Performativity and the Persistence of the Golem Legend

This article investigates The Golem by H. Leivick and posits the 1921 play as a harbinger of the theory of performativity that has had a significant impact upon theatre and performance studies in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The golem of ancient Jewish legend was a clay figure brought to life through the incantations of learned rabbis. The traditional golem possessed many human qualities but not the uniquely human power of speech – the power that brought it to life. In Leivick's play, however, the Golem can speak just as eloquently as his creator. This equal access to speech suggests, as do later theorists of performativity, that we are all golems of a sort, created and creating one another through the act of speech itself. This insight has crucial ethical implications for the present day.