Toma Krpi

SPECTATORS COGNITIVE FULFILMENT OF ABSENT PERFORMERS

PHENOMENAL BODY: Scenography, Stage Properties, Spectator and Absent
Performer

Introduction

In a short and very concisely written introductory essay on the relationship between
culture and performance in the modern globalized world, Erika Fischer-Lichte (2010: 293, see
also 2008a: 5, 2008b: 38-73) addresses the bodily co-presence of actors, dancers, singers,
performers and spectators in theatre as an old-fashioned 1 art form, which enables an
intensification of emotional involvement, empathy, with the characters (as in realistic plays)
and an intensification of awareness of the fictionality of the whole (Ben Chaim 1981: 7).
Due to persistent cultural conventions, for the average spectator, the fact that the performers
body is performing on the stage is not only self-evident, it is an unavoidable, constitutive
element of any theatrical performance. Such a spectator would be fundamentally wrong, as
theatre without a performer is, nevertheless, possible. In order to avoid any misunderstanding,
I would like to emphasise here that when I am speaking about theatre without a performer, I
do not have in mind the puppet theatre.
What I actually refer to is a theatrical play, where spectators are present in the
auditorium, while on the stage, every other element of a play, such as scenography and stage
properties are present, but there are no actors, dancers, singers or performers. It has been
many times proven that such theatre is possible, as for example in the spring of this year when
a Slovenian theatrical group performed a play, Feng us v gledaliu brez igralca (Feng Shui
in Theatre without an Actor), without any actors, dancers, singers or performers taking part on
the stage. The play consists only of scenography, stage properties, music, text and various
visual and sound effects. The only humans present were the spectators sitting in the
auditorium, watching the show, and the technicians and creators of the play behind the scenes.
The crucial issue here is how to elucidate and theoretically frame the absence of the performer
in relationship to the spectator in the theatres auditorium. In order to give a plausible
1
Inverted commas are Fischer-Lichtes origin.
interpretation of theatre without actors, dancers, singers or performers, especially the roles
played by the performers and the spectators performing bodies, I will apply Erika Fischer-
Lichtes theory of postdramatic theatre in combination with the cognitive sociology developed
by Eviatar Zerubavel, and the theory of material culture of Tim Dant.

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