Advertise on podcast: Theatre or Theater for Beginners

Caryl Churchill – Form experimentation London, 1982. The audience at the Royal Court Theatre murmurs with anticipation as they open their programs to an unusual page: a dinner menu and biographies of characters who span centuries. Soon the lights dim, and on stage an epic dinner party springs to life. Around a long, glittering table sit women from different times and places: there’s Isabella Bird, a Victorian era explorer in her proper jacket; Lady Nijo, a 13th-century Japanese courtesan-turned-nun, in a kimono; Pope Joan, the legendary female Pope of the 9th century, in full pontifical robes; Patient Griselda, the obedient wife from medieval folklore, in peasant garb; and others including a brash waitress who is actually a character from Chaucer. Presiding among them is Marlene, a sharp-suited 1980s career woman who has apparently invited these ladies of history to celebrate her promotion at work. What follows in Top Girls’ opening act is a theatrical feast—wine is poured, stories are shared. The women talk over each other, interrupting and laughing, their dialogue overlapping like a real lively dinner (an innovation in scriptwriting, those overlapping lines marked by slashes in the text). They share tales of childbirth, loss, sacrifice, ambition. Pope Joan recounts how she concealed her female identity to rise in the Church, only to be stoned to death when discovered; Lady Nijo recalls the heartbreak of giving up her children in the Emperor’s court. As the courses progress, the stories become more intimate and tragic, even as some of the women drunkenly giggle. Marlene listens, cheers, occasionally shares her own boasts of the modern successes women can achieve. By scene’s end, Isabella Bird is slumped under the table drunk, Patient Griselda is quietly weeping, and Marlene toasts to their courage across time.

Sarah Kane – In-yer-face theatre London, January 1995. A cold rain slicks the streets of Sloane Square as theatergoers file into the tiny upstairs auditorium of the Royal Court Theatre. They don’t know quite what they’re in for, but rumors have been swirling: a new play by a 23-year-old woman that is supposed to be shocking beyond belief. The lights dim, and Blasted begins. On stage, a hotel room is meticulously realized: floral bedspread, room service tray, the soft buzz of a TV in the background. A middle-aged man, heavyset and rough around the edges, enters with a young woman, nervous and wary. The first scene proceeds almost like a conventional drama—an uneasy seduction-cum-power-struggle between Ian, a foul-mouthed tabloid journalist, and Cate, a frail, childlike woman in her twenties. The audience settles in, thinking perhaps this will be an intense but familiar chamber piece about abuse or love gone wrong. Indeed, Ian’s crass jokes and Cate’s panic attacks create tension. Then suddenly, about halfway through, reality rips open—literally. An explosion rocks the theatre; the stage goes dark. When lights return, the hotel room’s wall has been blown apart. Rubble is everywhere. And in through the gaping hole steps a soldier with an assault rifle, eyes burning with fury. The play shifts in an instant from personal horror to war nightmare. Over the next brutal scenes, that soldier will terrorize Ian and Cate. At one point, in one of the most notorious moments in modern theatre, the Soldier pins Ian down and gouges out his eyes. Gasps fill the audience; a woman in the third row vomits into her handbag. Some people stand abruptly, stumbling for the exit—one man mutters “This is filth!” as he leaves. But others are frozen in their seats, faces pale, unable to look away from the relentless unfolding of violence and despair on stage.

Ariane Mnouchkine – Collective creation Paris, 1973. The dim, cavernous interior of La Cartoucherie—a former munitions factory on the outskirts of the city—has been transformed into a bustling revolutionary fairground. It is here that 1789, a theatrical reenactment of the French Revolution, is about to unfold, not on a single stage but all around the audience. The spectators, a mix of students, workers, intellectuals, and curious Parisians, mill about uncertainly. There are no plush seats; instead, platforms and scaffoldings are arranged like islands in a sea of standing viewers. The smell of fresh bread and onion soup wafts through the air—members of the troupe have cooked a simple soup they plan to share with the audience during intermission, an offering of fellowship. Suddenly, a drumroll resounds. Actors in 18th-century peasant garb emerge, shouting grievances and singing a rousing tune of rebellion. On a raised platform to the left, an actor playing a starched-wig aristocrat topples a pile of fake coins, symbolizing the collapse of the old order. On another platform to the right, a group of sans-culottes (revolutionary commoners) hoist a makeshift tricolor flag and cheer. The audience instinctively splits to give space as a chorus of market women with baskets snakes through, singing of bread and justice. Laughter erupts when one of the “aristocrats” flees through the crowd, pursued by a yelling mob of actors who gently sweep some spectators into their chase. In the midst of this orchestrated chaos stands Ariane Mnouchkine, the director, though you wouldn’t know it at first glance. She’s dressed plainly, moving among her actors and occasionally among the audience, guiding the action with the lightest touch—a whispered cue here, a hand signal there. Her face is alive with intensity; at 34, she has already the gravitas and warmth of a beloved leader. This isn’t just a play to her—it’s a communal ceremony, a living slice of history shared by actors and audience together. For a moment, as a guillotine prop is rolled out and a red scarf flutters down symbolizing the blood of the tyrants, Ariane steps back and observes the faces around her. People are enthralled, surprised, moved. Strangers grin at each other as a sly joke is played out by an actor mimicking King Louis. A few eyes well with tears when the crowd sings a mournful verse about hunger. The barriers between “them” (the performers) and “us” (the audience) have dissolved; all are, in effect, citizens of this theatrical revolutionary France for the night. This is the magic of Théâtre du Soleil, the Theatre of the Sun, which Ariane Mnouchkine founded and nurtured: a collective creation that envelops everyone in its warmth.

Judith Malina & Julian Beck – The Living Theatre New York City, 1963. It’s a sweltering August evening on West 14th Street, and inside a small, dimly lit theatre, hell is breaking loose on stage. The play is The Brig, a searing depiction of a day in a U.S. Marine Corps military prison. Under the unforgiving glare of fluorescent lights, young men in khaki uniforms bark orders at other men who scramble, heads shaved, chins dripping sweat, performing endless punitive exercises. “Move, move, move, you maggots!” a guard shrieks as prisoners jump at top speed in place. The sound of boots hitting the floor in unison—thump, thump, thump—creates a brutal rhythm. The audience is wedged on benches almost within arm’s reach of the action, flinching as each abuse is hurled and enacted. In the front row sit Judith Malina and Julian Beck, co-directors of The Living Theatre and the midwives of this harrowing production. Judith, a petite woman with intense eyes and long dark hair, clenches her hands; Julian, tall and gaunt with a mane of wild hair and paint-splattered jeans, bites his lip. They know this performance is special—and possibly the last in this space. Because outside the theatre’s double doors, city marshals and police officers have gathered. The Living Theatre, they claim, owes back taxes and fines; tonight, they intend to shut it down.

Richard Schechner – Performance theory

Heiner Müller – Fragmented drama East Berlin, 1961. The auditorium of the Volksbühne theatre is packed to the rafters on a damp autumn night. A new play called Die Umsiedlerin (“The Resettler Woman”) is making its debut, and whispers have spread that this piece might be controversial. Behind the curtain, the playwright Heiner Müller paces, a slender 32-year-old with a mop of dark hair, chain-smoking even as he steels himself for what’s to come. On stage, the final scene is reaching its peak: actors portray peasants forced to relocate under a government program, their bitterness and confusion palpable. A stern Party official character in the play extols the glorious future of collective farms—but his speech is undercut by the silent stare of a tired old woman cradling a suitcase, representing those left disillusioned. When the curtain falls, there’s a beat of heavy silence. Then, scattered applause. Some in the audience are moved; they recognize the truth in the play’s portrayal of upheaval in their lives. Others remain quiet. In the second row, a cultural functionary in a gray suit leans over to his comrade and mutters, “This will never see another performance.” Müller peeks out from the wings and senses the unease. His jaw tightens. By the next morning, the verdict from the authorities comes swiftly: Die Umsiedlerin is banned, shut down after that single performance. The young playwright has been branded a troublemaker. Heiner Müller exhales a stream of cigarette smoke and understands that an official shadow has fallen over him—one that will follow him for decades.

Robert Wilson – Slow time, visual theatre Avignon, 1976. Late on a July evening in the cobbled courtyard of the Théâtre Municipal, hundreds of festival-goers sit on wooden benches beneath a darkening sky. On stage, a strange and hypnotic tableau unfolds. A line of figures in unison slow-motion crosses from left to right, their movements deliberate and dreamlike. A young woman in a white dress steps forward, raises her arm at an impossibly languid pace, and points toward a bright halo of light. From the orchestra pit, an electric organ sustains a pulsating chord that seems to suspend time itself. In the front row, a man wipes sweat from his brow; it’s been four hours, and yet the performance of Einstein on the Beach is still in full flow, no intermission in sight. Some audience members quietly slip out for a break, then wander back in—a courtesy the director has encouraged. Up in the lighting booth stands Robert Wilson, tall and still at age thirty-four, his eyes taking in every detail. He wears all black, silver hair pulled into a tight ponytail, the very picture of calm control. As a gentle chorus of “do-re-mi” syllables echoes onstage in an endless loop, Wilson allows a rare, slight smile. This is his world: a theatre where time stretches, images speak louder than words, and the spectators’ sense of reality is slowly, inexorably being transformed.

THE RADICALS & AVANT-GARDE 1920–1970 Tennessee Williams brings us into the steamy, gothic heart of American life, especially life in the old South, and he does it with a poet’s touch and a truth-teller’s grit. His plays are lush with desire – sexual longing, yearning for love or escape – and at the same time they seethe with violence, both physical and emotional. He once described his work as depicting “a world of human frustration in which sex and violence underlie an atmosphere of romantic gentility” . That sentence is a perfect encapsulation. In Williams’ universe, genteel manners and soft drawls overlay passions as hot and dangerous as summer lightning. Consider A Streetcar Named Desire, perhaps his most famous play. On the surface, it’s the story of a fallen Southern belle (Blanche DuBois) visiting her sister in a rough New Orleans neighborhood. Blanche speaks with flowery refinement and clings to notions of femininity and romance. But she’s arrived at the Kowalski apartment, a cramped, loud space dominated by her brother-in-law Stanley – a man of blunt words, animal energy, and no patience for Blanche’s illusions. The play becomes a collision between illusion and reality, desire and brutality. Blanche’s longing for magic (“I don’t want realism, I want magic!” she pleads) leads her into a dangerous dance with Stanley, who ultimately shatters her—raping her in a scene that is never shown explicitly but whose violence reverberates through the final act . The “romantic gentility” Blanche represents is no match for Stanley’s “harsh realities” . The ending is one of the most haunting in theatre: a broken Blanche led away, muttering about kindness from strangers, as Stella (her sister) and the newborn baby remain with Stanley – the new order of things, unvarnished and cruel.

THE RADICALS & AVANT-GARDE 1920–1970 Tennessee Williams brings us into the steamy, gothic heart of American life, especially life in the old South, and he does it with a poet’s touch and a truth-teller’s grit. His plays are lush with desire – sexual longing, yearning for love or escape – and at the same time they seethe with violence, both physical and emotional. He once described his work as depicting “a world of human frustration in which sex and violence underlie an atmosphere of romantic gentility” . That sentence is a perfect encapsulation. In Williams’ universe, genteel manners and soft drawls overlay passions as hot and dangerous as summer lightning. Consider A Streetcar Named Desire, perhaps his most famous play. On the surface, it’s the story of a fallen Southern belle (Blanche DuBois) visiting her sister in a rough New Orleans neighborhood. Blanche speaks with flowery refinement and clings to notions of femininity and romance. But she’s arrived at the Kowalski apartment, a cramped, loud space dominated by her brother-in-law Stanley – a man of blunt words, animal energy, and no patience for Blanche’s illusions. The play becomes a collision between illusion and reality, desire and brutality. Blanche’s longing for magic (“I don’t want realism, I want magic!” she pleads) leads her into a dangerous dance with Stanley, who ultimately shatters her—raping her in a scene that is never shown explicitly but whose violence reverberates through the final act . The “romantic gentility” Blanche represents is no match for Stanley’s “harsh realities” . The ending is one of the most haunting in theatre: a broken Blanche led away, muttering about kindness from strangers, as Stella (her sister) and the newborn baby remain with Stanley – the new order of things, unvarnished and cruel.

THE RADICALS & AVANT-GARDE 1920–1970 Eugène Ionesco found the absurdity of life not in grand philosophical statements but in the petty routines of everyday people. A man and woman sit in armchairs, trading banal phrases about the weather and grocery prices – until, to their amazement, they realize they’re husband and wife. This iconic scene from Ionesco’s first play, The Bald Soprano (1949), is typical of his approach . He loved to expose how empty and automatic our social dialogues can be. In his hands, the clichés and small talk of bourgeois life become hilariously meaningless, and then, suddenly, menacingly alien. Romanian-born but writing in French, Ionesco was a founding figure of what Martin Esslin later called the Theatre of the Absurd . He didn’t set out to write “Absurdism” as a doctrine – in fact, he disliked the label – but he did dramatize the absurdity of the human condition in ways that audiences found both comic and unsettling . While Beckett (his contemporary) tackled existential dread in a bleak, minimalist way, Ionesco brought a playful, satirical energy. He once said he wasn’t attacking the existence of meaning per se, but mocking our pretensions and the collapse of communication. He preferred the term “theatre of derision” – deriding the absurdities he saw in society.

THE RADICALS & AVANT-GARDE 1920–1970 Jean Genet strolls into the theatre carrying a lifetime of defiance. Here is a man who spent his youth as a thief, vagrant, and outcast, a gay man and ex-convict who inverted society’s judgments by embracing the label of “criminal” as a kind of honor. Genet’s art is the art of the outsider, and when he turned to playwriting in the 1940s and 50s, he did so with a flair for ritual and transgression. He once said that treachery, theft, and homosexuality – all the things society shunned – were his sacred themes. On stage, he elevated the outcasts to protagonists and crafted ceremonies of role-playing that exposed the arbitrary nature of power. Genet’s plays are highly stylized rituals of revolt. They often feature characters enacting elaborate role reversals. Identities in Genet are fluid, layered, performed. As one analysis puts it, his dramas show “ritualistic struggles between outcasts… and their oppressors,” where social identities are parodied and peeled away through theatrical role-play . Take The Maids (1947): two housemaids resent their mistress. Whenever she’s out, they perform a secret ritual – one maid dresses up as the Madame, the other acts the servant – and they act out fantasies of power and humiliation, culminating in an imagined murder. It’s a dark dance of envy and desire, and by the end (when the “game” crosses into reality), we’re left unsure what was pretend and what was real. Genet turns a simple servant-master situation into a hallucinatory ritual about class hatred and the seductive allure of switching roles.

THE RADICALS & AVANT-GARDE 1920–1970 A pair of tramps on a country road, waiting by a bare tree for a man who never comes – this is Samuel Beckett’s contribution to theatre, and it changed the course of drama. When Waiting for Godot premiered in 1953, audiences saw a play where “nothing happens… twice.” Many were baffled or angry. But beneath its apparent nothingness, Beckett was digging toward the most profound questions of human existence. In the shattered aftermath of World War II, Beckett’s Theatre of the Absurd dared to show life stripped of comforting storylines. It was as if the stage itself had become a mirror to a world that had lost its familiar plot. Beckett (an Irishman who wrote mostly in French) had a dark, wry view of life’s “sordid side”, but he insisted that wasn’t the point. The tramps in Godot or the people buried in trash bins in Endgame weren’t there to shock us with ugliness. He chose such extreme, stripped-down situations to “concentrate on the essential aspects of human experience” . What are those essentials? Being thrown into the world without explanation; not knowing why we are here; the grinding wait for meaning that might never arrive . Beckett’s characters grapple with these existential questions in the most reduced circumstances – a nearly empty stage, minimal props, repetitive dialogue that often breaks into gibberish or silence. By discarding the superfluous, Beckett made audiences confront existence itself.

THE RADICALS & AVANT-GARDE 1920–1970 Picture an empty stage – just a bare space. Now imagine someone walks across that space while someone else watches. “That is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” wrote Peter Brook . This simple yet radical idea guided Brook, one of the 20th century’s great directors. He sought the essence of theatre beyond all ornament. Brook famously declared: “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage” . For him, theatre was a living encounter that could happen anywhere, unhindered by convention or clutter. Brook’s 1968 book The Empty Space defined four modes of theatre – the Deadly, the Holy, the Rough, and the Immediate . Deadly Theatre was what he rebelled against: boring, conventional productions done out of habit for comfortable audiences . This was theatre as a lifeless museum piece, full of “stuffy productions… done conventionally for conservative audiences” . Against that Deadly norm, Brook posed the idea of Holy Theatre – theatre that strives for a kind of transcendence, where performers and viewers alike touch the mysterious or sacred . Then there was Rough Theatre, the raw, energetic, populist strain – he loved how theatre could thrive in rough-and-tumble settings, even a makeshift show in a bombed-out ruin, with minimal props and maximum spirit . And finally Immediate Theatre, a more elusive concept of theatre that is fully alive in the present moment, immediate and transformative. These categories weren’t rigid; they were provocations. Brook was urging theatre-makers to shake off complacency and find authentic connection.

THE RADICALS & AVANT-GARDE 1920–1970 Jerzy Grotowski begins where others end: an empty room, a handful of actors, and an audience about to become something more than passive viewers. In 1960s Poland, behind the Iron Curtain, Grotowski quietly revolutionized theatre by stripping it to the bone. He argued that theatre “should not, because it could not, compete” with the spectacular illusions of film; instead it must “focus on the very root of the act of theatre: actors cocreating the event with spectators.” . This became the manifesto of “Poor Theatre.” Poor not in talent or impact, but in material needs – poor by choice. In Grotowski’s “poor” theatre, everything non-essential goes. No elaborate sets, no fancy costumes, no makeup, minimal lighting. All that remains is the live encounter: human bodies in space, actor and audience “intimately, visibly” confronting each other . That bareness was not a limitation but a pathway to something sacred. Grotowski saw the actor’s work as almost holy. He spoke of the “total act”, in which an actor “reveals the real substance” of their being, shedding all masks in an act of extreme truth . This raw vulnerability on stage invites the spectator to drop their defenses too. The aim is a kind of communion – a shared, honest exploration of what it means to be human, here and now.

THE RADICALS & AVANT-GARDE 1920–1970 Antonin Artaud enters the story of theatre like a jolt of electricity into a dead nerve. In the 1920s and 30s, this French poet-actor raged against “civilized” theatre, insisting that beneath society’s polite masks lay repressed instincts clawing to break free. He believed theatre’s true function was to “rid humankind of these repressions and liberate each individual’s instinctual energy.” For Artaud, Western theatre had become far too tame—too much talk and not enough raw feeling. So he imagined a Theatre of Cruelty, not to promote real violence, but to shock the senses and wake the soul. In practice, Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty would assault the audience’s sensibilities. He would remove the stage barrier and surround spectators with sound, movement, light. He spoke of using “verbal incantations, groans and screams,” pulsing lights, giant puppets and props. All of it aimed to hit viewers at a primal level—bypassing logic and speaking directly to what he called “the nerves.” He wanted theatre to feel like a ritual, a visceral “exorcism” of society’s demons. Watching an Artaud production wouldn’t be comfortable or safe; it would be like staring into a fire until the heat forces you to react.