As the Kremlin's crackdown on freedom of expression tightens, Russia's
actors, playwrights, and directors are using documentary theatre to
create space for public discussion of injustice in the civic sphere and
its connections to the country's twentieth-century past. This book
traces the history of documentary theatre's remarkable growth in Russia
since its inception in 1999 and situates the form's impact within the
sociopolitical setting of the Putin years. It argues that through the
practice of performing documents, Russian theatre artists are creating a
new type of cultural and historical archive that challenges the
dominance of state-sponsored media and invites individuals to
participate in a collective renegotiation of cultural narratives.
Drawing on the author's previous work as a researcher, producer, and
performer of documentary theatre in Russia and internationally, Witness
onstage offers original insight into the nature of the exchange between
audience and performance as well as new perspectives on the efficacy of
theatre as a venue for civic engagement.
With its combination of close readings, cultural contextualisation, and
practice-based research, this book's interdisciplinary approach
addresses a readership across theatre studies, performance studies, and
Slavic studies. As the first book dedicated to the topic, Witness
onstage not only introduces the work of some of the world's most
groundbreaking contemporary theatre artists to an English language
readership, it also serves as a template for a method of inquiry that
can be applied to global performance practices.
