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GENDER AS RITUAL AND ‘POETIC RITUALITY’ IN CONTEMPORARY ‘BIOSCIENCE DRAMA’
this final phase of aggregation the sons have the power to eliminate the father
as a scientist. From the perspective of a critical gender reading, it can thus be
said that by means of its poetic rituality, Bauersima’s futur de luxe traces the
construction of the subject in the process of signification by ironically expos¬
ing the idea of the human clone as the most recent remake of the dream of
male self-creation through abjecting the “Other”.*’ Interestingly enough, the
origin ofthe whole ado is a gender-specific change of the religious ritual which
is not only physically performed on stage but also — as part of the fictitious
story — frames the dramatic plot:
USCHI: I am visiting my parents. My brothers are coming, too. [...] Soon it will be
night and Sabbath begins. I am sure my father is laying the table right now. Some
time ago, we changed the Sabbath ritual at ours. My mother got fed up with playing
the servant all the time. She made Dad lay the table on the Sabbath. It’s not exactly
orthodox, but I find it’s quite okay actually. It keeps my father moving. [...] And
Mum is dressing herself up.**
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BAUERSIMA, Igor: futur de luxe, in norway.today. 3 Theaterstücke, Frankfurt
am Main, Fischer, 2003.
BRAUNGART, Wolfgang: Ritual und Literatur, Tübingen, Niemeyer, 1996.
BRECHT, Bertolt: Der kaukasische Kreidekreis [1949, 1954], in W. Hecht — J.
Knopf - W. Mittenzwei — K.-D. Müller (eds.): Bertolt Brecht, Werke. Große
kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe, Vol. 8, Frankfurt am Main,
Suhrkamp, 1992.
BRECHT, Bertolt: The Caucasian Chalk Circle, trans. Eric Bentley, Minneapolis,
Minnesota University Press, 1999.
BUTLER, Judith: Bodies That Matter. On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”, London,
Routledge, 1993.
CHURCHILL, Caryl: A number, London, Royal Court Theatre, 2002.
” On the cultural history of imaginings of the artificial human and male (self-)procreation
without sexuality and insemination see Rudolf Drux (ed.): Frankenstein oder der Mythos
vom künstlichen Menschen und seinem Schöpfer, in Der Frankenstein-Komplex: Kultur¬
geschichtliche Aspekte des Traums vom künstlichen Menschen, Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp,
1999, 26-47.
% [Ich geh zu meinen Eltern. Meine Brüder kommen auch. [...] Bald ist Abend, und der Schab¬
bath beginnt. Mein Vater deckt bestimmt gerade den Tisch. Wir haben das Schabbathritual
geändert, irgendwann, bei uns zu Hause. Meine Mutter hatte es satt, immer das Dienst¬
mädchen machen zu müssen. Sie hat Vater dazu gebracht, dass am Schabbath immer er den
Tisch deckt. Das ist zwar nicht sehr orthodox, aber ich finde es ganz okay, wenn mein Vater
ein wenig in Bewegung bleibt. [...] Und Mutter macht sich schön.] Bauersima: Ibid., 65-66,
trans. Birte Giesler.
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