, da 
postanejo soavtorji, kot na primer v predstavi Življenje na zemlji je lahko sladko, 
Donna  (Life on Earth Can be Sweet, Donna) (2019).
4
Tak pristop, t. i. polyglossia, se je izkazal kot univerzalen za večino sodobnega 
gledališča in se potrjuje na več ravneh, »igrivo prikazuje vrzeli, prekinitve in 
nerazrešene konflikte, celo nerodnosti in izgubo nadzora« (Lehmann 147). Občinstvu 
večinoma jasno kaže fizično, motorično dejanje govorjenja ali branja samega besedila 
kot nenaraven, nesamoumeven proces, kot na primer v nekaterih delih skupine The 
Wooster Group. Tak eksperiment so izpeljali v slavni izvedbi Hamleta (2007–2013), 
ki je temeljila na filmu Hamlet z Richardom Burtonom v naslovni vlogi, ki ga je leta 
1964 za televizijo režiral John Gielgud. The Wooster Group je v prepoznavnem slogu 
»plesa s tehnologijo« uporabila film kot nekakšno referenčno besedilo in ga projicirala 
sočasno z odrsko aktivnostjo igralcev, kar je ustvarilo nekakšno živo interakcijo ali 
neke vrste »zelo sofisticirane oblike karaok«. Predstava je emblematični primer vse 
bolj razširjene prakse interakcije med avdiovizualnimi tehnologijami in znanjem, 
vključenimi v gledališče. Gre za hipermedijsko predstavo, ki temelji na zelo prefinjeni 
uporabi kar najsodobnejše avdiovizualne tehnologije.
1 https://www.ntgent.be/en/about/manifest
2 Pollesch je v tridesetletni karieri napisal več kot sto iger – v povprečju dve na sezono – in skoraj vse tudi sam režiral.
3 V igri Pablo in der Plusfiliale (Pablo v veleblagovnici Plus, 2004) je Pollesch uporabil izbor iz spisov cele vrste ekonomskih 
strokovnjakov za sivo ekonomijo v deželah tretjega sveta.
4 Izhodišče za to predstavo je bil Manifest o kiborgih (A Cyborg Manifesto) Donne Haraway (1985).

36 Takšne »karaoke« je v gledališču uporabljal že italijanski avtor-igralec Carmelo Bene, 
čigar priljubljena tehnika je bila neke vrste »playback«, ki je v predstavah pogosto 
nadomeščal dialog. Slovel je tudi po omalovaževanju različnih besedil; gre za proces, 
ki ga je Deleuze definiral kot amputacijo (85). V tem procesu odvzemanja je Bene iz 
klasičnih besedil črtal vso akcijo, dialoge, like in celo dikcijo, tako da se je Deleuze 
upravičeno spraševal, kaj sploh še ostane. Odgovor je: vse, vendar v novi luči, z novimi 
besedami, izgovarjavo, z novimi zvoki, novimi gestami, novimi razmerji med odrom in 
občinstvom. Ni šlo več za dialog, temveč za sočasne in zaporedne glasove, nanesene in 
prenesene drug čez drugega in zaprte v časovni prostor variiranja. Italijanski kritiki 
so Beneja »obtoževali«, da izvaja »afazijo« jezika (šepetanje, jecljanje ali popačena 
dikcija, komaj zaznavni ali oglušujoči zvoki) in ovira stvari in geste, da uporablja 
prijeme, ki otežujejo gibanje, namesto da bi ga lajšale, geste, ki so pretoge ali pretirano 
šibke, dodatno opremo, ki jo je težko premikati.
Podobno je tudi francoski avtor-režiser Joris Lacoste leta 2002 začel projekt, ki še 
kar traja, z naslovom Encyclopédie de la Parole. S skupino pesnikov, glasbenikov, 
znanstvenikov, vizualnih umetnikov, gledaliških in radijskih režiserjev, dramaturgov, 
koreografov in kuratorjev Lacoste vse od takrat zbira zvočne fragmente, izrečene 
ali izjavljene tako v javnem kot v zasebnem življenju. Lacostovo delo je globoko 
povezano z jezikom, a ne s tistim, kar je izrečeno ali kar naj bi to pomenilo, temveč 
s tem, kako zveni. »Vsa moja dosedanja dela temeljijo na govorici, vendar pa nikdar 
ne uporabljamo besedila. Same posnetke uporabljamo kot nekakšno partituro. Vanjo 
vključujemo premore, tišine in ritme v tem, kar je izrečeno« (Lacoste v Ramaer). Med 
uprizoritvijo jezik ni organsko umeščen v telo nastopajočega, temveč ostaja zunaj 
njega, kot tuje telo. Iz vrzeli v govoru vzniknejo jecljanje, spodrsljaji, naglasi, napačne 
izgovarjave, ki označujejo konflikt med telesom in svetom. Jezikovno gradivo in 
gradivo inscenacije sta v interakciji z gledališko situacijo, celostno razumljena s 
pomočjo koncepta uprizoritvenega besedila. 
Čeprav je termin »besedilo« na tem mestu nekoliko nenatančen, vendarle izraža 
dejstvo, da vsakokrat pride do povezave in prepletanja (vsaj potencialno) pomenskih 
elementov. Pravzaprav je, kot pravi Pavis, tekstura gledališki izraz, saj povezuje 
prizore, dialoge pa tudi vse materiale, ki jih vnesemo v prostor/čas uprizoritve/
izvedbe (251). Kot pri teksturi, ko lahko njeno materialnost razumemo samo tako, da 
se je dotaknemo, tudi v uprizoritveno besedilo verjamemo šele potem, ko smo priče 
njegovi prostorsko-časovni razpostavi, ritmični kvaliteti pa tudi vizualnim in zvočnim 
vidikom. Izkušnje gledanja, poslušanja, pričevanja, zaznavanja, interpretiranja nas 
vodijo k estetski izkušnji in stvarjenju pomena. Kot trdi Pavis, je tekstualnost način, 
kako avtorji in igralci uporabljajo verbalno, vizualno, zvočno, glasbeno in ritmično 
snov, ki jo potem izluščijo gledalci in kritiki.

37 Včasih igralci povsem prevzamejo pobudo in postanejo pripovedovalci (Pavis 
147). V predstavi MDSX italijanske gledališke skupine Motus, ki temelji na romanu 
Middlesex pisatelja Jeffreyja Eugenidesa, igralka Silvia Calderoni vstavi svoje lastno 
avtobiografsko gradivo, tako da gledalec ne more biti prepričan, kaj je njeno lastno 
besedilo, kaj pa besedilo romana. K temu pa je Motus dodal še navedke iz knjig Težave 
s spolom (Gender Trouble) in Izničenje spola (Undoing Gender) pa tudi Manifest o 
kiborgih Donne Haraway, Manifeste Contra-sexuel Paula B. Preciada in druge delčke 
kalejdoskopskega kvirovskega univerzuma. Vendar pa je Calderoni na prizorišču 
sama, ko uteleša in izničuje svoj spol, uporablja lastno telo, da bi povedala zgodbo o 
nasilju, bolečini, zmedenosti in sprejemanju. S tem izziva tradicijo, ki je nagnjena k 
ločevanju gledališča od pripovedovanja zgodb, igralcev od pripovedovalcev. Calderoni 
brez opozorila prehaja iz vloge pripovedovalke - komentatorke v vlogo lika brez 
kakega vidnega dramaturškega razloga, razen tega, da pove zgodbo.
Zato je povsem na mestu vprašanje, kdo je pravi avtor besedila uprizoritve? Kadar 
Oliver Frljić ne dekonstruira kakšnega klasičnega besedila, pogosto predstavlja 
lastna uprizoritvena besedila, ki občasno temeljijo na resničnih dejstvih, včasih pa 
na izmišljenih pripovedih. V več intervjujih je že izjavil, da je precej skeptičen do 
gledališča, da mu gledališče kot medij deluje lažno in da mu je pogosto čuti zadrego, 
kadar gleda ljudi na odru. Kot zanimivost lahko omenimo, da se, tako kot Pollesch, 
tudi Frljić nikdar ne ukvarja s tem, kar bi lahko opredelili kot uspešno predstavo. 
Ravno nasprotno, večina njegovih uprizoritev daje vtis nedokončanosti, nekakšne 
zgrešenosti, kot bi šlo za nekakšno slabo amatersko gledališče pod močnim vplivom 
performansa. Poznavalci performansa lahko v tem prepoznajo številne citate iz del 
Josepha Beuysa, Carolee Schneemann, Marine Abramović, Vita Acconcija, Paula 
McCarthyja idr. Tudi občinstvo se na njegove predstave odziva podobno, kot se je na 
takšne performanse, s tem, da se zgražajo, protestirajo ali zapustijo gledališče, nikdar 
pa niso brezbrižni. Sam Frljić zase trdi: 
Ko sem začel razmišljati o umetnosti, o tem, kaj in kako bi lahko delal, je bil performans 
moja prva izbira, in to najmanj iz dveh razlogov. Prvič je bil zelo dostopen, saj za 
performans ne potrebuješ ničesar: to je tako kot pri konceptualni umetnosti, potrebuješ 
samo lastno idejo, potem pa si sam svoj performer, nastopiš lahko, kadar hočeš itd. 
Najbliže so mi izvorna načela performansa: nobenih ponovitev, nobenih vaj, nobenega 
snemanja. Tako je edina sled vsakega performansa samo izkušnja, ki si jo kot performer 
deliš z občinstvom. (Frljić)
Toda kaj so ti sledovi in kako jih je mogoče izslediti in ohraniti? Osrednja 
naloga takšne refleksije bi morala biti natančna analiza ustvarjanja in pomen 
uprizoritvenega besedila kot novega in neizogibnega gledališkega orodja, ki razširja 
definicijo sodobnega gledališča. V vplivni knjigi Arhiv in repertoar (The Archive and 
the Repertoire) Diana Taylor ponuja novo razumevanje ključne vloge performansa 

38 (v tem primeru gre za zgodovino obeh Amerik). Trdi, da je treba različne vrste 
uprizoritev, od iger do uradnih dogodkov in množičnih protestov, jemati zelo resno, 
kot načine shranjevanja in prenašanja znanja. Taylor razkriva, kako repertoar 
utelešenega spomina, ki ga podajamo z gestami, govorjeno besedo, gibanjem, plesom, 
pesmijo in drugimi utelešenimi praksami, ponuja alternativne poglede na spomine, 
izpeljane iz zapisanega arhiva. Taylor preuči več performansov iz Južne Amerike in 
ZDA kot vzorčne primere tega, kako ljudje sodelujejo pri produkciji in reprodukciji 
znanja s tem, ko ga uprizarjajo. Če je potemtakem performans oblika, ki se še najbolj 
približa razmeram, v katerih bi lahko razumeli svoja lastna izkustva, ko postanemo 
repertoar, ki »udejanja utelešeni spomin«, bi lahko uprizoritveno besedilo služilo 
kot arhiv za to. Prav utelešeno znanje repertoarja postane uprizoritveno besedilo, 
v katerem se različne politične, družbene in kulturne pozicije ohranijo kot v neke 
vrste arhivu.
Mnoge izmed zgoraj omenjenih sodelovalnih praks v živo imajo namen motivirati 
občinstvo, da se pridruži dogajanju, in aktivirati družbeni kontekst, v katerem se te 
prakse odvijajo. Kot pravi Boris Groys, je nagnjenost k sodelovalni, participatorni 
praksi zagotovo ena glavnih značilnosti sodobne umetnosti, lahko bi dodali tudi 
sodobnega performansa. »Po vsem svetu se pojavljajo številne umetniške skupine, ki se 
pri svoji umetniški produkciji poudarjeno poslužujejo kolektivnega, celo anonimnega 
avtorstva« (Groys 200). Vendar pa je le peščica postmodernih performativnih 
umetnikov poskušala ponovno doseči skupni imenovalec z občinstvom tako, da so 
jih zvabili iz pasivne vloge s pomočjo uporabe političnega ali družbenega angažmaja. 
Pričakovali bi, da bo ta odločitev umetnikov, da se odrečejo izključnemu avtorstvu, v 
prvi vrsti opolnomočila gledalca. »Toda konec koncev je ta žrtev umetniku v korist, 
saj ga odreši moči, ki jo ima hladen pogled neprizadetega opazovalca ob ocenjevanju 
modernega umetniškega dela« (Groys 200).
To pa nas privede nazaj k Brechtu, ki je menil, da je gledališče lahko najuspešnejše, 
kadar vzpostavi tvegano povezavo med umetniki in gledalci. Namen tega je uresničiti 
tako intelektualne kot emocionalne zmožnosti gledalcev v iskanju tistega, kar je 
mogoče ustvariti v novem kontekstu uprizoritve. Takšno stališče ni in ne more 
nikdar biti nevtralno. Brech je ob številnih priložnostih poudaril, da je »občinstvo 
kolektiv posameznikov, sposoben mišljenja, sklepanja in razsojanja, tudi v gledališču; 
obravnava jih kot posameznike, ki so duhovno in čustveno dozoreli, in verjame, da 
tudi sami želijo, da jih tako obravnavajo« (Brecht 78). Če pogledamo s tega zornega 
kota, se besedilo uprizoritve še najbolj približa tistemu, kar bi lahko definirali kot 
»učinkovitost« uprizoritve, kar pomeni, da »resnično« bistvo uprizoritve podaja njen 
javni vpliv, ne pa samo besedilo.
Brechtova zahteva, da avtorji gledališča ne smejo »zalagati« z besedili, temveč da 

39 ga morajo spremeniti, se je uresničila do takšne mere, da si tega ne bi mogel niti 
predstavljati. Močna potreba sodobnih umetnikov, kot so Pollesch, Rau ali Frljić, da 
bi svojo umetnost naredili koristno, bi lahko, zgodovinsko gledano, razumeli kot 
novo stališče, ki terja tudi novo teoretsko refleksijo. Njihove teze so si bolj ali manj 
podobne: gledališče zavrača napisano besedilo kot tuje telo, kot »svet zunaj odra«. 
Osrednji cilj tovrstnih refleksij bi moral biti čim natančnejša analiza pomena in 
politične funkcije uprizoritvenega besedila. Samo tako bi bilo mogoče razrešiti dilemo 
glede uprizoritvenega besedila. Nedvomno bo tak pristop postal splošno sprejet, pa 
čeprav izven okvirov institucionalnega gledališča.
Ne smemo pozabiti, da so trenutne razmisleke o uprizoritvenem besedilu spodbudile 
preobrazbe, ki so jih v gledališče uvedli v šestdesetih letih dvajsetega stoletja. 
Okoljsko gledališče, participatorno gledališče, gledališče podob, neverbalno gledališče, 
dokumentarno gledališče, performans, hepening, kolaž, družbeno gledališče itd., vse 
to je prispevalo k stvarjenju uprizoritvenega besedila. Poleg tega so nove znanstvene 
discipline, kot so semiotika, gledališka antropologija, gledališka sociologija, estetika in 
performativne študije, ponudile uporabna orodja za analizo uprizoritvenega besedila. A 
če naj pridemo do bolj substancialne teorije uprizoritvenega besedila, bo treba ustvariti 
nov teoretski okvir, ki bo temeljil na skupnem izhodišču umetniške prakse in teorije. 
Temeljita raziskava uprizoritvenega besedila, ki ga ne bo imela zgolj za stranski učinek 
uprizoritve, temveč kot ključni element le-te, lahko prispeva h kompleksnejšemu dialogu 
o sodobnem gledališču. Razvoj takšne teorije bi lahko prispeval tudi k našim pogledom 
na uprizoritve in uprizoritvena besedila iz preteklosti. Uprizoritveno besedilo ne 
more obstajati brez same uprizoritve, kar je neposredno vezano na umetniško prakso. 
Potemtakem ni dovolj, da zgolj pripoznamo njegov obstoj, ampak moramo prepoznati 
njegovo zmožnost, da preobrazi sodobno gledališče. 
Prevedel Jaka Andrej Vojevec.

40
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