Table Of ContentStaging and Re- cycling
In Staging and Re- cycling, John Keefe and Knut Ove Arntzen re-v isit and re-
appraise a selection of their work to explore how the retrieval, re-a pproaching
and re-f raming of material can offer pathways for new work and new thinking.
The book includes a collection of reprinted and first- published (although
previously presented) textual material interspersed with editorial material –
reflective essays from John and Knut on these pieces from the archives and
original essays from invited scholars that explore the theme of repetition and
re- cycling. The project has a number of aims: to suggest how the status of
‘new’ with regard to academic and staged dramaturgical materials may be re-
framed; to re- examine these through certain lenses and concepts (re- cycling;
re- working; the spectator; landscape, post- and other dramaturgies); to explore
the possibilities of critique offered by particular modes of juxtaposition, dia-
logue and dialectic; to offer further provocations to received ideas; and to
retrieve and re- approach material, once published or presented, that becomes
‘lost’ in archives or on library shelves. As shown here, the role of the hyphen acts
as an indicator to the status of ‘re-’ in relation to the ‘new’.
Written for scholars and academics, researchers, undergraduate and post-
graduate students, and practitioners working in all forms for theatre and per-
formance, Staging and Re-c ycling suggests a new form of dialogue between work,
authors and readers, and draws out threads that extend back into the past and
potentially forward into the future.
John Keefe is a Senior Lecturer in the Cass School of Art, Architecture &
Design at London Metropolitan University.
Knut Ove Arntzen is a Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of
Bergen, Norway.
Routledge Advances in Theatre and Performance Studies
The Dramaturgy of the Door
Stuart Andrews and Matthew Wagner
Professional Wrestling and the Commercial Stage
Eero Laine
Performing Home
Stuart Andrews
The Dances of José Limón and Erick Hawkins
James Moreno
Shakespeare in Singapore
Performance, Education, and Culture
Philip Smith
A Cruel Theatre of Self- Immolations
Contemporary Suicide Protests by Fire and Their Resonances in Culture
Grzegorz Ziółkowski
Code- Choice and Identity Construction on Stage
Sirkku Aaltonen
Staging and Re- cycling
Retrieving, Reflecting and Re- framing the Archive
Edited by John Keefe and Knut Ove Arntzen
Skateboarding and Femininity
Gender, Space- Making and Expressive Movement
Dani Abulhawa
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-
Advances- in- Theatre- Performance- Studies/ book- series/ RATPS
Staging and Re- cycling
Retrieving, Reflecting and Re- framing
the Archive
Edited by
John Keefe and
Knut Ove Arntzen
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 selection and editorial matter, John Keefe and Knut Ove Arntzen;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of John Keefe and Knut Ove Arntzen to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 85939- 8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 003- 01589- 5 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
Contents
List of figures viii
Notes on contributors ix
Acknowledgements and permissions xi
1 Editorial introduction 1
JOHN KEEFE AND KNUT OVE ARNTZEN
2 Play Beckett: Beckett’s performance dramaturgy as total
theatre (2003) 10
JOHN KEEFE
3 The PG and FPG: Stage action or stage metaphysics? (2005) 18
JOHN KEEFE
4 Essay 1: Archival foundations and first reflections 27
JOHN KEEFE
5 A letter on recycling Sam 36
RICHARD CUMING
6 Dramaturgical dissolution in the ambient (2007) 42
KNUT OVE ARNTZEN
7 The resurrected theatre machine: A postdramatic
paradox (2008) 54
KNUT OVE ARNTZEN
8 Essay 1: Theatre studies, self- reflection and creativity:
Understanding theory through metaphors 67
KNUT OVE ARNTZEN
vi Contents
9 Berkoff’s ‘Londons’: Staging psycho- geographies of the feared
and the ecstatic (2009) 75
JOHN KEEFE
10 Recycling sources and experiencing physical theatre in
educating professionals (2009) 86
JOHN KEEFE
11 Essay 2: Circling around: Looking(s) and empathies 97
JOHN KEEFE
12 Retaining and reframing: Notes on processes of
remembering in Rosemary Butcher’s choreography- making 107
STEFANIE SACHSENMAIER
13 On telling the world and ‘recycling’ in the new theatre (2009) 115
KNUT OVE ARNTZEN
14 Essay 2: Researching, re- making, re-c ycling 120
KNUT OVE ARNTZEN
15 Recycling, situationism and postspectacular theatre 128
ANDRÉ EIERMANN
16 Play(ing) it again: Recycling as theatres, histories,
memories (2010) 134
JOHN KEEFE
17 Essay 3: Spectatorial ghosts 144
JOHN KEEFE
18 Re- cycle/u p- cycle: A conversation 156
GIAN CARLO ROSSI AND JACEK LUDWIG SCARSO
19 Producing marginality and post- mainstream in independent
theatre (2007) 167
KNUT OVE ARNTZEN
20 Essay 3: Nordic inter- action: Avant- garde to visual
performance – the ritualistic and mechanical 182
KNUT OVE ARNTZEN
21 Impossible Theatres and the possible; some dramaturgical
provocations and responses to the opening statement,
and implications (2015) 190
JOHN KEEFE
Contents vii
22 Essay 4: Further paths, returning threads 200
JOHN KEEFE
23 Drama in landscapes (2014) 208
KNUT OVE ARNTZEN
24 Essay 4: Directing and choreographing as a free and open
mise- en- scène: From risky auteurship to re- cycling theatre 222
KNUT OVE ARNTZEN
25 Dancing with your cycle – theatre and performance
research as archivist practice 229
ANNELIS KUHLMANN
26 Editorial conclusion 235
JOHN KEEFE AND KNUT OVE ARNTZEN
27 Selected other published material 241
JOHN KEEFE AND KNUT OVE ARNTZEN
Index 243
Figures
12.1 Retrospective Rosemary Butcher, Tanz im August, Berlin, 2015.
Photograph: Dajana Lothert. 109
12.2 Secrets of the Open Sea, Choreography: Rosemary Butcher,
Dancer: Lucy Suggate, 2014. Film and Photograph:
Sam Williams. 111
12.3 Spaces 4, Studio, 1981. Choreography: Rosemary Butcher;
Artist: Heinz- Dieter Pietsch. Photograph: Heinz- Dieter
Pietsch. 112
Contributors
Knut Ove Arntzen is Professor of Theatre Studies, Department of Linguistic,
Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen, Norway. He is a free-
lance theatre critic, consultant to festivals in Bergen and Montreal, and visiting
Professor at universities in Kaunas, Antwerp and Frankfurt. Contributing
to international conferences in Glasgow, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and
Yaoundé, he publishes within the scope of a visual kind of dramaturgy and
post- mainstream theatre.
Richard Cuming is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Performing Arts
at the University of Winchester. His teaching and research is in physical
theatre, particularly the synthesis of the practices of the clown with other
forms of contemporary performance. He was a founder member of clown
troupe Zippo & Co, and in 2017 published his article in Theatre, Dance and
Performance Training Journal on their training in 1984 with 71-y ear- old var-
iety acrobat Johnny Hutch. From 1986– 2001 he ran fishproductions, dedicated
to performance in non- theatre spaces.
André Eiermann is Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of Agder
in Kristiansand (Norway). He has formerly worked at several universities
in Germany, including the University of the Arts Berlin, the Goethe-
University Frankfurt (Main), and the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies
at Justus- Liebig- University Giessen. He is active as a performing artist and
collaborates as freelance dramaturge with various other artists, both in the
Norwegian and in the international context. His PhD thesis Postspektakuläres
Theater (Postspectacular Theatre) was published in 2009.
John Keefe has worked as a lecturer in theatre-fi lm- performance, theatre dir-
ector, performance dramaturge and researcher since 1979 across the UK,
Lithuania and Germany. He was awarded his PhD by Prior Publication
(2013) under the title of A Spectatorial Dramaturgy: Ethical Principles of Re-
Cycling, Habitus and Estrangement. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in the
CASS, London Metropolitan University.
