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Embracing the Incomplete: Thekla Gaiti on Postdramatic Theatre and the Art of Unresolved Meaning

Richard Beck Richard Beck
30 Oct 2025

I recently saw Thekla Gaiti’s play Postdramatic at Milano Off Fringe Festival. I was intrigued, excited and somewhat perplexed by the nature of the work and the performance it requires that I decided an interview was needed to find out more abut her and the theatrical style she has adopted, which was new me.

Rather than offering a formula to follow, it opens a space for experimentation

Thekla, let’s start with an introduction to your background and training.

I’m an actress, performer and educator based in Athens, working across theatre, film, music and television. Recently I have been exploring conceptual photography and solo performance. I’ve trained extensively in acting, voice and movement, with a focus on physical theatre, improvisation and both solo and ensemble performance. Postdramatic is my first solo piece, and it began as a photo series before evolving into a full-scale performance.

The title of your play gives away its genre, so can you tell us something of the history and characteristics of this style of theatre?

Certainly. When we speak of postdramatic theatre, we refer to a broad range of performance practices that have emerged since the late 20th century, roughly from the 1970s onward. It didn’t arise from a single movement, but from wider cultural shifts: the crises of the 20th century, the rise of mass and digital media, the decline of grand narratives and a growing scepticism toward fixed identities and stable meanings.

In this context, artists began experimenting with new forms of expression, incorporating methods and practices from a variety of artistic and disciplinary traditions, while questioning the traditional foundations of dramatic theatre: plot, character psychology, linear storytelling and the primacy of the written text. The term itself became widely established after Hans-Thies Lehmann’s seminal study Postdramatic Theatre in 1999, which was quickly recognised internationally as a key reference point for understanding these new aesthetics.

What’s unique about postdramatic theatre is that, rather than offering a formula to follow, it opens a space for experimentation. It isn’t defined by a single style, but by a set of tendencies: narrative is rarely linear or continuous, often taking an open or discontinuous form; the performer’s presence takes precedence over character psychology; and the text becomes just one material among many. Postdramatic theatre draws freely from other disciplines — visual arts, dance, music, video — collapsing traditional hierarchies between them. The audience is no longer a passive observer, but invited to interpret, respond, and even participate, rather than simply decode the performance.

Directors like Robert Wilson, Pina Bausch, Heiner Goebbels and Romeo Castellucci use postdramatic forms to break traditional storytelling. Their work reflects the complexity of contemporary life, with its fluid identities and overlapping realities and focuses on experience, resonance, and multiplicity rather than fixed narratives.

Hοw did you discover this form of expression and why does it appeal to you?

I discovered postdramatic theatre during my Master’s studies and was immediately captivated by it. Unlike more traditional forms, it offered me the space to realize what theatre could mean for me, not only as a practice, but as a lived way of responding to the world. I decided to dedicate my thesis to creating Postdramatic as a solo performance.

What excites me about postdramatic work is that it lets me create something personal and strange, offering the audience a fresh way to experience theatre; a way to explore ideas, emotions and perspectives in a form that’s unconventional, surprising and vibrant. It’s my chance to speak with my own voice and create theatre that’s intimate, alive and speaks directly from me to the audience.

How have you used the form in your play, which you refer to as “a sincere tribute to the Incomplete” ?

In this piece, I use postdramatic form to embrace rather than resolve incompleteness. The piece is built as a collage of short scenes that keep shifting before they can settle and grew out of my own creative and cognitive rhythm: a mind that shifts quickly, gathers impressions, and struggles with closure. Postdramatic theatre allows me to turn that restlessness into method, transforming chaos into material rather than obstacle. I call it a “heartfelt tribute to the Incomplete” because it doesn’t try to fix or solve this condition, but to live inside it honestly, and invite the audience to inhabit that space with me.

Is the medium more important than the message?

In postdramatic theatre the two can’t really be separated. The medium is part of the message and the message only fully exists because of the way it is delivered. Most often the form is the statement. In my case, the choice to work with discontinuity and incompleteness isn’t just a stylistic frame around an idea, it is the idea.

You go on to say that “making sense of what happens on stage is optional”, so what would you like people to take away from having seen your performance?

I don’t expect the audience to “make sense” of everything on stage — that’s not the point. Postdramatic does not favor a predetermined conclusion that I want them to arrive at. There is no unified “truth” or a clear message to be decoded. The swimmer character in my piece moves through the scenes, opening up possibilities rather than giving answers, and I hope people leave having experienced an emotional journey, taking with them a feeling, a moment or a spark of recognition.

Thekla, thank you so much for this insight.

Postdramatic is still touring in Greece and internationally and as an example of this genre it is outstanding. It has been met with great enthusiasm by audiences and also won an Off West End Award (Offie) in London in March 2025. The next step in its journey is a phygital theatrical hybrid, merging live performance with cinematic language, set to premiere in February 2026 at a major cinema in Athens, which Thekla sees as challenging herself "to explore postdramatic theatre in deeper, more experimental and unfamiliar ways".

Richard Beck

Richard Beck

A graduate in theology and education, Richard acted and contributed to dance, drama and music productions throughout his teaching career. He joined Broadway Baby in 2014 and is now our Editor-in-Chief. He usually disappears to warmer climes for the winter to pursue his passion for travel.

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