The Theatre of Death – The Uncanny in Mimesis

By: Mischa Twitchin

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Synopsis: This book is concerned with such questions asthe following: What is the life of the past in the present? How might "thetheatre of death" and "the uncanny in mimesis" allow us to conceive of theafterlife of a supposedly ephemeral art practice? How might a theatricaliconology engage with such fundamental social relations as those between theliving and the dead? Distinct from the dominant expectation that actors shouldappear life-like onstage, why is it that some theatre artists - from Craig toCastellucci - have conceived of the actor in the image of the dead? This bookexplores such questions through the implications of the twofold analogyproposed in its very title: as theatre is to the uncanny, so death is tomimesis; and as theatre is to mimesis, so death is to the uncanny. Walter Benjamin once observed that: "The point at issuein the theatre today can be more accurately defined in relation to the stagethan to the play. It concerns the filling-in of the orchestra pit. The abysswhich separates the actors from the audience like the dead from the living. . . " Ifthe relation between the living and the dead can be thought of in terms of ananalogy with ancient theatre, what about modernity?