Theatermachine: Tadeusz Kantor in Context

Theatermachine: Tadeusz Kantor in Context is an in-depth, multidisciplinary compendium of essays about one of the most influential theater artists of the twentieth century. Hans-Thies Lehmann's theory of postdramatic theater and developments in critical theory--particularly Bill Brown's thing theory, Bruno Latour's actor-network theory, and posthumanism--serve to provide a previously unavailable vocabulary for discussion of Kantor's theater.

Drawing on diverse approaches, the contributors write about Kantor from both global and local perspectives: as an exemplar of "postdramatic tragedy"; in relationship to Jewish culture and Yiddish theater; through the prism of postmemory and trauma theory; and in relation to Japanese, German, French, Polish, and American avant-garde theater. This comprehensive anthology arrives at a time when we grapple with the materiality of our modern lives--AI, technobjects, and algorithms--and might thus also be better poised to understand the materiality that permeates Kantor's theater.

Theatermachine argues that while confronting the twentieth century's most pressing, but least comfortable, questions--those of a human's worth, dignity, essence, and purpose--Kantor might also have been, unwittingly, a harbinger of the twenty-first century's political, ethical, aesthetic, and critical discourse.

MAGDA ROMANSKA is an associate professor in the Department of Performing Arts at Emerson College and the author of Post-traumatic Theatre of Grotowski and Kantor.

KATHLEEN CIOFFI is a theater historian who specializes in Polish theater. She is the author of Alternative Theatre in Poland, 1954-1989.