Science theater on stage: Review of the play The Right Way, written by Torbjörn Lindberg, produced by Teater Sagohuset (www.sagohuset.nu), 2019-2020.

ABSTRACT

This text reviews a science play that has emerged from a collaboration between performing artists and scientists based in Lund, Sweden. It argues that the play, titled The Right Way, can productively be understood as ‘science metatheater'. Thus, it belongs to a genre which knowingly and self-ironically brings the viewer's attention to the staged nature of the theater performance. As such, science metatheater moves beyond placing ‘science on stage'. Instead, it seeks to place science theater itself on stage. By doing so, it front-stages the challenges of ‘Sci-Arts’ collaborations between scientists and artists, in which competing concerns – aesthetic, epistemological and communicational – may come into conflict with each other.

KEYWORDS:

• Science theater
• sci-arts
• Aesthetics
• Metatheater

Acknowledgements

The research that underpins this essay was funded by Mistra (the Swedish foundation for strategic environmental research), through the interdisciplinary research project Mistra Environmental Nanosafety (Phase 2), which was hosted by Lund University. The author wishes to extend a thanks to the editors for their diligent work with this manuscript, as well as to his collaborators in the project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Stiftelsen för Miljöstrategisk Forskning [grant number ].

Notes on contributors

Karl Palmås

Karl Palmås is associate professor at the Division of Science, Technology and Society at the Chalmers University of Technology. Trained in sociology (PhD, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2005), most of his research involves the sociological study of design and technology.