The session 'Postmodernism and Theater' was held last Wednesday 25 August at the House of the Literati. Sadeq Rashidi, theater expert, believes that any disruption or garbled collage does not necessarily mean postmodernism, although it may seem justifiable according with postmodern theories.

IBNA: The session was held with attendance of Sadeq Rashidi, Masoud Delkhah and Rahmat Amini as theater experts and researchers. 

At the outset, Amini regarded Postmodernism as a disputable term and added, "This term is as paradoxical and contradictory as its concept when defined." 

He said, "Some critics have said that the beginning of postmodernism could be synchronous with the emergence of difficult texts of artists and elite unto the period of Berthold Brecht, whereas Brecht used to say he had nothing to do with the spectator and I seek common spectators among the public." 

Amini believes that postmodernism means distorting laws and common rules towards techniques that can attract audiences.
He added, "One of the criteria in postmodernism is that creative writer seeks past periods in which tradition has been dominant and then shows signs of the past in line with the present ones. 

Delkhah, the other lecturer, said: “Most students whom I have supervised in the last two years have chosen theses which were related with postmodernism. This shows that they are obsessed with this issue.” 

As one who has practiced postmodernism through his plays, he first provided an introduction to modern and modernism and added, “Any audience who has read literary artistic works of the 20th century would know where the modern world is rooted. The term ‘modern’ is a relative concept with a meaning evolved through few centuries.” 

Delkhah said, “There is a new view of the world and human beings in modernity which distances from the traditional view of the world and human beings and has made a different definition of human’s status.” 

He believes that the modern world begins with Luther’s reformist movement against the traditionalists.
Delkhah added, “Kant is called the greatest modern philosopher because he proposed the concept of ‘justice’; the enlightenment movement shaped and the ideas of freedom of thought and mind were suggested.” 

He further explained, “This philosophy was later developed into Naturalism and then the French Revolution made another jump in modernity and evolvement of liberal ideals.” 

He said, “Between 1860 to 1950 modernity and modernism reached their height and created a 90 year period of high rationality, dominance of science and social crisis for modernity. In this period, science cut its ties with religion and traditional life and made a cultural reaction in proportion with the conditions of life and some thinkers opposed it and began the western cultural crises.” 

Delkhah then referred to the indicators of postmodern theater and added, “The important issue of postmodern theater is that it lacks a clear subject and interpretation and cannot make any decisions. Among the indicators of this theater are rupture, polyphony, marriage of tradition and modernity, accidence, discrepancy, difference of methods and use of dramatic tools, shapelessness, chaos and politically non-transparent. 

He further explained that postmodern theater is a way of thought and look: “The purpose of postmodern theater is to show lack of relationship between many phenomena and it is considered a critical movement. In postmodern theater there is a question of origin and copy and it is rather involved with the national and sexual identity and characters and moments are devoid of stability.” 

Delkhah added, “There are two ways of theorizing in postmodernism. One group is pessimistic and frustrated, whereas the second group is looking for reformation in modernism and the modern world.” 

He then said postmodernism can be practiced in different ways as many as the artists and said, “All the indicators of postmodern theater rely on the director and how it is manipulated.” 

Rashidi, the next lecturer, said: “At the beginning I should explain that the subject of postmodernism and its paratextual issues have been discussed in many circles and today you can have access to numerous sources. Therefore, I do not want to enter into cliché and repetitive problems, yet some issues should be discussed.” 

He said, “Perhaps we can begin with this question that whether any twist in meaning or meaninglessness is postmodern? According to what Lyotard suggests, instead of talking about history, we would rather talk about ‘situation’ as ‘period’ would signify a clear historical concept whereas situation is devoid of that. Also, period or history implies a kind of solidarity but a situation cannot have that solidarity or unity.”

Rashidi continued, “Then we should make a distinction between modernity and modernism before we start the discussion over postmodernism. My point here is that in Iran, modernism is often taken as renewal and reformation whereas in sociological studies this is called ‘modernity’ and on the other hand, modernism is in fact a criticism of modernity and deals with different revolutions in art and literature; in modernism we face the crisis of artistic expression.”
He believes that in order to have a correct understanding of postmodern situation one should understand its cultural philosophical stems. “Once a NY University physics professor named Alan Sokal wrote a satiric article against all followers and advocates of postmodernism and said postmodern thinkers are hollow and illiterate and try to show off in the field of human sciences by propagating an apparently scientific term of postmodern.”

Rashidi continued, “Alan Sokal’s discussion in fact reveals the strife of mathematics and natural sciences scholars with human sciences thinkers and this strife has always existed in the history of philosophy. Therefore, I want to say that postmodernism is inherently a phenomenon of western philosophical origin, although later Habermas opposed it. So within this context, we cannot easily talk about postmodern theater in Iran. As you know, according to Lyotard’s analyses postmodernism tends to rise against all totalities or the so-called grand narratives.”

He added, “When Derrida poses the idea of deconstruction within the poststructuralist mental framework, he actually seeks shattering these binary and polar situations. You would see later that within this view through decentering and reversing binary oppositions, the peripheral residents of society in novels substitute with supreme characters and became significant. I would like to add as far as we are obsessed with goodness and badness in theater criticism and constantly look for evaluation, we cannot expect seeing postmodern theater and performance. Is any unusual and anti-fictional performance as postmodern? Actually postmodernism has outrided theater and now we face issues like performance or happenings.

Rashidi explained, “Any meaninglessness does not mean postmodernism, in postmodern situation we basically deal with significations and de-signification. This does not equal ‘meaninglessness’ it rather means that in postmodern situation we do not face a single and final meaning, we are in fact facing various meanings, differance, and most important of all, with interpretation and interpretation of interpretations. Here semiotics would be highlighted and would affect our interpretations based on our cultural and dramatic competence.”

He added, "Although postmodernism basically denies all conventions and principles – for otherwise it could tolerate the western dominant rationality beginning in the 18th century with Descartes to the 20th century – yet any distorted collage in theater does not mean postmodernism even if it could be justifiable according with postmodern theories. I mean theater in Iran. As it happens a lot that Iranian audiences have no familiarity with the codes and signs and no communication is possible.

The other program at this session is the reading of Sam Shepard's ‘Operation Sidewinder’ by Mahdi Mashhour and Somayeh Showghi.

Id : 79755