Tragedija i optimizam, identitet i gluma: hrvatska feministička teatrologija
Tragedy and Optimism, Identity and Role-Playing: Croatian Feminist Theatrology

Summary/Abstract: The article outlines the last 20 years of Croatian feminist theatrology and its relation to nationaland Western theoretical currents, as well as to specific historical contexts. Appearing for the firsttime in the nineties, with Lada Čale Feldman’s analysis of contemporary women playwrights,Croatian feminist theatrology has developed rapidly. In 2001 a first overview of the discipline waswritten by the same author, in which the position of Croatian theatrology in relation to the Westerntheoretical mainstream was defined in postcolonial and gender terms as a self-conscious Otherwith hidden subversive potential. While most of the feminist theatrological works in the ninetieswere characterised by their opposition to the monolithic definition of the nation by pointing out itsnon homogeneous nature (for example, in Dubravka Crnojević Carić’s analysis of historical playsin national theatres), in the noughties new topics are introduced: theatre and performance as bodilyexperience, performativity (Judith Butler’s theory critically revisited by Lada Čale Feldman),multiple identity of the actress in her interchange with the audience, and ethical responsibility andsocial role of the theatrical event (Nataša Govedić). These topics develop previous theoreticalissues and the personal concerns of their authors, as well as being a response to current nationaltheatrical productions and to historical and political contingencies marked by the collective disenchantmentof the post-transition age and new risks of repatriarchalisation. The idea of activeparticipation in society in order to change and improve it (in particular by using the power of thetheatre in countering social violence, as in the work of Nataša Govedić), is strictly connected tothe ancient question of tragic predestination and the inevitability of misfortune, which introducesinto Croatian theatrology the issue of the tragic worldview in feminist criticism and epistemology.

• Details
• Contents