Abstract

Theater is a universal form of human expression: somebody transforming him/herself into somebody else for an onlooking audience. From its archaic origin in ritual and cult and its earliest written form in Greek drama, community formation was perhaps its most essential function. This chapter sketches developments from its Greek beginnings through to the transformation into the “national theater” of modern Europe to the present state of a transnational and transcultural opening. It addresses the problem of breaking the restrictions of homogeneous language and culture codes and points at the chances offered by an emphasis on the “performative,” in particular on the foregrounding of the living body and human’s existential rootedness against an increasing virtual reality created by the modern media. A “global” theater may be conceived not only as protest against the traditional Bildungstheater and a modification of Enlightenment universalism, but as a conflicting negotiation of heterogeneity and an assertion of our common physical rootedness.