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.