Abstract
This chapter introduces the concept of postdramatic theatre by offering two readings of The Sydney Front’s 1987 production John Laws/Sade. Initially described as a work of postmodern performance, the work displays many of the features Lehmann identifies with postdramatic theatre. It examines the similarities and differences between the vocabularies of postmodern theatre and postdramatic theatre as they are used to describe and redescribe John Laws/Sade, respectively. The chapter pays particular attention to the relationship between postdramatic theatre and the tradition of twentieth-century avant-garde drama in Europe by identifying the ways that Péter Szondi’s book Theory of Modern Drama informs Lehmann’s concept of the postdramatic. The chapter concludes with an account of the ethical perils generated by teaching avant-garde performance through practice.
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D’Cruz, G. (2018). John Laws/Sade: Postmodern or Postdramatic?. In: Teaching Postdramatic Theatre. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71685-5_2
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