Something is Rotten on the Stage of Flanders: Postdramatic Shakespeare in Contemporary Flemish Theatre

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Notes

1. Maurice Maeterlinck, The Treasure of the Humble, trans. by Alfred Sutro (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Reprint, 2005), pp. 103–04.

2. Ibid., p. 97.

3. Ibid., p. 105.

4. Jacques Rancière, Film Fables, trans. by Emiliano Battista (Oxford: Berg, 2006), pp. 6–7.

5. Rudi Laermans, ‘The Essential Theatre of Needcompany’, in No Beauty For Me There Where Human Life Is Rare: On Jan Lauwers' Theatre Work with Needcompany, ed. by Christel Stalpaert, Frederik Le Roy and Sigrid Bousset (Ghent: Academia Press, 2007), pp. 205–17 (p. 214).

6. Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘The Gay Science (1882)’, in The Nietzsche Reader, ed. by Keith Ansell-Pearson and Duncan Large (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 207–37 (p. 224).

7. The unity of action is the only unity Aristotle explicitly deals with in his Poetics. In his distinction between epic and tragic forms, he observes that ‘tragedy tries so far as possible to keep within a single day, or not to exceed it by much’ (Aristotle, Poetics, trans. by Malcolm Heath [London: Penguin Classics, 2003], p. 7). This observation does not suggest any imperative of a unity of time, as common Renaissance readings of the Poetics have suggested. Aristotle does not mention the neoclassical unity of place at all.

8. Jan Lauwers, ‘King Lear’, in Subsidy Application for the International Section of Needcompany's Annual Operations, dated 11 January 2000 (unpublished).

9. A. C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedies: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Reprint, 2004 [1908]), p. 247.

10. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedies, p. 247.

11. Quoted in Hans Brans, ‘De persoonlijke objectiviteit van Jan Decorte’,Toneel Theatraal, 106.1 (1985), 10–14 (p. 14). All translations from the Flemish are mine.

12. Quoted in Liv Laveyne, ‘Peter Verhelst over het verlangen van Edward II’ (Peter Verhelst on Edward II's desire),De Morgen, 28 January 2006, p. 99.

13. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. by Brian Massumi (London and New York: Continuum, 2004), pp. 294–95.

14. Aristotle, Poetics, p. 12.

15. Simon During, ‘Post-Foucauldian Criticism. Government, Death, Mimesis’, in Genealogy & Literature, ed. by Lee Quinby (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), pp. 71–95 (p. 90).

16. Ibid., p. 90.

17. Quoted after Brans, ‘De persoonlijke objectiviteit’, p. 13.

18. Herman Asselberghs, ‘No Party, Come As You Are. Jan & Sigrid & Lisa & Kurt spelen Bloetwollefduivel’, Etcetera, 12.47 (1994), 21–3 (p. 22).

19. Hans-Thies Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre, trans. by Karen Jürs-Munby (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 166, original emphasis.

20. Aristotle, Poetics, pp. 10–12.

21. Gilles Deleuze, Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, trans. by Daniel W. Smith (London: Continuum, 2005), p. 26.

22. Quoted in Sabine Pochhammer, ‘”Fair is Foul, and Foul is Fair”: Shakespeare is a Paradox: An Interview with Jan Lauwers and Klaus Reichert’, Theaterschrift, 11 (1997), 81–111 (p. 83).

23. Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre, p. 99.

24. Ibid.

25. Quoted in Pochhammer,‘“Fair is foul”’, p. 84.

26. Lauwers, ‘King Lear’.

27. I have elaborated on this aspect in my essay ‘Beauty as a Weapon against the Unbearable Cruelty of Being in Needcompany's King Lear’, in No Beauty For Me, ed. by Stalpaert, Le Roy and Bousset, pp. 118–30.

28. Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre, p. 64.

29. Marianne Van Kerkhoven, ‘Flying. An Interview with Viviane De Muynck’, Theaterschrift, 7 (1995), 172–91 (p. 182).

30. Ludo Verbeeck, ‘Goethe ondanks Goethe: Torquato Tasso, een afrekening’ (Goethe despite Goethe: Torquato Tasso, a setting of accounts), Etcetera, 1.2 (1983), 6–7 (p. 7).

31. Aristotle describes ‘language embellished’ as language that harmoniously unites text, rhythm, dance and gesture. Melody and verse are but the seasoning of the language, however. The essence of poetry remains imitation, sound is ultimately dominated by meaning and logos (Aristotle, Poetics, p. 23).

32. Hans-Thies Lehmann, Theater und Mythos: Die Konstitution des Subjekts im Diskurs der Antiken Tragödie (Theatre and Myth. The Constitution of the Subject in the Discourse of Ancient Tragedy)(Stuttgart: Metzler, 1991), p. 157.

33. Theo Van Rompay, ‘Een concrete King Lear: de tintelende verwarring’ (A concrete king Lear: the tingling confusion), Etcetera, 1.3 (1983), 8–9 (p. 8).

34. Quoted in Laveyne, ‘Peter Verhelst’, p. 99.

35. Quoted in Peter Anthonissen, ‘Ik heb me als een virus gedragen’ (I have behaved like a virus), De Morgen, 18 September 1998, p. 30.

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid.

38. Lauwers, ‘King Lear’.

39. Rüdiger Safranski, Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography, trans. by Shelley Frisch (London: Granta, 2002), p. 181.

40. ‘tis of tisni / daddist / slape / drome / sterreve / wadde / gedacht / van niks / komt niks / tizal’.

41. Quoted in Brans, ‘Persoonlijke objectiviteit’, p. 11.

42. Quoted in Laveyne, ‘Peter Verhelst’, p. 99.

43. Sigrid Bousset, ‘I Can't Go On. I'll Go On. On Jan Lauwers and Melancholy’, in No Beauty For Me, ed. by Stalpaert, Le Roy and Bousset, pp. 297–304 (p. 302).

44. Samuel Beckett. The Unnamable. 1959. (Numerous editions; e.g.: Samuel Beckett, The Beckett Trilogy: Molloy Malone Dies); The Unnamable (London: Picador, 1979), p. 382.