SPOT Theatre Lecture: Waiting, Witnessing, Disappearing
Join us for a performance lecture about memory, loss, war and the role of the witness.
Free entrance. No ticket required. Language: English
What does it mean to remain on stage as the world around you disappears?
An Iranian theatre group planned to perform an ancient Greek play about war in Athens. But when war broke out in the present day, the performance was cancelled.
What was meant to be a theatre performance became something else: a way of documenting what was happening in the real world.
Waiting, Witnessing, Disappearing explores what happens when theatre meets war, and what it means to watch and bear witness when events are unfolding around you.
The performance also looks back to the distant past. How does the way we remember ancient wars shape the way we understand the chaotic world we live in today? And what can a play written almost 2,500 years ago tell us about how we see ourselves and the people we call “the other”?
About the conference
Waiting, Witnessing, Disappearing is part of EASTAP 2026, an international conference on theatre and performance taking place in Groningen. Under the title Waiting for the Barbarians, theatre scholars and artists from around the world explore what waiting means, on stage and in our everyday lives. The conference looks at waiting as a way of thinking about uncertainty, conflict, politics, hope and the future.
