Abstract:

This study explores the roots of contemporary experimental theatrical productions in which the human-actor is removed from the stage as a reflection of post-human thought. The idea of withdrawing the human-actor from the theatre stage is seen in the article as an anti-theatrical position because it leads to a deformation of the ontic components of theatre, the actor, and the audience pair. The first part of the article, entitled “Roots,” presents the perspectives of influential figures including Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist, Charles Lamb, Maurice Maeterlinck, Gordon Craig, and Vsevolod Meyerhold, who each approached the concept of human-free theatre in different ways. In the second part of the article, titled “Today,” we explore the current state of this vision and the performances involving animate and inanimate entities replacing the human-actor on the stage, respectively: Heiner Goebbels’ Stifters Dinge, Romeo Castellucci’s The Rite of Spring, Rimini Protokoll’s Uncanny Valley, and Rimini Protokoll’s Temple du Présent.

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