Dyskurs emancypacyjny w teatrze Wiktora Rubina i Jolanty Janiczak

The idea of the viewer’s emancipation in theatre is gaining on popularity. Artists make use of the audience’s presence, provoking it to various actions and interactions. In place of the spectacle understood as a text to be read, artists propose an event, characterized by unforeseeable meanings and behaviour, which result from the interaction between the artists and the audience. The viewer is also someone who produces meanings, though his/her level of engagement may differ. In consequence, the course of the spectacle is dependent both on the artists and on the audience’s readiness to engage. This mode of theatre is by Josette Féral named “performative theatre.” Hans-Thies Lehmann, on the other hand, relates the dominance of the performative level of the spectacle to the postdramatic theatre. Wiktor Rubin has for years been consistently including the viewer into the space of play: beginning with his first spectacles which brought him recognition, or at least interest of the critics, to the most recent productions, prepared in cooperation with Jolanta Janiczak. The purpose of the article is the demonstration of the evolution of the director’s strategy in emancipating the viewer, which in this case means provoking his activity, drawing into the plot, and thus assembling him in all manners into the world of the stage. Through the actors’ provocation, The Rubin−Janiczak duo does not only intend to cause consternation and curiosity, but also to invoke on the audience’s part a reflection over various social and political phenomena, to provoke actions which invite various forms of citizen activism