 Have
you ever experienced information
overload?

Do you ever feel overwhelmed or anxious
because there are so many choices out there –
what to wear
what music to enjoy
what toothpaste to use?
 Do
you mistrust anyone who tells you that there
is only one way of looking at the world?
Postmodernism simply
means ‘after Modernism’.
It is a rejection of all the
certainties of the
Modernist era.
‘Speak Postmodernism’
academic jargon
terms
concepts
What makes Postmodern Theatre recognisably
Postmodern.
Postmodernism is both:
Cultural movement with a certain set of
aesthetics
Philosophical and socio-historical
movement
Postmodernism is a term or set of ideas to describe a
set of features or characteristics
Film
Architecture
Literature
Theatre
Sociology
Cultural
studies
Communications
Fashion
Socioeconomictechnologi
cal
Technology
Art
Music
Major world events like the
Holocaust and Hiroshima,
forced thinkers, artists,
philosophers and ordinary
people to ask questions about
reality, authority and
humanity’s role in the world.
Is Postmodernism deconstructs (takes
apart) those ‘truths’ and tries to make
sense of the many uncertainties,
ironies, contradictions, and multiple
points of view that exist in the world.
The bigger picture
Modernism in the 20th century was
characterised by many ideologies
and –isms, all of which claimed to
have ‘the answer’, a system to live
by, a grand truth.
Is there such a thing as absolute
truth that should determine the way
we see the world and how we
should behave?
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How Modernism became Postmodernism
Modernism has its roots in the 19th century – it came about
as people rejected the old Victorian standards of how art
should be made and consumed, and what it should mean.
Rebelling against the ideal of portraying reality accurately
and objectively, artists and writers focused more on
impressionism and subjectivity.
There was an emphasis on how seeing (or reading or
perception itself) takes place, rather than on what is
perceived. There was a new tendency toward reflexivity*,
or self-consciousness, in the production of a work of art.
For example, in Epic Theatre, the playwright would
interrupt the action of the play, calling attention to the
fact that it is a constructed piece of theatre, breaking the
illusion of the ‘fourth wall’. In Postmodernism, this is
taken further, until the very idea of the author’s authority
is laughed at, and the emphasis shifts to the audience’s
ability to make meaning for themselves.
Many of the theatrical and artistic
movements of the 20th century,
such as Epic Theatre and Theatre
of the Absurd, played with
fragmented forms, broken
narratives and random collages.
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WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EPIC THEATRE , THEATRE OF
THE ABSURD AND POST MODERN DRAMA?
Epic Theatre and Theatre of the Absurd a core narrative and
logical unfolding of events still existed.
Postmodernist Drama, those narrative structures are taken apart
(deconstructed) and put back together in ways that are sometimes
disruptive and fragmented.
Performances are constructed from pastiche*, collage and
fragmented storylines In terms of style,
Modernism saw a stripping away of the trappings of Realism to
more minimalist designs. Postmodernism borrows from realism,
baroque, classicism, minimalism.
In the 20th century, there was a blurring of boundaries between
different disciplines, and also between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture.
In Postmodernism, the divisions between genres and disciplines
disappear altogether.
Elitism is laughed at, and filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino
celebrate ‘pulp’ movies, and recycle popular culture in their work.
 The
most important difference is in attitude.
In Modernism, the artist, writer or director
was seen as the ultimate meaning-maker.
While Modernist artworks lament the loss of
meaning and coherence, and see the
fragmentation of history as tragic
 Postmodernism celebrates this, embracing
chaos, nonsense and absurdity, and creating
a sense of fun, playfulness and irony,
shopping in the ‘supermarket of style’ and
allowing multiple meanings to co-exist at the
same time.
Rejecting master narratives
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Grand narrative or Master narrative
Dominant set of beliefs that a society or nation holds as the
absolute truth.
Consider each of the following statements and discuss ways in
which their absolute truth can be picked apart, disproved or seen
to be untrue. Who would benefit from keeping such a belief in
place?
‘Capitalism is democratic.’
‘America has a moral duty to police the world.’
Modernist plays crafted around a central premise
Postmodernist texts multiple realities
Do not offer a neat solution or a closed ending. T
Postmodern play explode the idea of authority or of a single
dominant ideology.
For example, Sam Shepard’s plays deconstruct the myth of the
American Dream – a dominant master narrative of American
culture.
Pastiche
The word comes from French, and is used
to describe a visual art technique similar to
collage
Different texts, images and media forms are
pasted together to create one piece
Borrowing, referencing, and layering
different texts and images together is a
typical feature of Postmodern Drama
Dramatic Elements
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Existing ways of seeing the world are subverted and questioned
Often by taking things apart and putting the pieces back together in new ways
This process is called ‘deconstruction’
Playwrights also take apart usual expectations about character and human experience.
For example, rather than portraying a well-rounded, coherent character, a postmodern
playwright might take fragments of a character’s mind
Directors might get actors to play each aspect of the protagonist’s consciousness
Take a well-known classical text and deconstruct that
Hamletmachine, German playwright, Heiner Müller, takes apart Shakespeare’s Hamlet and
puts the pieces back together in a different way, spliced with images or texts from pop
culture.
Even the way in which the audience watches a play is deconstructed, as the text pokes fun
at the audience, and at our usual expectations of what is ‘normal’ in a theatre performance.
The play opens with the line, ‘i was hamlet. I stood at the shore and talked with the surf
BLABLA, the ruins of europe behind me.’
Hamletmachine is a typical postmodern experiment in deconstructing text. It trashes high art
in favour of pop and presents the audience with the image of a fragmenting capitalist
madhouse, with hamlet barking ‘heil Coca Cola!’.]
Broken narratives, story webs and multiple realities

Narrative structures tend not to be linear, clear or complete.
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Plays have broken narratives
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collections of overlapping stories
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conflicting voices
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multiple points of view
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Reality, in a Postmodern world, is not a clear, neat story, so why should a play try to pretend
that life is simple?
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Modernist play, the structure will typically have a clear beginning, middle and end
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Postmodernist play, multiple realities overlap
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Different characters from different parts of history, art and literature meet together around
one table. They speak about common themes: husbands, marriage, babies, and their
narratives collide, meet up and separate.
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Opening scene of Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls
Top Girls deals
with women’s
losing their
humanity in
order to
attain power
in a maledominated
environment[
Popular culture
 Postmodern theatre moves away from idea of ‘high art’
just for the elite.
 Directors such as Quentin Tarantino, e.g. in Pulp Fiction,
draw on a variety of ‘pulp’ genres, mixing and
referencing these.
 In Baz Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet an ‘elite’ genre
(Shakespeare) is saturated in popular culture – music,
fashion, and images from a consumer-driven world.
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Death of the AUTHOR
The reader is the creator of meaning
The author does not hold any ultimate truth the product created
Scripts often just a starting point
Performance itself layered with images, soundscapes and multimedia experiences that could not have been captured in a script
The text for Hamletmachine, for example, is more like a score for
an orchestra than a script for actors to follow faithfully. The director
might interpret, add images or choose styles to flesh out the script.
In Ben Elton’s Popcorn, a debate rages as to whether or not
movies are responsible for violence in society. The playwright does
not offer one point of view, rather leaving the audience to construct
their own ‘ultimate’ message.
This concept, known in literature as ‘reader response theory’
The book depicts the
differences between
different social groups in
America, from rich people
with guards like Bruce
Delamitri to poorer people
Wayne and Scout.
The audience is always right!
 Modernist Drama a complete whole, identifiable message
artistic vision
 Postmodern art, literature and theatre allows the audience to be
part of the meaning-making process.
 ‘Let’s just leave it to the audience to decide’ vs. audience is
included in the dialogue of the play, acknowledged as an
important part of the theatrical process or ‘conversation
Meta-theatre* and meta-text* fairy tale
 Meta-theatre is when the artwork reflects on itself
 The
playwright calls attention to the fact that this is only
a play we are watching
 The
actor might suddenly break out of character to
show us that she’s just playing a role
 The
play is aware that it’s a play! This is an extension
of the Brechtian vervremdungseffekt
Postmodern performances change from one
performance to the next
 Stanislavski and Grotowski actors to repeat a
performance consistently
 This is not considered important in a Postmodern play
 Each performance is a unique, living experience
 Each spectator creates a totally unique meaning map of
what they see, tuning into different moments
 There is no attempt to create a whole, or a message
which can be experienced in the same way by the
audience night after night
The emphasis is on process rather than product
 The rehearsal process in a theatrical production is
driven more by shared meaning-making and
improvisation, than by the scripted text.
 Texts are changed, revised, updated and transformed
through performance practices.
 The exuberance and playfulness of Urggh, created by
Ellis Pearson, is typical of a Postmodern aesthetic.
 The working process is regarded as just as important
as the product.
 Pearson says: ‘We decided from the outset that the
way we prepared would be vital to us. Our rehearsal
space became the delivery room full of groans and
sweat and quite a lot of blood.’
Does this emphasis on
fragmentation, deconstruction
and pastiche mean that
Postmodern theatre is a
mishmash of incomprehensible
and obscure offerings?
This is a common misconception,
which is far from the truth.
Postmodern performances have a
logic and cohesion of their own,
even while they subvert normality.
As with all art, the choices that are
made are deliberate, not random
How to approach a Postmodernist text
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A text may or may not immediately seem to fit into the ‘Postmodernist’ mould.
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A play doesn’t have to be radically experimental to be considered Postmodern
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Many plays seem, at first reading, to be realistic or conventional
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Thorough examination will show up themes or theatrical devices that are
distinctly Postmodern
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Likewise, the play may seem to be conceptual or experimenting with form, but in
fact presents a strong author’s opinion, something that goes against the spirit of
Postmodernism
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However, as with any play you study, the point is not to debate endlessly ‘is this
Postmodern or not?’
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What is more important is to come to terms with what the playwright is trying to
say; what questions and issues is the playwright raising?
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When a playwright stresses the importance of asking questions rather than
stating a viewpoint then that in itself is a critical feature of Postmodernism in
theatre
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Taking that as your cue, here’s how to start interacting with a Postmodernist text.
First impressions
Read the play through once or twice and make a record of your first
impressions, responding to these questions:
 Does it seem to be an ‘open’ or a ‘closed’ text?
 Are there multiple interpretations and viewpoints, or does the
playwright guide you to a single way of looking at the issues
raised?
 What exists beyond the words on the page?
 Does the playwright indicate visual images or non-spoken action?
 Is there room for a director’s interpretation?
 What issues are being raised? Do they relate to life in a
Postmodern context?
 Does the playwright seem to deconstruct an ultimate truth or
authority?
The use of time and space
 The play in terms of narrative structure and the use of time
and space.
 Look at what the issues are as well as how they are
presented.
 What is it about the way the story is told that supports the
themes themselves?
 In Popcorn, the racy dialogue and rollercoaster pace of
the unfolding plot adds to the sense of a society where
violence is out of control.
 In Equus, the way the scenes shift seamlessly and
different locations blend together in the telling of the story,
supports the theme of a psychological reality that is
impossible to pin down.
Characters
 Is there psychological realism:
 Do the characters seem like real people with real
motivations?
 Or are they perhaps fragmented, disembodied*
representations of ideas?
 Build a picture of what the playwright’s intentions are
 How these are conveyed through the theatrical choices
made.
 Evaluate the text in terms of how it reflects society and what
role it aims to play.
 Does it entertain, challenge, educate, celebrate, or debate
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The Travellers, directed by Sylvaine Strike, is a dream-like tale,
a visual spectacle of mime, puppetry, stylised characterisation and
parody. The style recalls vaudeville and Punch and Judy. The tiny
set – a small stage with a red velvet curtain and intricate gold
trimmings, symbolises the essence of theatre and provides the
context for the story - the world of the travelling players, the
Formidable Frosts, a family (a mother and twins) who live to
entertain. They are at the mercy of the audience on the other side
of the curtain and have to juggle their personal lives with the
challenges of entertaining. Always on the move, they are always
running from the truth, and the curtain becomes central in their
drama, constantly revealing and concealing. The play questions
contemporary South African ideas of truth, illusion and
displacement in a personal rather than a political way.
[pic of The Travellers. Here we see Daniel Buckland and Toni
Morkel in The Travellers.
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Tom Stophard: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Heiner Müller: Hamletmachine,
Caryl Churchill: Top Girls
Sam Shepard: Buried Child
Caryl Churchill: Top Girls
Ben Elton: Popcorn
Peter Shaffer: Equus
Robert Wilson: KA MOUNTain and GUARDenia Terrace,The Life and Times of Joseph
Stalin Einstein on the Beach
The Wooster Group is an ensemble of artists who mix many cultural disciplines to create
theatre that is ‘responsive to our evolving culture’. Their radical staging of modern and
classic texts use found materials, films and videos, dance and movement, multi-track
scoring, and a sculptural approach to theatre design. The Wooster Group played a pivotal
role in bringing technologically sophisticated media, such as sound, film and video into the
realm of contemporary theatre in an evocative way.
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Glossary
aesthetic: a set of principles underlying an artistic movement
centre: Europe and the rest of the Western world were traditionally regarded as the centre of
philosophical thought and culture, but Postmodern thinking questions this idea, saying that
there is not one centre and there is not a margin, rather many different sites, or locations,
which are just as important as each other
deconstruction: to take apart an idea, or a set of ideas. A literary and philosophical
movement that emphasises that a text has an unlimited amount of interpretations
disembodied: separated from the body
juxtapose: to place two or more contrasting images or ideas next to each other
meta-text: text that self-consciously refers to itself
meta-theatre: theatre that comments on itself
multiplicity: a large number
nonlinear constructions: when a play is structured in such a way that the plot leads in a
number of different directions rather than in a straight line
plurality: a large number of people or things
polyphonic: many voices
pastiche: an artistic work that is made up of an assortment of different pieces imitating a
variety of sources
paradigm: worldview
periphery: the edge or margin
reflexivity: something that refers back to itself, comments on itself or reflects on itself
The play expands upon
the exploits of two minor
characters from
Shakespeare`s hamlet,
the courtiers Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern. The
action of Stoppard's play
takes place mainly "in the
wings" of Shakespeare's,
with brief appearances of
major characters from
Hamlet who enact
fragments of the original's
scenes. Between these
episodes the two
protagonists voice their
confusion at the progress
of events of which—
occurring onstage without
them in Hamlet—they
have no direct knowledge.
Theatre
which
depicts the
fragmentati
on of the
American
nuclear
family in a
context of
disappoint
ment and
disillusionm
ent with
American
mythology
and the
American
dream, the
1970s rural
economic
slowdown
and the
breakdown
of
traditional
family
structures
and values.
The play is loosely
based on Hamlet by
William Shakespeare.
The play originated in
relation to a translation
of Shakespeare's
Hamlet that Müller
undertook. Some
critics claim the play
problematises the role
of intellectuals during
the East German
Communism area;
others argue that the
play should be
understood in relation
to wider post-modern
concepts.
Characteristic of the
play is that it is not
centred on a
conventional plot, but
partially connects
through sequences of
monologues, where
the protagonist leaves
his role and reflects on
being an actor.
Wilson structured Einstein on
the Beach as a repeating
sequence of three different
kinds of space. Between major
acts are shorter entr'actes
known as "knee plays," a
signature technique that
Wilson has applied throughout
his oeuvre. Propelling idea of
"non-plot" within Einstein on
the Beach, its libretto employs
syllables, numbers, and short
sections of poetry. In an
interview, Glass comments
that he originally intended for
his audience to construct
personal connections with
Einstein as a character and
with the music that he assigns
to the icon.