Postdramatic Musicality in "The Black Rider"

Abstract

With the English publication of Hans-Thies Lehmann’s book "Postdramatic Theatre" in 2006, Theatre Studies has been confronted with a profound and controversial categorisation of a method of theatre which emerged in the 1970s and aimed to challenge the foundations of the dramatic form. This paper discusses the supposed binary opposition between dramatic and postdramatic theatre as purported by Lehmann. Further to this it aims to challenge this assumption through an appropriation of Catherine Bouko’s ideas of musicality as set out in her newly published article “Jazz musicality in postdramatic theatre and the opacity of auditory signs.”