Manchester University Press Witness Onstage: Documentary Theatre in Twenty-First-Century Russia (Theatre: Theory – Practice – Performance)

As the Kremlin’s crackdown on freedom of expression tightens, Russia’s actors, playwrights, and directors are using documentary theatre to create space for public discussion of injustice in the civic sphere and its connections to the country’s twentieth-century past. This book traces the history of documentary theatre’s remarkable growth in Russia since its inception in 1999 and situates the form’s impact within the sociopolitical setting of the Putin years. It argues that through the practice of performing documents, Russian theatre artists are creating a new type of cultural and historical archive that challenges the dominance of state-sponsored media and invites individuals to participate in a collective renegotiation of cultural narratives. Drawing on the author’s previous work as a researcher, producer, and performer of documentary theatre in Russia and internationally, Witness onstage offers original insight into the nature of the exchange between audience and performance as well as new perspectives on the efficacy of theatre as a venue for civic engagement. With its combination of close readings, cultural contextualisation, and practice-based research, this book’s interdisciplinary approach addresses a readership across theatre studies, performance studies, and Slavic studies. As the first book dedicated to the topic, Witness onstage not only introduces the work of some of the world’s most groundbreaking contemporary theatre artists to an English language readership, it also serves as a template for a method of inquiry that can be applied to global performance practices.