| Abstract [eng] |
This Master’s thesis analyses the ludic dimensions of the performance by combining the concept of the “ludic work”, adapted for theatre analysis, with approaches drawn from reception theory, intertextuality, and genre studies, seeking to reveal their significance for the interpretation of the performance and the formation of the “model spectator”. The analysis reveals how the ludic potential of postdramatic theatre activated in the performance creates a dynamic tension with the “given” discourse of Kafka’s letters to Milena, thus questioning a rigid and one-sided cultural memory symbolically represented through games of limited or distorted communication. By combining theatrical means with transformed epistolary forms, the performance gives shape to the addressee of Kafka’s letters – a translator, writer, and political activist whose own letters have not survived – thereby challenging Michel Foucault’s conception that letters construct the writer’s self. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the performance employs ludic strategies to restore to the “stage” of cultural memory a multifaceted figure of Milena – or rather, figures – that cannot be contained within a single image, while simultaneously provoking the spectator to actively engage in a game of meaning-making: to construct their own image of Milena and, at the same time, to question the possibility of a stable meaning in a work of art. Although the “model spectator” constructed by the performance cannot be reduced solely to the figure of an intellectual, the work nevertheless appears to particularly anticipate a spectator willing to respond to its provocations and to critically rethink the practices of cultural canon construction, particularly regarding female creators. |
