Barely theorised about in the academic world in France, the term in situ refers to very heterogeneous artistic and professional practices: from site-specific creation to programming outside of theatre walls, in a school or a public square, of an indoors-conceived show. It tends to be confused with other categories — “hors les murs” (“outside walls”), “street arts”, or “creation in public space” (all disciplines combined), which do not actually cover the in situ field, and have their own sectoral specific network and issues. It also inherits missions linked to the history of cultural institutions in France. As a result, in situ performing arts practices are caught up in issues — professional, economic, political as well as aesthetic — that need to be explained. This article therefore proposes an analysis of the formation and structuring of this aesthetic and professional landscape in France, as well as the theoretical difficulties it raises, and elaborates the definition of in situ theatre as what pragmatic sociology would conceptualize as a “city”. The study considers a diachronic theoretical, critical and dramatic corpus representative of the tension between aesthetic experimentation and the socio-political stakes involved in conquering a territory. Starting in the 1910s with a Macbeth staged by Georgette Leblanc, Maurice Maeterlinck’s companion, in a former abbey, and the Théâtre du peuple in Bussang, through the turn of the 1970s–1980s, and into the present day, namely, with two in situ creations by the In Vitro collective, Tchekhov dans la ville (“Tchekhov within the city”), and Série Noire / La chambre bleue, an itinerant site-specific drama based on a “noir” novel by Simenon.

Following the approach of valuation studies, the paper considers three different logical motivations of the ability of stage practices in situ to create recognized value. First, according to aesthetic logic of action and valuation, live shows in situ have enhanced artistic and technical qualities. Traditionally, French professional experts have considered performances out of theatres as secondranked activities. Nevertheless, since the 1990s, we can see a limited shift in their mental representations with institutional recognition of street performances as a way to renew the relationships between the artists, the spaces and their audiences. The second, civic logic, predicates the general interest in the arts in cultural democratisation. From this perspective, performing shows outside of theatres is a way to more directly address the local population. Nevertheless, performances in situ more likely attract the usual theatregoers rather than local neophytes in the arts. The project of cultural democracy is oriented towards a more horizontal interaction between professional artistic skills and the local participants’ cultural references. Expansion of the sociodemographic composition of the audience occurs through participation by the spectators in performances, which offers an opportunity to reconsider the relationships to the environment. Still, while the sociodemographic composition of the audience may be more popular, it is usually specific to these performances with amateurs. The third, logical motivation, based on heritage value, depends on the memorial power of heritage objects. Therefore, it may amplify the aesthetical value of performances in historical spaces. On the other hand, heritage sites program live shows in order to attract visitors and to enhance their brand. 

The article deals with performances in public space and their ways of interaction with the milieu. Based on interviews with directors and some audience members, it analyses the theatre actors’ perception of the milieu and discursive strategies for describing theatre’s penetration into urban space. The author analyses the performances To eat Rostov by Elina Kulikova, premiered during the Transformation festival in Rostov, Attentifs, ensemble by Ici-même, Paris, D’ici on voit la tour Eiffel by Deuxième groupe d’intervention, Malakoff, and the perception failures that occurred during those shows noted either by the audience or by the directors. Examination of these failures reveals some regularities of theatre in public space. First, the performance in situ disturbs the everyday life of the place and can lead to a conflict between the users of space and theatrical actors, who proceed to appropriate space and contest the codes and practices that exist in it, a conflict that is related to the objectification process. Second, the in situ performance can immerse the audience into space and reveal the problems contained therein through the incorporation of acting scenes, whereas the presence of external monitors, such as the police, in the view of the audience impedes the immersion. Third, a performance in situ can become a platform for communication with citizens and serve to valorise everyday routines, including itineraries in non-staged, out-of-centre locations.

This article focuses on the political aspects of interventions in modern Russian theatre, as well as some examples of deconstruction of neoliberal means of producing and transmitting knowledge in current theatre theory. Intervention is the tool or the method of how to work with reality and how to penetrate socially constructed frames and problematize hot button issues in society. The most important aspects of intervention were described and fixed by the British art historian and theatre researcher Claire Bishop in her public online lecture at the Festival “Access Point” (St. Petersburg, 2020). In particular, Bishop defined intervention as the most democratic and productive way to make political actions visible and accessible for citizens. Intervention is described by her on the basis of South America performances of the 1960–1970s, where the protest against imperialistic politics of USA and against local totalitarian systems was transformed into actions by contemporary artists. Intervention makes it possible for the artist to be critical toward authority and, indeed, to be political. For Russian artists this is also a way to ignore theatre as a hierarchical system and to create the project out of theatre as a genre. In spite of this strong willingness, these projects often are based on theatrical tools and methods. The conclusion drawn by the author is that activism contains the roots of the theatre and it makes it possible to speak of them as of ‘a performance’. It gives the theatre the resource for self-development. 

The situation when the viewer finds himself alone with the performer or with another kind of actor (performative space, technological object, etc.) is used more and more frequently in unconventional theatrical projects. The conditions of the game vary, but the principle of the spectator’s loneliness obviously influences the theatrical plot. What’s going on with the plot? What happens to the viewer when he is fully responsible for the result of the performance? The article examines performances for a single spectator, created in the field of installation theater and theater of objects, where the situation of a sole viewer intensifies the viewer’s experience without depriving him of subjectivity. Participatory productions, where a single spectator comes into close contact with the performer, are also analyzed in detail. In Russia, the spread of such experiences is associated with the pandemic that provoked the development of digital theater. The performances, establishing oneon-one contact with the audience, worked with a situation of permanent involvement outside a real communication, with a situation of anxiety and loneliness. Possessing a therapeutic value, such projects also inevitably objectify the viewer, since in an extremely concentrated situation of the absence of someone other than the performer and the viewer, he is deprived of the opportunity to control the gaze directed at him from the outside.

The article discusses the political (J. Ranciere) potential of inclusive art in Russia on the basis of the example of a St. Petersburg project that at various times was called “The Meeting” (2014—2016) — “The Apartment” (2017—2019) — “Conversations” (2019 — present). To back up her arguments, the author enters into a dialogue with the authors of the collective volume Performance and the politics of space: Theater and topology (2013), especially with one of its editors, Ben­jamin Wihstutz. She also draws her attention on Michel Foucault's concept of heterotopy and Claire Bishop's theory of participatory art. The development of the project is observed throughout several peri­ods, from the search for the space of utopia (Foucault) in the territory of repertory theater to the self-organized space “The Apartment”, in­dependent from official institutions. After that the “diffusion” of the spatial presence of the group takes place. Finally, the company re­turns to the theatrical stage, ready for working with the politiciza­tion of differences. The methodological proposal of the article is to expand the boundaries of the performance or theatrical event and re­fuse to fix them. The author thinks of the entire space-time duration of the projects “Meeting”, “Apartment”, “Conversations” as a single procedural performance “Meeting — Apartment — Conversations” (2014 — present), which has a number of intermediate results in the form of performances, media events, concerts, lectures, rehearsals and, in some cases, other events occurring in between.

The author analyzes the project “The Garden named after” created by artists Artem Filatov and Alexey Korsi in the Crematori­um in Nizhni Novgorod as a space of heterotopia. The project is con­sidered to be a memorial complex. The article demonstrates how this memorial garden was rooted in the practices of street art and partici­patory art in Nizhny Novgorod. If art projects in situ usually actual­ize the collective memory of a place, “The Garden named after” has been working with personal memory and collective digital archive. The new practice offered by artists Artem Filatov and Alexey Korsi gives a chance of a personal touch for a commemorative practice and for sharing personal memory with other people. The author draws an analogy between the project “The Garden named after” and the ex­periments made by Russian avantgarde architects such as Nikolay Ladovsky. Ladovsky considered architecture as a programme that defines how people could feel and perceive space. That understanding of architecture is close to the experience of time-based art. In other words, we could speak about some kind of a zone of transition be­tween architecture and performative and social practices. The project “The Garden named after” exists in this zone of transition.

The article examines the possibilities and specific fea­tures of site-specific dance as a tool to work with the history of a place and with individual memory. The material for analysis is comprised of the author's own works created from 2017 to 2020 in Moscow. They are divided into three formats: dance guided tours which took place in the city center, “home laboratories” dedicated to typical housing and the space of participants' own homes, and art research into the Basmanny district. The author considers these works as a form of performative research and seeks to combine the views of theoretician and practitioner, the positions of observer, au­thor and participant. She analyzes how, in each case, work with the heritage is carried out, and how a place and its history are revealed through dance. She also compares the material with the genre of guided tours — the most popular site-specific way to get acquainted with the history of the city. As a result, the author demonstrates new opportunities which the appeal to corporeality can bring in addition to verbal communication. What parts of history can be “translated” into the language of dance and performance. And how, in comparison with the guided tour, the relationship of the partici­pants with the place and with each other changes.

The article analyses the site-specific performance by the Mobile Art Theatre of “They met in Moscow” (a. k. a. “Swineherd and Shepherd”, 2019), based on Ivan Pyriev's eponymous musical film (1941). The promenade is put in the context of cultural projects which interpret the vision and space of the Exhibition of Achieve­ments of the National Economy (VDNKh) such as the Exhibition at the Russian pavilion at the 15^th International Architecture bien­nale in Venice (2016) and others. It shows that the original concep­tion of the Exhibition framed at the end of 1930s influenced the So­viet comedy and then has been recycled in the performance “Swine­herd and Shepherd”. The performance continues to explore the themes of multiculturalism and transnationalism that were part of the overall plan of VDNKh. In addition, the promenade managed to transmit the experience of the architecture. Space perception is achieved through the personal life stories of Viachaslav Oltar- zhevskii, Victor Gusev and Valentin Pavlov, the depiction of the most famous landmarks (the fountain “Friendship of peoples” etc.), the story line of the new Glasha (Yang Ge) and Musaib (Odin Bi­ron). The final song at the end the promenade emphasizes the se­ductiveness of VDNKh as a representation of the Golden Age of So­viet architecture despite the complexity of its past.

The article discusses laboratory discourse on the basis of Zara Abdullaeva's interviews with the theatre director and theo­rist Anatoly Vasiliev. Discourse analysis is becoming a method of analysis in theatrical studies. In particular, it is proposed to see the premises of a theatrical laboratory in production aesthetics. The article outlines the connection between laboratory theaters and productivist art and productivism (Boris Arvatov, Walter Ben­jamin). Thanks to the institutional criticism of the laboratory by Bruno Latour, the question is raised about the possibilities of mu­tual influence of laboratory theaters and society. Laboratory theat­er is considered in the article as a paratype of participatory art (Claire Bishop). The article provides information about the history of and research into laboratory theater in Russia. The method of discourse analysis is used in the article in relation to the recorded interviews of Anatoly Vasiliev and the interviewer Zara Abdullae­va. The mechanisms of the laboratory's influence on society iden­tified by Bruno Latour allow us to take a fresh look at the various laboratory activities of Anatoly Vasiliev and at the comments and clarifications that he makes after the fact in relation to them.

The article examines Tsvetaeva's tragedy Ariadne and the difficulties of its stage performance. Analysis of the musical organi­zation of the verse shows that the melodic-rhythmic structuring of direct speech creates the illusion of theatrical performance. That is, even at the level of the verbal text the intonation and, in a broad sense, the plastic pattern of the action can be discerned. The effect of stage implementation is also facilitated by the use of various genres of Russian folklore with their ritual nature. Moreover, through musi­cal techniques images are created and a dramatic conflict is formed. Thus, the system of Tsvetaeva's keynote ideas makes it possible, through the poetic refrain, to “sound” the voice of fatality, presag­ing the tragic denouement. The 2001 performance of Ariadne on the stage of the St. Petersburg Theater of Satire on Vasilievsky Island took into account this musical nature of the play. The director Svet­lana Svirko found her musical key, which for the first time in the his­tory of Tsvetaeva's tragedy opened the way to its theatrical perfor­mance. Svirko staged the performance as an opera, where the choir became the main character. In the vocal and dance part of the choir, in fact, a ritual act was reproduced, revealing an ancient tragic shape. Thus, in a play of the twentieth century, the performance uncovered the nature of ancient art, revealed the genealogy leading to the cho­ral origins of ancient theater and gave a definite answer to a question that in one form or another has been considered by researchers — namely, about the scenic character of Tsvetaeva's Ariadne.

The purpose of this article is to study how the strategy of deconstruction is implemented in the film “Walkabout” (1971), created by British director and cameraman Nicholas Roeg. On the one hand, the film touches upon eternal philosophical questions, and with an arc — reflects the intellectual atmosphere of the time of its creation. “Walkabout” embodied the ideas of the French phi­losophers J. F. Lyotard and J. Derrida, with whom the form of post­modernism as a philosophical trend begins. The film presents phil­osophical ideas generated by modern capitalist society, such as the disintegration of identity, the decentralization of man in the world, disillusionment with scientific and technological progress and glo­balization of the world community, the collapse of traditional val­ues. The choice of location for filming reflects a trend characteris­tic of modern Western society — an increase in interest in exotic cultures and, especially, in their spiritual practices. The authors of the film use irony, hints, allegories and other favorite formalis­tic devices of postmodern thought. The film embodies postmodern ideas — the denial of identity as semantic and objective constancy, the decentering of the personality, as well as the delegitimization of the attitudes of classical culture based on the concepts of logo­centrism, phonocentrism, phallocentrism and criticism of Western rationalism. By deconstructing the rituals and values that underlie the social practices of representatives of modern and primitive cul­tures, the filmmakers reveal their difference, which is opposite to the rationalistic and mythological view of the world, and the similarity, which lies in the absolute absence of freedom in their lives. The ex­istence of representatives of these cultures is completely determined by factors external to their personalities. The authors of the article come to the conclusion that the filmmakers, using a rationalistic ap­proach and highly developed technology, without which it is impos­sible to create high-quality film, contribute to an understanding of the problems of modern culture. In addition, by going beyond the framework of postmodern thought, they tune the audience to certain life values, which are based on a synthesis of primitive solidarity and the technical achievements of modern civilization.

The article presents a study of Elizabeth's summer pro­gress in 1591 — the only one that brought the Queen to the South of England during the years of the Anglo-Spanish war (1585—1604). It shows that the main political aim of the progress was to reach a working compromise with the Catholics of the Southern counties, since they bore the financial burden of the coastal defense and were growing discontented over the intensifying religious persecution. In the course of entertainment given to Elizabeth I at Cowdray Cas­tle, its Catholic owner, Viscount Montague, successfully presented himself as a loyal subject of the monarch and as a leader of the lo­cal community. The success of the Cowdray entertainment strength­ened his political position in the county of Sussex. Another enter­tainment given to the Queen — the one at Elvetham, the manor of Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, failed to please her because the Earl addressed his bid not only to legitimize his son but also to get him acknowledged, however indirectly, as heir to the Crown of Eng­land, not to Elizabeth but rather to her councilors and courtiers who could have offered their support. Addressing the national political elite and ignoring the Queen's wishes endangered the political ca­reer of the Earl of Hertford and his sons during the 1590s.

This article analyses the case of the scandal around Samuel Sorbiere's Relation d’un voyage en Angleterre (Report of a journey to England), published in 1664. The public reaction in Eng­land, most notably Thomas Sprat's Observations on monsieur de Sorbier's “Voyage into England” (1665), provides a rare opportunity to see the reader's reaction of the English to how their national cul­ture appears in a foreigner's description. The analysis shows that the indignation was caused not by the negative comments them­selves, but by the way in which they were presented. It was inter­preted in the context of discourses and types of texts within which, in England and France in the 1660s, distance was created between the knowledgeable, sophisticated author of the statement and the object of his consideration, and equally so between the author and the reader. This article examines several French literary conven­tions that defined the manner of presentation chosen by Sorb- iere —salon literature, libertine writings and the moralistic tradi­tion — as well as those contexts within which the text written in this way was read by the English critic — political satire, scholar­ly literature and romances. The differences in literary conventions were associated with cultural and national rather than personal priorities, and therefore contributed to the institutionalization of national discourses.

A lecture on Shakespeare from Vorlesungen Uber dram- atischen Kunst und Literatur (“Lectures on Dramatic Art and Lit­erature”) by A. W. Schlegel is published in Russian for the first time. Reflecting on Shakespeare from the point of view of roman­tic drama, Schlegel challenges the ideas of French classicists who considered Shakespeare a drunken barbarian and a savage as in his works he didn't follow the principles described by Aristotle in his “Poetics”. Echoing Lessing who believed that Voltaire and the classicists were wrong in their understanding of Aristotle, Schlegel encourages critics and readers to carefully listen to the voice of the Elizabethan epoch and not to judge Elizabethans from the view­point of their century, thus imposing upon Shakespeare's epoch rules and ideas weird and unknown to it. Schlegel also discusses the making of national theatre traditions in Europe and shows the affinity between the English and the Spanish theatre as opposed to the French and Italian ones. In his “Lectures” Schlegel widely uses the comparative method, as yet unknown to the epoch: its theoreti­cal ideas would later be formulated by Goethe who was the first to speak of the dominance of world literature over national tradition and of Shakespeare's influence on the development of world theatre (“Shakespeare und kein Ende”).

A review of: Scholar, R. (2020). Emigres: French words that turned English. Princeton Univ. Press. 272 p.

A review of:

• Murray, S. (2020). Performing ruins. Palgrave Macmillan. 316
• Corrieri, A. (2016). In place of a show: What happens inside theatres when nothing is happening. Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. 198