The article examines engaged art – or more specifically, engaged theatre – beginning with the question: How can theatre generate an effect on its spectator? This is a twofold question that concerns the how – the expressive form or aesthetic mode of the performance – and the effect – a concept or category rooted in Aristotle that concerns the influence of an aesthetic act on the spectator through the process of reception. Despite this duality, the emphasis nevertheless lies on the latter: the impact on the spectator. This is perhaps the essential point of engaged art: it indeed engages, first drawing the creator into its marked process and then decisively defining the creative act. However, it is always directed from the subjective to the objective, towards a statement about the world that the spectator is meant to perceive accordingly. Thus, in this reflection, the specific forms or procedures of effect – sensitisation, solidarisation, mobilisation, or any other activation of the spectator’s potential – are not as important as the mere fact of the “effect” itself, produced through the particular, almost “technical”, materialisation or organisation of the performative material. The discussion is thus primarily interested in the mechanisms of effect and engagement, whereby engagement is understood in its full range of semantic nuances. The second part of the article turns to two productions by theatre director Žiga Divjak, Bodočnost ( The Future, Ljubljana City Theatre and Belgrade Drama Theatre, 2024) and Anhovo (Slovene National Theatre Nova Gorica, 2025), and attempts to situate them within his broader artistic practice. Within Divjak’s poetics, the analysis identifies two distinct approaches to engaging both the theatrical means and the audience’s attention. It proposes a critical stance towards the former – a more or less explicit statement about the deviations of the modern world – and an affirmative stance towards the latter – whether documentary-based or metaphorically associative – through which Divjak’s theatre can fully activate the spectator.
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