Rabbits, Machines, and the Ontology of Performance

This essay argues for theatre as a mode of becoming rather than one of vanishing. By working through the temporal constructs that have traditionally fostered a sense of transience in performance, this essay attempts to establish appearance as a category of thought. It focuses on the praxis of performance, taking as its example a 2002 production in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival entitled machines machines machines machines machines machines machines and its subsequent unfolding in the everyday. Contrary to the dominant critical model of thought that casts theatre as inevitably and unstoppably moving towards its own end, absence, and death, this essay contends that performance is a force of animate presence, continuation, and becoming.