• Publisher: *cf.
• 202 pages
• Author: Zoja Skušek
• Original title: Gledališče kot oblika spektakelske funkcije

Zoja Skušek’s original research Theatre as a Form of Spectacle Function (first published in 1980) is a pioneering work of theatre theory in Slovenia. In the first segment, “Theatre as a Form of a Spectacle Function”, Skušek examines the place and the importance of theatre in society. The question, she finds, is not simple, as theatre lacks both prerequisites for capitalist material production: the goods (material) as well as the market. Theatre therefore always surpasses the exchange and commercial logic of capitalist production. And what is this surplus? Skušek sets off on the theoretical path that begins with the Aristotelianism of the bourgeois theatre, continues through Hegel’s definition of drama, the study of Lessing and the concept of national theatre, and closes with a reflection on the avantgarde duo (double) “aesthetical/political” and the Slovenian case of the “theatre of one” of the acclaimed actor Stane Sever. The second part of the book, “Semiotic and Madness”, critically rethinks Julia Kristeva’s semiotic theory, and the third, “Two Interventions”, brings fresh and exciting readings of two canonical Slovenian authors and texts: Anton Tomaž Linhart (The Merry Day or Matiček's Wedding) and Fran Levstik (Martin Krpan). 

About the author

Zoja Skušek

Zoja Skušek (1947–2019), was a Slovenian editor, translator and theatre researcher. She studied world literature and French language and literature at the UL Faculty of Arts, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in dramaturgy at the UL AGRFT in 1978. She also studied at universities in Paris and Berkley. She was a long-time editor of the Studia Humanitatis book series. In 1997, she started the Založba /*cf. and led it until 2019.