After Postdramatic Theater

Ten years after the original German-language publication of Hans-Thies Lehmann's Postdramatic Theater—a book that altered the critical discourse about contemporary theater practice—Bernd Stegemann weighs the ramifications of Lehmann's book as European theater artists struggle for funding and support to express new visions. He argues that Lehmann's aesthetic analysis has taken a prescriptive turn in the theater world and hinders artists from using the theater's most engaging forms: characters and narrative fictions.