Teresa Kovacs – författare

Theater of the Void explores contemporary German theater in the aftermath of the technology of the atomic bomb. Informed by threats of total annihilation—whether through nuclear technology or, more recently, global warming—German-language theater since the late 1970s encounters the void not as empty space or nothingness but as the possibility of radical transformation. Theater of the Void investigates theatrical forms that transform fundamental categories of time, space, and causality in light of the ontological and epistemological shifts of the nuclear age. Teresa Kovacs focuses on four directors and playwrights whose works offer insights into the theater of the void: Heiner Müller, Elfriede Jelinek, Christoph Schlingensief, and René Pollesch. Kovacs shows that contemporary German theater has not turned away from the sciences after Hiroshima and Nagasaki but has remained entangled with scientific thinking about quantum physics, biology, and the environment. Investigating these entanglements, Theater of the Void finds in the works of these German theater-makers a grammar of the void that speaks to the possibilities of a transformed theater in the Anthropocene.

Theater of the Void explores contemporary German theater in the aftermath of the technology of the atomic bomb. Informed by threats of total annihilation—whether through nuclear technology or, more recently, global warming—German-language theater since the late 1970s encounters the void not as empty space or nothingness but as the possibility of radical transformation. Theater of the Void investigates theatrical forms that transform fundamental categories of time, space, and causality in light of the ontological and epistemological shifts of the nuclear age. Teresa Kovacs focuses on four directors and playwrights whose works offer insights into the theater of the void: Heiner Müller, Elfriede Jelinek, Christoph Schlingensief, and René Pollesch. Kovacs shows that contemporary German theater has not turned away from the sciences after Hiroshima and Nagasaki but has remained entangled with scientific thinking about quantum physics, biology, and the environment. Investigating these entanglements, Theater of the Void finds in the works of these German theater-makers a grammar of the void that speaks to the possibilities of a transformed theater in the Anthropocene.

Christoph Schlingensiefs (1960–2010) grenzüberschreitendes Werk umfasst Film, Fernsehen, Theater, Oper, Aktionskunst, Hörspiel, Literatur und Essayistik. Ebenso vielfältig sind seine Themen, die von Nationalsozialismus, Rassismus und Rechtspopulismus zu Kolonialismus, Kapitalismus, Krankheit und Terrorismus reichen. Er war Kult in Deutschlands Sub- und Popkultur, zugleich bespielte er die großen Theater- und Opernhäuser des deutschsprachigen Raums und prägte den Kulturbetrieb von den 1990er Jahren bis zu seinem Tod auf einzigartige Weise. Das einstige ‚enfant terrible‘ ist längst auf dem Weg zum Klassiker. Das Handbuch arbeitet erstmals Leben, Werk und Rezeption des Künstlers umfassend auf.