Theatre Meets Quantum Physics: René Pollesch’s Theatre for the Age of Technoscience

• Published in: Seminar : a journal of Germanic studies (Toronto) Vol. 58; no. 3; pp. 289 - 307
• Main Author: Kovacs, Teresa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Toronto University of Toronto Press 01.09.2022
• Subjects: Dramatists; Feminism; Gays & lesbians; Quantum physics; Theater; Theater directors & producers
• ISSN: 0037-1939; 1911-026X
• DOI: 10.3138/seminar.58.3.4

This article looks closely at how the German director René Pollesch incorporates quantum physics into his theatrical practice. I argue that the double-slit experiment that Pollesch refers to in his play Probleme Probleme Probleme (2019) is key to understanding his non-representational theatre. I analyze the deep implications of this experiment for his theatre with respect to two aspects: (1) I highlight the fact that his interest in the writings of feminist and philosopher of science Donna Haraway is connected to a critique of representational theatre with its specific conceptualization of “the Human” as a Cartesian subject; and (2) in line with feminist and physicist Karen Barad, I discuss how the double-slit experiment, understood as a queer phenomenon, helps Pollesch rework central categories of drama and representational theatre. Subsequently, this allows me to conclude that Pollesch continues Bertolt Brecht’s project of a political “theatre for the scientific age” under new conditions. His theatre is a political theatre for the “technoscientific age” where “the Human” as opposed to its “Others” no longer exists. The term diffraction is key for understanding my analysis because it functions as an analytical tool that connects the aforementioned aspects. Moreover, it also describes my method of making visible the pattern that comes into being when Pollesch meets the double-slit experiment, or, more generally speaking, when theatre meets quantum physics.