• 'Be Yourself, Inasmuch as it Suits the Job':"Authenticity" in Practice at Berlin's Maxim Gorki and London's Royal Court
• Emily Goodling (bio) and Lianna Mark (bio)

"Authenticity" is something of a buzzword in recent, politically engaged theatre.¹ Central to the appeal of London's Royal Court Theatre for many years, the concept has gained new meanings and wider resonance in similarly engaged institutions throughout Europe, Berlin's Maxim Gorki Theater among them. But what does it mean to "be authentic," and how can one "perform authentically" on stage? In Theatre Studies, the concept has recently been aligned by Daniel Schulze with the "genuine and lasting," or "truth or the real," and contrasted with both story-led, text-based drama, as well as with traits of postmodernism such as "irony, detachment, and pastiche."² Theorizations by Carol Martin and Ulrike Garde of "theatre of real people" and "theatre of the real" have focused on the socio-artistic potentialities of non-professional performers who bring some fundamental aspect of their extra-theatrical identities to stage productions.³ These texts have tended to work towards a concrete definition of authenticity and its functioning on stage, usually through the location and analysis of inherently authentic genres: Schulze, for instance, identifies intimate, immersive, and documentary theatre as inherently authentic.⁴

At the same time, theatre scholars have taken a critical stance vis-à-vis any claim to authenticity on stage. In the German context, apparently authentic self-revelation has been interpreted as nothing more than a fleeting construct that demonstrates the impossibility of a coherent Self.⁵ Theorists such as Erika Fischer-Lichte and Annemarie Matzke have pointed to a so-called "authenticity problem" (Authentizitätsproblematik), [End Page 39] suggesting that theatrical authenticity is fully constructed in the moment of performance, and can therefore offer no more or less "realness" on stage than an overtly fictional dramatic role—an "impression of authenticity" instead of the real thing—no matter the intent of the theatre makers involved.⁶ In a 2007 volume on authenticity which brought together multiple critical voices, Fischer-Lichte argued that apparently authentic genres serve not to showcase any true or actual self but, rather, whether wittingly or not, call into question the existence of authentic selfrevelation in the first place.⁷ As a result, audiences are required to reflect on "the possibilities and conditions of self-constitution," as well as to fundamentally question "the category of the Self" as a whole.⁸ Any nonironic attempt at theatrical authenticity thus emerges as deeply suspect because it claims to be something (i.e., honest, true) that it is not, and can never be in the context of the theatre (or perhaps anywhere else, for that matter). The only viable solution is thus to transition from the presentation of "authentic" individuals and content on stage, as Matzke concludes, to a "confrontation with identity construction" that results in the recognition of the "impossibility of authentic representation."⁹

In the British context, scholarly discussion of authenticity has remarked on the authenticating potential of explicit overlaps between the "lived experience" of the playwright/performer and the often "difficult" subject matter represented on stage. For Charlotte Bell and Katie Beswick, "the problematic relationship between representation, 'authenticity', and perceptions of reality is often manifest in the slippages between the fictional representation and the lived experience of artists involved with the work,"¹⁰ allowing for a facile flattening of the two: what happens on stage is seen to epitomize the lived experience of a "type" or "group" of people. This understanding of authenticity grows out of "postcolonial concerns regarding the ethics of representation, ownership, and authorial subjectivity"—originating, in other words, from a discussion around who represents whom to whom.¹¹ Similarly, Liz Tomlin has evidenced the pitfalls of "consciousness-raising" authentic representation, which "leaves the existing power relations intact" and is thus "likely to restrict the role of the audience to that of the cultural tourist."¹²

Against the backdrop of these scholarly debates, this article explores a recent reconfiguration of the authentic at the Maxim Gorki Theater in [End Page 40] Berlin and the Royal Court Theatre in London, a reconfiguration that is central to both theatres...

• “做你自己，只要它适合工作”：柏林马克西姆高尔基和伦敦皇家法院实践中的“真实性”
• 艾米莉·古德林（传记）和莉安娜·马克（传记）

“真实性”在最近的政治戏剧中是一个流行词。¹作为伦敦皇家宫廷剧院多年来吸引力的核心，这一概念在整个欧洲的类似机构中获得了新的含义和更广泛的共鸣，其中包括柏林的马克西姆·高尔基剧院。但是“真实”是什么意思，一个人如何在舞台上“真实地表演”？在戏剧研究中，丹尼尔·舒尔茨最近将这一概念与“真实和持久”或“真实或真实”相结合，并与以故事为主导、基于文本的戏剧以及后现代主义的特征形成鲜明对比。作为“讽刺、超然和模仿”。²Carol Martin 和 Ulrike Garde 关于“真人剧场”和“现实剧场”的理论集中于非专业表演者的社会艺术潜力，他们将他们的剧场外身份的一些基本方面带入舞台制作。³这些文本倾向于对真实性及其在舞台上的作用做出具体定义，通常是通过对固有真实类型的定位和分析：例如，舒尔茨将亲密、沉浸式和纪录片剧院识别为固有真实性。⁴

与此同时，戏剧学者对舞台上的任何真实性主张采取了批判的立场。在德国语境中，表面上真实的自我启示被解释为不过是一种转瞬即逝的结构，它证明了连贯的自我是不可能的。⁵理论家如 Erika Fischer-Lichte 和 Annemarie Matzke 指出了一个所谓的“真实性问题”（Authentizitätsproblematik），[End Page 39]表明戏剧真实性是在表演的时刻完全构建的，因此无法提供更多或者说舞台上的“真实性”不如一个公然虚构的戏剧角色——一种“真实性的印象”而不是真实的东西——无论所涉及的剧院制作人的意图如何。Fischer-Lichte 在 2007 年的一本关于真实性的书中汇集了多种批评声音，他认为表面上真实的体裁并不是为了展示任何真实或真实的自我，而是，无论是否有意，首先质疑真实自我揭示的存在地方。⁷因此，观众需要反思“自我构成的可能性和条件”，并从根本上质疑“自我的范畴”作为一个整体。⁸因此，任何对戏剧真实性的非讽刺性尝试都令人深感怀疑，因为它声称自己是某种东西（即诚实、真实），但它不是，而且永远不可能在剧院的背景下（或者可能在其他任何地方，就此而言）。因此，唯一可行的解​​决方案是从舞台上“真实的”个人和内容的呈现过渡，正如 Matzke 总结的那样，转变为“与身份建构的对抗”，从而导致承认“真实再现的不可能性”。⁹

在英国的背景下，关于真实性的学术讨论已经评论了剧作家/表演者的“生活经历”与舞台上经常出现的“困难”主题之间明确重叠的真实性潜力。对于 Charlotte Bell 和 Katie Beswick，“再现、‘真实性’和对现实的感知之间存在问题的关系通常表现在虚构再现与参与作品的艺术家的生活体验之间的滑移上，” ¹⁰允许将两者轻松扁平化：舞台上发生的事情被视为是“类型”或“群体”的生活体验的缩影。这种对真实性的理解源于“对代表、所有权和作者主体性伦理的后殖民关注”——换句话说，源于围绕谁代表谁对谁的讨论。¹¹同样，Liz Tomlin 已经证明了“提高意识”真实再现的缺陷，它“使现有的权力关系完好无损”，因此“可能将观众的角色限制为文化游客的角色”。¹²

在这些学术辩论的背景下，本文探讨了最近在[End Page 40]柏林的马克西姆·高尔基剧院和伦敦的皇家宫廷剧院对原汁原味的重新配置，这是两个剧院的核心重新配置...