Revisiting the Anthropo(S)Cene: Theatrical Practices Beyond the Human Stage?

Abstract

This article outlines the specifically modern understanding of an anthroposcenic theatre by (among others) referring to August Wilhelm Iffland’s concept of the “Menschendarsteller” and takes a closer look at Max Herrmann’s article “Das theatralische Raumerlebnis”. As I will show in my reading of Herrmann’s now canonical text, the early discourse of theatre studies not only reproduces the anthroposcenic dispositive of theatre but also already hints at its limits and the breaking up of the closed and privileged scene of the Anthropos. The article tries to show how, by asking and focusing the question of space and theatrical transformation, while still focusing on the human actor, his actions and the mimetic relationship between actor and audience, Herrmann decenters and denaturalizes the anthropocentric, universalized, and naturalized framings of theatre. Article received: December 12, 2021; Article accepted: February 1, 2022; Published online: April 15, 2022; Original scholarly article

Full text

129
Wehren, M., Revisiting the Antropo(S)Cene, AM Journal, No. 27, 2022, 129−139.
doi: 10.25038/am.v0i27.503
Michael Wehren
Institut füreaterwissenscha, Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
Revisiting the Anthropo(S)Cene: Theatrical Practices
Beyond the Human Stage?
Abstract: is article outlines the specically modern understanding of an anthroposcenic
theatre by (among others) referring to August Wilhelm Iand’s concept of the “Menschen-
darsteller” and takes a closer look at Max Herrmann’s article “Das theatralische Raumerlebnis”.
As I will show in my reading of Herrmann’s now canonical text, the early discourse of theatre
studies not only reproduces the anthroposcenic dispositive of theatre but also already hints at
its limits and the breaking up of the closed and privileged scene of the Anthropos. e article
tries to show how, by asking and focusing the question of space and theatrical transformation,
while still focusing on the human actor, his actions and the mimetic relationship between ac-
tor and audience, Herrmann decenters and denaturalizes the anthropocentric, universalized,
and naturalized framings of theatre.
Keywords: Anthropocene; anthroposcene; theatre studies; scene; actor; post-anthropocen-
trism; eld recording.
Being-with Swarms and Plankton
e scene is empty, or is it? In a space between the Muziekgebouw and water
ooding along the piers of the IJ harbour a frame holding just a few music speakers.
e scene is full at the same time: not only can one see the modern urban surround-
ings – the Amsterdam waterfront, the Eastern Docklands and the other visitors – but
there is also a multitude of sounds appearing before and among them. Processed and
unprocessed sounds of the deep sea, the calls of whales, the movement of plankton
and whole swarms of shes […] it is a theatre and stage of sounds and voices far re-
moved from the human ear and the human voice, made listenable by special micro-
phones and artistic editing of Jana Winderen. Climate change and its realities enter
the scene in a swarm of sounds and drones that moves before but also around the au-
dience and through which it can move. Because of this Winderen’s audio-installation
Spring Time in the Marginal Ice Zone is as unsetting and unhomely as it is fascinating
to listen to and experience. In the booklet of the audio-installations CD-version Win-
deren writes:
*Author contact information: wehren@uni-leipzig.de

130
Wehren, M., Revisiting the Antropo(S)Cene, AM Journal, No. 27, 2022, 129−139.
e marginal ice zone is the dynamic border between the open sea and
the sea ice, which is ecologically extremely vulnerable. e phytoplank-
ton present in the sea produces half of the oxygen on the planet. During
spring, this zone is the most important CO2 sink in our biosphere. In
Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone, the sounds of the living crea-
tures become a voice in the current political debate concerning the o-
cial denition of the location of the ice edge.
e listener experiences the bloom of plankton, the shiing and crack-
ling sea ice in the Barents Sea around Spitsbergen, towards the North
Pole, and the underwater sounds made by bearded seals, migrating spe-
cies such as humpbacks and orcas, and the sound made by hunting seithe
and spawning cod, all depending on the spring bloom.1
Winderen’s work is primarily situated in the context of what is most oen sim-
ply called eld recordings. Yet, not only are most of the sounds heavily edited and
treated, their appearance and entrance on the staged situation of the audio-instal-
lation can also function as a productive starting point for the discussion of the re-
lationship between the theatrical scene and what is today called the Anthropocene
– the geological-political epoch of earth-history dominated and signicantly dened
by global humanity and, for example, its eects on climate, biodiversity, and climate.
By setting up a stage that is by design open to its social as well as natural surroundings
and that features among others the absences and presences of non-human as well
as human animals, buildings, and the weather, while remaining outside of theatrical
traditions that equal theatre or scene with the logic of the dramatic text or dramatic
dialogue. In this way Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone opens a theatrical scene
that is not xed on human presences and mimetic acts but togetherness, community,
and kinship beyond the anthropocentric paradigm.
Theatre and the Scene of the Anthropos
Obviously, Jana Winderen’s work is not part of a canon of the performative arts,
yet, precisely because of this, Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone can be a starting
point to question the limits and concepts of the performative arts in the Anthropo-
cene: What do we know of the theatre of the Anthropocene and how do we know it?
What are its frames of power and knowledge embedding the artistic but also scientic
practices of theatre? And how much are these institutionalized and traditionalized
forms of scientic and artistic practices inuenced and dened by modern anthro-
pocentric diapositives, their gures and metaphors? In short: How are our very own
concepts of theatre and the scenic arts themselves dened by anthropocentric forms
of knowledge and practice?
1 Jana Winderen, Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone (London: Touch 2018).

131
Wehren, M., Revisiting the Antropo(S)Cene, AM Journal, No. 27, 2022, 129−139.
For example, Peter Brook’s popular denition of theatre functions not only as a
minimalist modern reevaluation of the concept of theatre: “I can take any empty space
and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is
watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of the theatre to be engaged.”2 In
its paradigmatic minimalism this passage can also be read as the theoretical scene of
an essentialist anthropocentric performance: Brook’s “empty space” stages the upright
walk of the Anthropos, the upright walking (hu-)man who is watched while walking
through space by another, as a bare minimum but also as an or, more precisely, the
essential element of theatre. e minimal denition of theatre or, as in this case, the
“act of theatre” turns out to perform a gesture that has anthropocentric eect because
it works in an essentialist way and that has essentialist eects because it ‘is’ fundamen-
tally anthropocentric.
Let us now re-visit another theoretical scene. In 1785 the German actor, aut-
hor, and theatre reformist August Wilhelm Iand published his Fragmente über Men-
schendarstellung auf den deutschen Bühnen. In these fragments Iand describes his
vision of theatre and drama as follows:
e theatrical performance is a painting of humans, their passions and
actions. e actor, through the human he depicts as a role, makes this
painting come alive. erefore, Nature on stage is: e representation of
humans.3
Iand’s concept of the actor as someone who does make the paintings of hu-
mans come alive on stage logically leads to the denition of nature on stage as a rep-
resentation and depiction of humans. In consequence nature on stage can only be
human nature while at the same time the stage itself becomes a human stage as well
as a stage of humanness.
e animated picture that Iand invokes and his interlinked concepts of the-
atre, the actor and the stage are a very precise representation of a secularized, the-
atrical stage that has exiled the fantastic, the sacred, non-human animals as well as
machines, natural landscapes, and phenomena. In the center of this theatre and stage
there is once again, following the religious notion of a Ptolemaic world theatre, ‘man’,
because human passions and actions are what constitute theatre and drama.4In this
anthropocentric vision of theatre, nature equals human nature and its scene describes
a scene in which humans play humans for other humans as Menschendarsteller,
2 Peter Brook, e Empty Space (New York: Touchstone, 1996), 7.
3“Das Schauspiel ist ein Gemälde der Menschen, ihrer Leidenschaen und Handlungen. Der Schauspieler
macht, durch den Menschen, den er in einer Rolle hinstelle, dieses Gemälde lebendig. Natur auf der Bühne, ist
also: Menschendarstellung.” Wilhelm August Iand, Fragmente über Menschendarstellung auf den deutschen
Bühnen, Erste Sammlung (Gotha: Karl Wilhelm Ettinger, 1785), 32. All translations (unless noted dierently)
are done by the author (M. W.)
4 For the concept of a Ptolemaic world theatre also compare: Günther Heeg, Das transkulturelle eater (Berlin:
eater der Zeit, 2017), 87–90.

132
Wehren, M., Revisiting the Antropo(S)Cene, AM Journal, No. 27, 2022, 129−139.
thereby not only representing but also instituting a specic image of man and his
likeness. In her studies on the history and styles of acting in Europe, Gerda Baumbach
links this focus on the human reference closely to the problem of bourgeois accep-
tance of actors, theatre, and theatrical mimesis:
Acting received bourgeois acceptance through the exclusive xation on
the imitation and representation of man by man. […] From this the con-
cept of acting is deduced: to represent with voice, facial expression, ges-
tures and motricity the feelings and thoughts of other persons as if they
would actually be them. In this way the art of the actor is restricted to
being an impersonator of veriable persons.5
Following the project of the bourgeois acceptance of theatrical actors through
their connement to the imitation and mimetic depiction of humans by humans there-
fore can be reconstructed as an important step towards a hegemonic theatre and stage
exclusively dened as human. As such Iand’s perspective ts not only into the his-
tory of bourgeois acceptance of theatre and theatricality but also reminds of the mod-
ern renaissance paradigm of theatre described by Peter Szondi in his classic eorie
des modernen Dramas that traces modern drama back to the decline of the medieval
world-paradigm:
e Drama of modernity came into being in the Renaissance. It was the
result of the bold intellectual eort made by a newly self-conscious be-
ing, who aer the collapse of the medieval worldview sought to create an
artistic reality within which he could x and mirror himself on the basis
of interpersonal relationships alone. Man entered the drama only as a
fellow human being, so to speak. […] Everything prior to or aer this
act was, had to remain, foreign to the drama – the inexpressible as well
as the expressed, what was hidden in the soul as well as the idea already
alienated from its subject. Most radical of all was the exclusion of that
which could not express itself – the world of objects – unless it entered
the realm of interpersonal relationships. […] e verbal medium for this
world of the interpersonal was the dialogue. [...] e absolute dominance
of the dialogue, that is, of interpersonal relations, is only cognizant of,
what shines forth within this sphere.6
5 “Bürgerliche Akzeptanz erhielt Schauspielen durch die alleinige Festlegung auf die Nachahmung und Darstel-
lung des Menschen durch den Menschen. […] Davon leitet sich die Auassung vom Schauspielen her: mit
Stimme, Mimik, Gesten und Motorik die Gefühle und Gedanken anderer Personen so darzustellen, als ob sie
es tatsächlich seien. Darin erschöp sich nahezu die Kunst des Schauspielers als Darsteller verizierbarer Per-
sonen.” Gerda Baumbach, Schauspieler. Historische Anthropologie des Akteurs. Band 1 Schauspielstile (Leipzig:
Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2012) 22.
6 Peter Szondi, “eory of the Modern Drama, Parts I-II,” boundary 2 11, 3 (e Criticism of Peter Szondi,
Spring, 1983): 194–5.

133
Wehren, M., Revisiting the Antropo(S)Cene, AM Journal, No. 27, 2022, 129−139.
Szondi’s critical reconstruction of modern drama reconstructs the relation be-
tween humans, their pure reference, as the core of the dramatic experience realized in
and via the medium of dialogue. It is here, in the context of the modern arts, or to be
more precise – theatre, that man ‘x[es] and mirror[s] himself ’, thereby creating the
human imaginary that we can associate with the practices and forms of the Anthro-
pocene. Everything beyond the dialogue as the absolute inter-human form of relation
is dened alien, excluded from representation. is becomes even more clear in the
German version of the text on which the translation is based.7 For example, where the
translation speaks of a ‘a newly self-conscious being’, Szondi’s original text explicitly
uses the expression of a “zu sich gekommenen Menschen”.8 In a similar way it is not
the exclusion of ‘that which could not express itself ’ but the “Ausdruckslose”, mean-
ing something without expression – for example things or phenomena of the natural
world. And where the translations speak of the hegemonic form of the dialogue as a
form of ‘the interpersonal’ and ‘interpersonal relations’, Szondi very clearly uses the
words “zwischenmenschlichen Bezuges” – meaning the reference between humans.9
Brook’s and Iand’s as well as Szondi’s theoretical scenes are not only stages
of theatrical concepts but, in their individual ways and at the same time function as
stages and scenes of the Anthropos. All three examples can help to sketch out a forma-
tion of theatrical forms that not only represent and frame the anthropocentrism of the
Anthropocene but a theatrical anthroposcene – a theoretical as well as practical scene
in which (hu)mans and humanity function as the imaginary center and mimesis itself
is framed in an anthropocentric way. By using the neologism anthroposcene I aim at
conceptually framing a formation of theatrical practices, concepts and models that
functions as a place and representational mode in which human animals communi-
cate, talk, ght, feel, move, act, and speak with other human animals as well as watch,
observe and hear them doing so. Oen but not necessarily accompanied by a drama
that produces, in the words of Szondi, the relationships between those human animals
that are present and talk on stage, anthroposcenic theatre and theatrical performance
institute what is human, what is not human, what humans do, what they do not do,
how they act and how they do not act.
To analyze and criticize the paradigm of the Anthropocene we also have to
reconstruct it as an anthroposcene – a scenic dispositive that continually produces
and reproduces images, discourses and models of “the human”, “humaneness” and
“humanity” as part of the symbolic and biopolitical order of modern societies. In
this sense the term anthroposcene conceptualizes a doing humaneness or doing species
that not only reproduces and represents the already dened Anthropos but rst of all
continually institutes it aesthetically. From this perspective, many forms of theatre
deal with the practical institution of “the human” and “humanity” even if its actors
are critical of the Anthropocene, certain modes of human behavior or specic forms
7 Peter Szondi, eorie des modernen Dramas (1880–1950) (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1963).
8 Ibid., 14.
9 Ibid., 15.

134
Wehren, M., Revisiting the Antropo(S)Cene, AM Journal, No. 27, 2022, 129−139.
of the capitalist human subject. To question the anthropocentric paradigm therefore
necessarily also means to question as well as to challenge the anthroposcenic disposi-
tive, its practices and its institutional formations.
Inside and beyond the Anthroposcene
e long-lasting impact of the anthroposcenic dispositive of the theatrical stage
can also be found in some of the foundational and relatively early texts of German
theatre studies. One of the most intriguing documents of this time is a short text by
Max Herrmann, who founded the institute for theatre studies in Berlin in 1923 and
became its rst director. e text in question is called Das theatralische Raumerlebnis,
which can roughly be translated to e eatrical Experience of Space. It was rst held
as a lecture during the Vierter Kongress für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenscha
in 1930 and was nally published in 1931, only shortly before Herrmann was forced
into retirement by the national socialist regime in 1933 because of his Jewish heritage.
Herrmann’s text is so productive in the context of contemporary debates about
a post-anthropocentric theatre because it is reproducing and representing a norma-
tive anthroposcenic discourse of theatre but is also a document of its then contempo-
rary crisis. Especially when Herrmann is referencing the norms of theatre or focusses
on the norms and necessities of theatrical human mimesis, the text is as much a repre-
sentation of the anthroposcene as it is a very detailed description and precise analysis
of its fundamental structural fragility.
Herrmann’s ambivalent writing of the anthroposcene already shows itself very
early in the text as it opens another scene beyond the human drama and stage that
doubles the reproduction of theatrical norms. Herrmann writes:
eatrical art is spatial art. But this should not be understood as if the
representation of space in theatre could be an end in itself. e stage as
a site without humans actually never presents itself to the gaze or only if
there is a moment of embarrassment, or in the case of a short emptiness
of the scene for extraordinary means; applauding a well-made decoration
only happens when the curtain goes up, before the real theatrical play
starts. erefore, theatrical art is not about the representation of space,
but the performance of human movement ‘in’ the theatrical space.10
is early part of the text already stages a scene of theatre in which theatre itself
10 “Bühnenkunst ist Raumkunst. Das darf aber nicht so verstanden werden, als ob die Darstellung des Raumes
Selbstzweck im eater sein könnte. Die Bühne nur als Schauplatz ohne Menschen stellt sich eigentlich niemals
dem Blicke dar oder doch nur, wenn es sich um einen Moment der Verlegenheit handelt, oder auch wohl bei
einem ganz kurzen Leersein des Schauplatzes zu außergewöhnlichen Zwecken; das Beklatschen einer wohl-
gelungenen Dekoration ndet höchstens statt, gleich wenn der Vorhang in die Höhe geht, ehe das eigentliche
eaterspiel anhebt. In der eaterkunst handelt es sich also nicht um die Darstellung des Raumes, sondern
um die Vorführung menschlicher Bewegung ‘im’ theatralischen Raum.” Max Herrmann, “Das theatralische
Raumerlebnis,” in Raumtheorie. Grundlagentexte aus Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaen, ed. by Jörg Dünne
and Stephan Günzel (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2006), 501–2.

135
Wehren, M., Revisiting the Antropo(S)Cene, AM Journal, No. 27, 2022, 129−139.
is discussed and at the same time fundamentally linked to the performance of human
movement. Having dened theatrical art as a spatial art, Herrmann’s discourse is
led to the necessity of excluding the representation of space in theatre as an empty
space without humans and as an end in itself. Nevertheless, ex negativo he describes
a scene within a scene – the empty stage devoid of human life and the things present
or exposed on it – that is as surreal as it seems unhomely and, as he himself notes,
embarrassing. Herrmann’s text not only describes the appearance of the stage itself on
the anthroposcene as a moment of embarrassment for the humans which are present.
It also contrasts the movement of the curtain that opens the theatrical performance
and is part of its institutionalized framing with the movement of the actor, which is
the focus of theatrical art. Only when the actors miss their parts is the empty stage
presented to the audience and the shamefully hidden other of the anthroposcenic
performance revealed.
Linking theatre and drama Herrmann then states that:
drama normally takes place in the human world, putting man against
man, not man against nature, whose realm the representation of a space
directly or indirectly is always about; it will always only be exceptions in
which the real space is included into the dramatic-poetic as something
existing-for-itself and essence-dening.11
Because drama takes place in the ‘human world’ and is about the conicts of
‘man versus man, not man versus nature’ the inclusion of real space, like in the theatre
of the theatre reformers around 1900, can only be an exception. Nevertheless, Herr-
mann later also notes and discusses the manifold inuences of space on humans and
because of this on theatre. While the empty space of the stage is not allowed to show
itself
Here we have to underline something that might sound trivial at rst
but cannot be ignored in regards to our ends, something, that relates not
only to the representation of humans by the actor, but to the relation of
each man to space in general. Each man is depending on the space he
is located in, with regards of his whole habitus: our walking, our ges-
tures, our speaking are dierent in free nature than in a closed space and
in their details are determined by the specicities of this nature or this
closed space.12
11 “Das Drama spielt ja doch normalerweise durchaus in der menschlichen Welt, stellt Menschen gegen Men-
schen, nicht Menschen gegen Natur, um deren Reich es sich bei der Darstellung eines Raumes direkt oder indi-
rekt immer handelt; es werden stets nur Ausnahmefälle sein, in denen der reale Raum ins Dramatisch-dichter-
ische als etwas Für-sich-existierendes und Wesen-bestimmendes einbezogen wird.” Ibid., 503.
12 “Hier müssen wir etwas Allgemeines betonen, was zunächst trivial klingt, was aber für unsere Zwecke
nicht außer acht gelassen werden darf, etwas, was sich nicht nur auf die Darstellung von Menschen durch
den Schauspieler, sondern auf das Verhältnis jedes Menschen zum Raum überhaupt bezieht. Jeder Mensch
ist von dem Raum, in dem er sich jeweilig bendet, in Bezug auf seinen ganzen Habitus durchaus abhängig:
unser Gehen, unsere Gesten unser Sprechen sind anders in der freien Natur als im geschlossenen Raum und

136
Wehren, M., Revisiting the Antropo(S)Cene, AM Journal, No. 27, 2022, 129−139.
Herrmann closes his thoughts on the “räumlichen Elemente des schauspiel-
erischen Spiels”, explaining that the exact inuence on space and surroundings on
human behavior have not been scientically studied yet.13 Interestingly enough in a
footnote aer this paragraph Herrmann thanks his colleague, Professor Dr. Kurt Lew-
in for his insights and sharing his knowledge on the known eects of space on man
and on this particular lack of studies.14 During the early 1930s Lewin was working in
the eld of Gestalt Psychology and later became a founder of experimental social psy-
chology, especially the so-called eld theory. It is interesting to note, that aer his em-
igration from Germany and from 1946 until his death in 1947 Lewin was also a mem-
ber of the core group of the Macy Conferences – a series of highly inuential meetings
of scientists focused on topics like cybernetics, robotics and others that today are
widely regarded as a signicant step toward a postanthropocentric understanding of
relations and interactions. By referencing Lewin, Herrmann’s theoretical text about
the spatialness of theatre links itself to scientic discourses which were already begin-
ning to change the anthropocentric dispositive of (post-)European philosophy and
science. With the question of space and surroundings, the inner space of the human
subject is potentially as much de-centered as the inner space of anthroposcenic the-
atre. Yet, aer acknowledging the dimension of external surroundings and their inu-
ence, Herrmann counteracts his opening to the in- or ahuman dimensions of space
and nature by reframing acting via the concept of transformation:
It is precisely these relations to free nature that are the least suitable for
the problem of the actor that interests us here, because the real landscape
seems to be most unfavorable for the actors transformation in general
and the transformation of space in particular […], and conversely, also
the actors transformation of the closed stage into a free landscape seems
to succeed innitely more dicult than the transformation into some
interior.15
‘Real landscapes’ seem to irritate and subvert the transformation of the actor
and of the space he acts in. Herrmann’s defense of the closed theatrical space pre-
cisely counteracts the de-centering of the human actor by creating an isolated inner
space that not only reects the inner space of the human subject but also shuts out
other voices associated with the surroundings of the scene. In Herrmann’s text the
im einzelnen wieder entscheidend von den Besonderheiten dieser Natur oder dieses geschlossenen Raumes
bedingt.” Ibid., 505.
13 Ibid., 505.
14 Ibid., 505.
15 “Gerade diese Beziehungen zur freien Natur kommen für das uns hier interessierende Schauspielerproblem
am wenigsten in Frage, denn die wirkliche Landscha scheint der schauspielerischen Transformation über-
haupt und der Transformation des Raumes im besonderen am ungünstigsten zu sein […], und umgekehrt
scheint auch die schauspielerische Transformation der geschlossenen Bühne in eine freie Landscha meist
unendlich viel schwerer zu gelingen als die Transformation in irgendeinen Innenraum.” Ibid., 505.

137
Wehren, M., Revisiting the Antropo(S)Cene, AM Journal, No. 27, 2022, 129−139.
only advocate of these outer voices is the poet, who, unsatised with the constriction
of his own spatial experience by the theatrical necessities, shows the poetic tenden-
cy to “include the ‘surrounding space’ of the stage (via calls from the inside to the
outside or from the outside to the inside and similar things)” [“den ‘Umraum’ der
Bühne (durch Rufe von drinnen nach draußen oder von draußen nach drinnen und
ähnliches) einzubeziehen”].16 “Herrmann’s description of the authors use of outside
calls or voices can be understood as a text-immanent reection and humanized echo
of what has been le out of the anthroposcenic stage.
Herrmann’s metaphorical as well as argumentative spatial closing of the theat-
rical space is legitimized by the logic of theatrical mimesis itself. Dened by transfor-
mation – not only of the actor but also of the audience – the process of performance
is bound to the spectators and the audiences mimetic desire to reproduce the move-
ments, actions, and words of the actor – a situational set up that, as we will see, has
very specic spatial requirements:
at creative and co-creative activity of the audience in >all< acting con-
sists of, in its deepest sense, a secret reliving, in a shadowy imitation of
the performance of acting, in an absorption not so much via the sense
of sight but through the feeling of the body, in a secret urge, to perform
the same movements, to create the same sound of the voice in the throat.
[…] But in the movements of the actors, in the sound of his voice, as we
have seen, his feeling of space, his experience of space are revealed. His
spatial experience can now be taken over by the audience all the more
because this audience is in the same real, only to be reinterpreted space
with him, even if there is a strong separation, a special dierentiation of
the stage space from the auditorium.17
e audiences secret reliving and shadowy imitation of the actors performance
is dened by ‘a secret urge, to perform the same movements, to create the same sound
of the voice in the throat.’ If theatre, as Iand proposed, is Menschendarstellung it is
not just a question of representation and observing but also, as an audience, of becom-
ing human – it functions as much as a theatrical anthropology of mimesis as it is an
anthropology of theatre. But to make this shadowy reiteration of acting possible, the
audience has to share the same real bodily space with the actor:
16 Ibid., 504.
17 “Jene schöpferische, mitschöpferische Tätigkeit des Publikums an ‘allem’ schauspielerischen Spiel besteht zu
allertiefst in einem heimlichen Nacherleben, in einer schattenhaen Nachbildung der schauspielerischen Leis-
tung, in einer Aufnahme nicht sowohl durch den Gesichtssinn wie vielmehr durch das Körpergefühl, in einem
geheimen Drang, die gleichen Bewegungen auszuführen, den gleichen Stimmklang in der Kehle hervorzubrin-
gen. […] In den Bewegungen aber des Schauspielers, im Klang seiner Stimme oenbart sich, wie wir gesehen
haben, der Ausdruck seines Raumgefühls, seines Raumerlebnisses. Sein Raumerlebnis kann nun umso eher
vom Publikum mitübernommen werden, als dieses Publikum sich im gleichen realen, nur umzudeutenden
Raum mit ihm bendet, wenn auch eine starke Trennung, eine besondere Dierenzierung des Bühnenraums
vom Zuschauerraum vorliegt.” Ibid., 508.

138
Wehren, M., Revisiting the Antropo(S)Cene, AM Journal, No. 27, 2022, 129−139.
that emotional becoming-one of the spectators experience with that of
the actor can actually only happen in the parquet, where one is at least
to some degree on a similiar height with the body of the actor and one
can experience the space more or less in the same position as he does.18
is gesture is highly ambivalent. While Herrmann’s text reproduces the mod-
ern and anthropocentric model of theatrical mimesis of human animals by human
animals, his spatial discourse also localizes the mimetic process in a situation that
aects its once anthropological and naturalized dimensions of meaning. By examin-
ing the relation of space and theatrical practice, Herrmann turns the understanding
of the human nature and framing of acting as well as the associated, anthropocentric
concept of theatrical mimesis into a specic, historical and architectural situation:
Only if the audience is in the parquet with a similar enough placement of the actors
and audiences’ bodies their emotional becoming-one of their experiences can work.
e eect of this discursive strategy borders on parody when the theatrical
mimetic desire of the anthroposcene that is prevalent in the relation of spectator and
actor is positioned as the eect of an optimal placement of seats in the architectural
space of theatre. By asking the question of space, while still focusing on the human ac-
tor, his actions and the mimetic relationship between actor and audience, Herrmann
(involuntarily) decenters and denaturalizes the anthropocentric, universalized, and
naturalized framings of theatre, thereby producing insights into the anthroposcenic
machine demonstrate its practices and normativity as much as its precariousness in
a time of social, political and aesthetical changes. In the precise and detailed descrip-
tions of Herrmann’s text the other scene of the anthroposcene already resonates, and
the grand narrative of anthropocentric modern anthropology as well as anthropocen-
tric human mimesis comes down to a question of seats.
Beyond the Anthropos(c)ene
At the end of this article, I would like to return to Jana Winderen’s audio in-
stallation Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone as a non-anthroposcentric theatre
of voices and sounds. Reframed from the perspectives of the texts discussed above
it becomes very clear that nature on stage in this case does not and cannot mean the
Iandian representation of humans. In a way the scene that is created is closer to the
surreal stage without humans that Herrmann dismisses in the beginning of Das the-
atralische Raumerlebnis. Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone creates a stage that is
non-mimetic and non-anthropocentric – a scene in which not human mimesis is the
centre of attention but where we can hear the voices and sounds and noises that are
mostly excluded from the anthroposcene and its gures. ese sounds are even more
18 “[…] jenes gefühlsmäßige Einswerden des Zuschauererlebnisses mit dem des Schauspielers kann eigentlich
nur im Parkett erfolgen, wo man einigermaßen in gleicher Höhe mit dem Körper des Schauspielers sich ben-
det und den Raum daher ungefähr in der gleichen Lage wie er erlebt.” Ibid., 510–11.

139
Wehren, M., Revisiting the Antropo(S)Cene, AM Journal, No. 27, 2022, 129−139.
strange and (un-)familiar than the calls from outside the inner space of Herrmann’s
stage. Winderen’s audio installation (p)re-stages the re-entering of non-human ani-
mals, things, spaces and voices that have been excluded from the anthroposcene and
its representations and lets their traces mix not only with the harbor, the sky and the
cityscape but also with those human animals who are co-habituating the installation
for a time, like her testing their abilities of unlearning anthroposcenic privilege.
References
Baumbach, Gerda. Schauspieler. Historische Anthropologie des Akteurs. Band 1 Schauspielstile. Leipzig:
Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2012.
Brook, Peter. e Empty Space. New York: Touchstone, 1996.
Heeg, Günther. Das transkulturelle eater. Berlin: eater der Zeit, 2017.
Herrmann, Max, “Das theatralische Raumerlebnis.” In Raumtheorie. Grundlagentexte aus Philosophie
und Kulturwissenschaen, ed. by Jörg Dünne and Stephan Günzel, 501–13. Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp, 2006.
Iand, Wilhelm August. Fragmente über Menschendarstellung auf den deutschen Bühnen, Erste
Sammlung. Gotha: Karl Wilhelm Ettinger, 1785.
Szondi, Peter. eorie des modernen Dramas (1880–1950). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1963.
Szondi, Peter. “eory of the Modern Drama, Parts I-II.” boundary 2 11, 3 (e Criticism of Peter Szondi,
Spring, 1983): 191–230. doi: 10.2307/303010
Winderen, Jana. Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone. London: Touch 2018.
Article received: December 12, 2021
Article accepted: February 1, 2022
Original scholarly article