Dramaturgy of the Real on the World Stage

Theatre practitioners have been engaged with putting real life in various forms on stage since at least the beginning of the twentieth century. In the twenty-first century, theatre of the real embraces the contradictions of staging the real within the frame of the fictional while questioning the relationship between facts and truth. With the globalization of theatre through touring and travel, an international community of scholars and artists have created an astounding range of unique works that when brought together compose a fascinating look at the means through which we understand ourselves today.

The theoretical, historical and performance texts included here give the reader entry to ideas about aesthetics, truth and reality in Poland, Argentina, South Africa, Lebanon, the USA, Holland and Germany. Location remains defining although not in the sense of a nationalist politics or fixed cultural representation. Works from distinct destinations travel to different destinations to present versions of global cosmopolitanism. The production of place - the places presented in these texts - happens through an act of narration. This collection of essays reflects local discourses about the real and the ways these discourses continue in the context of the global, and features eight playtexts, some of which are published here for the very first time.

CAROL MARTIN is Associate Professor of Drama at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.