The Poetics of Playing

Despite the seemingly general agreement that we are still living in a post- orpost-post-modern world andmany contemporary performancesarebased on theprinciplesofpostdramatic theatre, researchers have noticed certain changes in the poetics of theatricallanguage, which havenot, so far, been described and analysed. Thisarticleseeksto search for apoeticsof playing?that isto say, implicit principlesof producingand perceivingcontemporaryperformances (non-mimetic forms of playing are beyond the scope of this investigation).These principles in themselves are not necessarily new or contemporary, although theircombinations often create such an impression. The article consists of three parts. The firstexplores the term 'poetics' and the second the poetics of playing. The final part provides anempirical analysis of an example of the new poetics of playing. The political theatre projectUnified Estonia Assembly developed the structures and strategies of politics and performingarts to their extremes, at the same time creating a powerful representation of political games.By being a kind of exceptional theatrical event, it helped to exemplify how performers caninfluence participants or society and how ambivalence as a strategy can be emphasized incomprehension and social interaction. Thepoeticsof playing in Unified EstoniaAssembly wasbased on fluid conceptions of players, roles and participants, playing and reality, and thisfluidity also created astrongsenseof ambivalenceboth duringtheplayingand afterwards