Review of Mondi, corpi, materie by TDR (The Drama Review)
Mondi, corpi, materie: Teatri del secondo Novecento [Worlds, Bodies, Matters: Theatres in the
Second Part of the 20th Century]. By Valentina Valentini. Milan:Bruno Mondadori, 2007; 192 pp.;
illustrations. €25.00 paper.
Mondi, corpi, materie: Teatri del secondo Novecento (Worlds, Bodies, Matters: Theatres in the
Second Part of the 20th Century) by Valentina Valentini, represents a breakthrough in theatre studies
and performance theory outside of the Anglo-Saxon world. Its publication in Italy can be compared
to the innovative works of Patrice Pavis (Languages of the Stage, 1982), Marco de Marinis (Capire il
teatro [To Understand Theatre], 1988), and Hans-Thies Lehmann (The Postdramatic Theatre, 1999),
which each introduced a major change in European theatre studies. A renowned Italian theatre
scholar and professor at La Sapienza University in Rome, Valentini modestly claims that her book is
meant as a textbook for teachers and students of theatre and performance practice and theory.
However, it is also accessible to nonspecialists, who might be unfamiliar with the “archaeology” of
contemporary performing arts and their main aspects: its 200 pages are very well equipped with
numerous footnotes, titles, and sources, and richly illustrated with photographs from various
historical and contemporary performances. Some of these represent memorable moments in the
history of theatre and performance, while others serve to illustrate the main hypothesis: the complex
relations between different performance and artistic practices can only be examined and analyzed
from a contemporary philosophical perspective which, in turn, can contribute to the development of
the field of theatre studies.
The book is the fruit of systematic and passionate research into the complex phenomenology of
contemporary performing arts, including the new media and their interaction with live theatre in the
last 15 years. Being aware of the limitations of so-called “theatre theory,” Valentini tries in this book
to surpass it, searching for possible interdisciplinary modalities and perspectives, often coming close
to a philosophical rather than aesthetical interpretation of theatre and performance.
Worlds, Bodies, Matters begins from the premise that a book on the theatre cannot be written
without insight into other artistic practices and scientific disciplines with which theatre practice and
theory constantly interact. For the purpose of this book, Valentini establishes two pragmatic criteria
for theoretical analysis: it is first an analysis of live artistic performance, be it a theatre, performance,
or a performance that has been videoed; second, it is a theoretical inquiry that does not merely
describe general artistic trends, but advances new arguments and constitutes an original
contribution to the theoretical discourse. Her intention is not to create an annotated catalogue of
performances, nor to adopt a classical Hegelian view of “natural progress,” but rather to introduce a
paradigm of historical discontinuity as a method of inquiry, a method taken from Foucault’s
Archeology of Knowledge ([1969] 2009). This paradigm gives us the sense that the performing arts, as
they are nowadays, are closest to post-structuralism, which is becoming almost their natural ally.
Each of the three main chapters addresses fundamental questions in performing arts from a
philosophical perspective and the guiding principle of this book is a “sustained engagement” with
poststructuralist philosophy (Foucault, Deleuze), as well as with visual arts and performance theory
(in spite of Valentini’s repeated claim that performance studies does not have a clear methodology).
In the first chapter, “Contemporary Myths and World Theatres,” she discusses the myths that persist
in today’s theatre, the images and archetypes it puts forward, and which, if any, general plots and
different visions of the world recur. What kind of relationship, if any, still exists with ancient myths?
Through a sample of works by different authors and companies who either deconstructed old or
invented new rituals of death and resurrection (Heiner Müller, Peter Handke, Societas Raffaello
Sanzio, Reza Abdoh), to those whose work engages the complete reversion of classical myths (Sarah
Kane, Rodrigo Garcia, The Wooster Group), Valentini scrupulously scrutinizes a complex symbiosis
between theatre and myth and the new symbols this association creates.
In the second chapter, “Visual, Performative, Mediatic,” Valentini turns to another, even more
complex relationship between performing and visual arts. During the 20th century, this relationship
underwent many changes and shifts that produced an array of abstract, absurd, anti-naturalistic, and
anti-representative styles and genres. In the first part of the 20th century, the performing arts were
influenced by the artists of the historical avantgarde (experiments by Paul Klee and Wassily
Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy and Vsevolod Meyerhold); the Theatre of Images of Robert Wilson,
Robert Lepage, and Tadeusz Kantor (including a remarkable analysis of Kantor’s “Tangible Scene”);
and later, the coexistence of live action and real-time film in contemporary productions at the end of
the century (The Wooster Group, Big Art Group, Peter Sellars, Frank Castorf, Motus, Teatrino
Clandestino).
Having in mind that, during the second half of the 20th century, visual arts have turned toward
performance and audio-visual arts (environmental art, installations, kinetic art, performance art,
video art), it is easy to understand the changes visual arts brought to theatre: the use of abstraction,
new representation of figure and body, de-figuration, interruption of causality, any kind of logical
action, change of space and temporal composition, which in turn led to decomposition,
deconstruction and editing, disintegration of the relationship between figures and background,
simultaneity of levels, etc. With the emergence of digital technology, however, theatre tended to
become displaced, if not superseded, by electronic media. As a counterreaction to this, an emphatic
re-auratization of the singular, nonrepeatable live performance could be observed. Valentini gives a
particular emphasis to the new forms of performance made possible by electronic and digital media
(Studio Azzuro and Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, Big Art Group, Motus). The invention of digital media,
according to Valentini, also fostered new trends in the performing arts, such as ritual performance
and body art, which, in response to the domination of the digital, gave special recognition to
embodied existence and the liveness of a performance event. This resulted in performances in which
both live and mediated elements entered into a fruitful coexistence.
Finally, in the third chapter, “Actor, Performer, Body, Spectator,” Valentini discusses how the work of
the actor has changed with the deep transformations brought to the theory and practice of theatre
by the visual and performing artists of the historical avantgarde and neo-avantgarde.
Tracing the line from Grotowski, Barba, and Schechner to contemporary groups such as Valdoca and
Societas Raffaello Sanzio, she analyses the category of “performer” rather than “actor,” the latter
having been gradually surpassed by new techniques of performing. This also led to a new relationship
with the audience, which could be included or excluded from the performance, physically or
emotionally involved or detached, placed in the center or at the margin of performance, etc. In this
chapter, Valentini proves that the critical link holding together performing and visual arts is the act of
seeing, or more precisely, observing events, actions, gestures, and behaviors, along with hearing
sounds, voices, tones, and rhythms, and even touching the performers and objects, bringing the
audience closer to understanding the realities that underlie surface appearances.
Most of the concepts put forth in this book are meant to animate and inspire further research, and
are ultimately bringing the concept of theatre, as one aspect of the performing arts, to the
foreground of theoretical inquiry. Even at first glance, it is obvious that we are dealing with a very
important and compassionate book, which is giving us a vivid sense that a momentous historical shift
has taken place in the world of performance, the shift toward environmental theatre, performance
art, visual arts, live cinema, video arts, digital performance, as well as change of dramaturgy
(nonlinear text, change of performance time and space), and finally the change in audiences and
their reception and critical approach to the performing arts.
Aleksandra Jovićević
References
De Marinis, Marco. [1988] 1999. Capire il teatro [To understand theatre]. Roma: Bulzoni.
Foucault, Michel. [1969] 2009. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Trans. Emilio Panaitescu. Milano: BUR.
Lehmann, Hans-Thies. [1999] 2006. The Postdramatic Theatre. Trans. Karen Jürs-Munby. London:
Routledge.
Pavis, Patrice. 1982. Languages of the Stage: Essays in the Semiology of the Theatre. New York:
Performing Arts Journal Publications.
Aleksandra Jovićević is a tenured Professor of Performance History and Theory at Dipartimento
delle arti e le scienze dello spettacolo, La Sapienza University, Rome. Her MA and PhD are from the
Department of Performance Studies, NYU. She is co-author, with Ana Vujanović, of Uvod u studije
performansa (Introduction to Performance Studies; Fabrika knjiga, 2006), which was reviewed in
TDR (T200) and translated into Italian and Slovak. aleksandra.jovicevic@uniroma1.it
TDR: The Drama Review 55:2 (T210) Summer 2011. ©2011
New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology