Analysing a performance from the viewpoint of what is presented to the public always overlooks the creative work which led to it, the preliminary work which leads up to the performance in question and is made up of explorations, trials and errors, forward and backward moves during which the basis for the final performance is laid down. These moments are witness to the life animating a performance's preparation and explain its development. This means that to study any representation of a performance with a view to analysing it will always remain a single moment in a process which constantly needs to be reaffirmed. This ‘genealogical’ work of preparation; the phases of the staging's constructive work; the research carried out by the actor on his or her text; and the hesitancies, erasures, choices and discoveries generated by a collective work are fundamental to comprehending the representation. They bring its meaning to light and allow us to observe creation at work: creation of the stage setting, of a part, of a character and so on. This procedure is not only indispensable for a better understanding of the performance under study, but also affords a better comprehension of the phases of the creative act itself. Therefore the following essay, an introduction to those that follow, attempts to lay down the basis for defining what should be the tools and corpus for such a field of study.

The question of whether the director has been faithful to the author or whether the production conforms to the text of the play resurfaces in many different shapes. Three recent theories are given as examples of this dogma of necessary fidelity. But this dualism is itself historically relativistic. Examples of recent productions show that the text–performance ‘couple’ must constantly be reconsidered.

Making a preliminary dictinction between contemporary theatre and non-contemporary theatre, this article draws the limits of the twofold field of investigation for a theatrical genetics in process. In so doing, it underlines more particularly the inquiries and stakes of the genetic analysis of non-contemporary theatre; that is, the theatre antedating the age of the stage director. Relying on a body of significant documents, it puts forward some possible ways of gathering, preserving and interpreting heterogeneous, uncertain and unstable tracks discarded in the outburst of creations which were then little concerned about their preservation. Lastly, a third part brings out the conditions for possible methods of analysis which, by pairing the genetic study of the text and the stage, try to evade the traps of parcelling, of what is aleatory and mobile, in order to retrieve the theatre's creative processes.

In the summer of 2007 the annual conference of the International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR/FIRT) met for the first time in Africa. Hosted by Stellenbosch University in South Africa, it was probably the first international theatre conference of its kind on the continent, enabling scholars and practitioners from all over the world as well as from many African countries to present their work on the conference theme: ‘Theatre in Africa – Africa in the Theatre’. This issue of TRI opens with two articles which reflect the deep interest among non-African scholars in the latest developments on African stages as well as the challenge of depicting its complex state of affairs from within. Both contributions examine strategies of subversion mobilized by theatre to create continuity and identity through different readings of the historical past.

Let me explain right from the outset that I have chosen the term ‘after the generals’ only as a convenient shorthand. In fact what I mean is something like ‘after the notorious dictatorships of the later half of the last century in Africa south of the Sahara’. Some of these, as you know, were military regimes, like those of Eyadema, Bokassa, Mobutu or Abacha (graphically satirized in Soyinka's A Play of Giants), but quite a number were also civilian governments, such as Arap Moi's Kenya or Boigny's Ivory Coast, always depending, of course, on how you choose to classify them.

There is precious little documentary evidence regarding the way in which Molière and his company went about preparing themselves for performance in seventeenth-century Paris. After all, rehearsal has always been by definition an intensely private activity. However, in respect of his last play, Le Malade imaginaire, we are more fortunate, for a number of documents exist to illuminate for us if not the rehearsals themselves, at least their circumstances. They are, mostly, mémoires submitted by company suppliers, for lighting and heating and the like. Together with La Grange's Registre, a daily performance calendar, these give us some idea of the complex logistical operation that was the preparation of a comédie-ballet. Comparison of Molière's schedule with that of Préville, his comic counterpart a century later, suggests that – at least as an actor – his time for both study and group preparation was considerably less intense than for the actors of the Comédie-Française a hundred years later.

The aim of this article to show that the space of the stage and the ways it is constructed are an important, meaning-generating element of every production. The space of the stage is seen as an artistic construct, the aim of which is to convey senses relevant to the goals of the director. The function of the scenic space goes far beyond a mere ‘representation’ of some fictional inhabited space; it has the ability to convey meanings that, among other things, evoke metaphorical readings. The example used in this article, the St Petersburg production of Hamlet, directed by Vadim Golikov, is of unusual complexity and for this reason requires a more thorough theoretical introduction. Golikov has introduced a scene in which the Euclidean geometry falls apart, and instead a simultaneous presentation of two subjective perspectives is provided: two objects are perceived by one another at the same time, and this is shown through a distorted geometry of the stage. The essay raises theoretical issues connected with time and space in theatre.

This article discusses the dynamic relationship between ritualistic behaviours, traditional materials and performativity as it examines how work with traditional chants may affect the practitioner's mode of presence. It specifically draws from observations on the performances of Singaporean actor Ang Gey Pin in the Workcenter's One Breath Left and Polish theatre company Teatr ZAR's Gospels of Childhood. Each brings chants from very distinct cultural cradles – the Chinese diaspora and isolated Eastern European regions around the Black Sea, respectively. The study also traces a parallel between this vein of research and older artistic forms intended for the oral transmission of knowledge and traditions, such as Islamic philosopher Avicenna's recitals.

It was as a branch of ‘genetic criticism’ that a genetics of the theatre first established itself in France as a scientific field of study. Applied to literature alone in the first place, it has since then gradually widened its scope of investigation. Taking Marguerite Duras's first play, Le Square (1956) as an example, this essay aims to demonstrate the main effects of such a disciplinary gestation on the ‘French’ approach to the creative processes as regards the theatre. On the one hand, the existence of well-tried methodological procedures for the study of manuscripts permits both a dynamic re-examination of dramatic works and a criticism of the myths which often surround them. On the other, apprehending the different textual materials and the other kinds of genetic documents produced around the stage according to a methodologically coherent manner reveals the constant interdependence of techniques and arts, and the need to improve models constructed for altogether different studies.

This article examines what is at stake when performers and playwright critically transfigure oral histories when staging them theatrically. Representations of race and colonial history are integral to a nation's conception of its own cultural identity. These issues are at the forefront of many theatre productions in Cape Verde, an intensely creolized West African nation whose islands bear traces of the Europeans and Africans who have commingled there for centuries. The article examines two performances rooted in Cape Verdean history that challenge existing theoretical paradigms for the mimetic relationship between actors and the historical personae they portray onstage. Proposing the concept of the ‘historical imagination’, it explores how theatre artists self-consciously alter the local history they circulate to an international theatre festival stage and, concomitantly, how the theatre festival context and media coverage profoundly impact how national history is told within a global performance arena.

Observation of the rehearsal process provides vivid insights into the dynamically shifting and contingent nature of theatrical meaning-making. Drawing on my experience as an observer of the work process involved in the 2004 production by Brink Productions of Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis, I provide a detailed description of a single work session and an overview of the set design process. Influenced by Clifford Geertz's concept of ‘thick description’, I use these two differently structured aspects of the work process to provide insights into the nature of creative agency in theatre-making process and to argue for the value of ethnographic theory and practice in the emerging field of rehearsal studies.

The new aesthetic experience offered by the Italian diva to the Hellenic upper classes of the Orient was filtered through their broader concerns related to social and national visions. Adelaide Ristori was received as a representative of Western culture, which at that time bore the double significance of social progress and economic exploitation in the Near East. For a minority of commentators, she was one more European speculator who was taking advantage of the supposed treasures of the East. For the supporters of westernization, however, the performances and her personality raised issues which had been discussed in Western Europe a long time previously, regarding the power of the theatre to shape national and social conscience and the relationship between art and material culture.

In his first play, Une Manière d'Antigone (1975), Patrick Chamoiseau brings together Greek mythology and the history of Martinique. This article compares this version with the Sophoclean version, considering the transformations made by the Martinican playwright in terms of time and space, plot, characters and language so as to determine how different or similar the Caribbean Antigone is from her Greek sister. By adapting a famous Greek myth on the Antillean stage, Chamoiseau realizes a literary transposition while reaffirming his strong political opposition towards France. This play inscribes itself in the vast movement of subversion and contestation of the classic literary tradition by postcolonial writers who create their own literature based on the adaptation of Western classics. Chamoiseau's rewriting of the Antigone myth allows for a reappropriation and a revalorization of a forgotten history. Additionally, it presents an assertion of resistance and a plea for emancipation from both literary and political domination.

Medieval Passion Plays appear to be no less violent than the flagellation and crucifixion scenes in Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ. They were performed with what to today's eyes appears to be, in the context of its presentation in a religious play, chillingly intense and explicit violence. This suspicion is supported by surviving descriptions of performances of medieval Passion Plays in London and Metz, in each of which the actor playing Jesus in the crucifixion scene was fatally injured by the thrust of Longinus' spear or nearly died of heart failure. The expansion of what in the Bible amounts to only brief description, and its formulation in terms of drama, suggest deliberate use of the torture scenario in different Passion Plays. However, a question arises concerning the way in which the scenes of violence were able to find a place in religious plays used by ecclesiastical and municipal sponsors to propagate and affirm the dominant Christian view of the world. According to a common school of thought, the plays realistically represented, through gestural and dramatic elaboration, what the liturgy celebrated in a symbolic ceremony. In this way the plays visually communicated religious instruction to onlookers who did not know any Latin. But how can the torture scenes – on which many Passion Plays linger so long – be reconciled with the purpose of depicting the story of salvation?

The aim of this article is to establish a classification for the various written documents produced by assistant directors (before and during the rehearsals, during the run-throughs, from the first performance onwards and so on). It also underlines theatrical work as an autonomous subject of interest. These written documents are useful, and even indispensable according to certain directors. The notes may differ in nature at different times in the production process. In their finality they preserve a record of what is to be redone, a record of the work whose existence the audience does not suspect. Contrary to what one might believe, it is not always the actors who retain the truest memory of their work. The following is based partly on my own experience as assistant director, or intern, to Yves Beaunesne, Denis Marleau, Matthias Langhoff and Robert Wilson.

This paper is an exploration of the 2004 Arabic adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, which premiered in Casino du Liban in Beirut. The Last Day was created by Oussama al-Rahbani, who also composed the musical scores. The play shows how local Shakespeares resonate with the wider global field of study, which in turn echo East–West cultural interactions. The Last Day challenges our perception of the Other in Arabic drama as it questions intraculturalism within the conflict-ravaged Middle East. It prompts us to ask how we should address local Shakespeares in a global context, and how local knowledge illuminates our understanding of Shakespeare's reception. This paper emphasizes the fluidity of the field of Shakespearean studies and the instability of East–West cultural divides.

In French, the term reprise (revival) is polysemous to a high degree. Starting with a short redefinition of the term, our present concern is to make clear its historical evolution and to analyse the contexts in which theatre directors are using it today. Whether the motives for a revival be economic, emotional or aesthetical, the phenomenon becomes more and more important in the perspective of a globalization of the major theatrical productions. From Giorgio Strehler's seven revivals of Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters to the several versions in different languages of one performance by Robert Wilson or Robert Lepage, what is at stake in a revival has changed considerably: this is what this article will attempt to clarify.

The controversial theory of intercultural performance covers a wide range of theatrical practices, which intend to adapt subject matter and situations from one culture to another. This intention mainly involves a transportation and translation of elements and perspectives across cultures. The translator, the audience or reader, and the director fill in the gaps that are formed during this transportation and translation with their own interpretations, in accordance with the culture they inhabit. However, intercultural performance requires conscious attempts to merge two different cultures. Such attempts should not be done solely for the ‘target’ culture's audience but should also regard the perceptions of the ‘source’ culture as much as possible. In light of this, Turkish State Theatre's director Ferdi Merter's production of A Streetcar Named Desire is analysed in order to locate the distinct changes the Turkish interpretation of the play has incorporated.