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Event: Prof. Stephen E. Wilmer lectures

Dates: 3 and 4 March

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The at the is pleased to announce the visit of Prof. Stephen E. Wilmer. 

S.E. Wilmer is Professor Emeritus of Drama at Trinity College, Dublin, and was a Research Fellow at the Research Centre for “Interweaving Performance Cultures” at the Freie Universität Berlin between 2014-5. Formerly Head of the School of Drama, Film and Music at Trinity College Dublin, he has been a Visiting Professor at Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley, and has lectured in many European universities. He is a playwright with productions at the Manhattan Theatre Club and Lincoln Centre and has written and edited more than twenty books and recently co-edited a special topic on “Theatre and Statelessness in Europe” for Critical Stages. His books include Performing Statelessness in Europe (Palgrave, 2018) and Theatre, Society and the Nation: Staging American Identities (Cambridge U Press, 2002). 

Prof. Wilmer will be giving the following lectures:

Thursday 3 March 11:00-13:00
Theatrical Strategies for Addressing Migration
In the last two decades, numerous theatre companies and activists in Europe have addressed the precarious position of the refugee in such productions as Le Dernier Caravansérail (Odyssées) (The Last Caravan Stop (Odysseys)) by the Théâtre du Soleil in Paris in 2003, Lampedusa directed by Herman Grech for the Unifaun company in Valetta in 2016, Winterreise (Winter Journey) at the Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin in 2017, and The Jungle by the Good Chance Theatre in London in 2018. The question that interests me is how performance, despite its limitations as an art form, can help to transform people’s attitudes to a more hospitable approach. In this lecture I want to consider different strategies for doing this, especially documentary and subversive forms of theatre.

Friday 4 March 10:00-12:00
Venue: CHBO-206
National Theatres in a Changing World
I propose to speak about the changing function and rationale for national theatres in an era of transnational political and cultural developments. The National theatres that were created in the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century mainly in Europe, played an important role in developing a sense of national identity and national character. I want to look at the evolution of this practice into the twenty-first century in a variety of countries throughout the world and ask whether such theatres play a similar role today, and whether they continue to reinforce national borders and barriers in their work or whether they try to interrogate the notion of homogenous cultures and hegemonic practices. By looking at specific National Theatres in various countries, and their transnational links, international repertory, multilingual performances and international touring, I will highlight some of the contradictions in the role of a National Theatre today.