Surviving Theatre

<p>Written soon before and in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic when theatre ground to a halt and spectatorship was suspended this book takes stock of spectatorship as theatre’s living archive and affirms its value in the midst of the present crisis. </p><p>Drawing from a manifold affective archive of performances and installations (by Marina Abramovi? Ron Athey Forced Entertainment Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio Blast Theory LIGNA Doris Salcedo Graeme Miller Lenz Rifrazioni Cristina Rizzo etc.) and expanding on the work of many theorists and scholars such as Roland Barthes and Jacques Rancière Giorgio Agamben and Alain Badiou Nicholas Ridout and Alan Read among others the book focuses on the spectator as the subject rather than the object of investigation. This is the right time to remember their secret power and theorise their collective time in the theatre. This book is an archive of their adventure and a manifesto rooted in their potentiality. It boldly posits the spectator as the inaugurator of theatre the surplus that survives it.</p><p>The book will be of great interest to spectators all and sundry to scholars and students of theatre and performance studies of spectatorship and politics.</p>