„Musela jsem se osvobodit, chápeš?“ Tělo a tělesnost v divadelní hře Mašinérie

This study analyses the perception of the body and physicality in Sophie Treadwell‘s expressionist drama Machinal (1928) through American theorist Judith Butler‘s thinking of the performative construction of sex and gender. The drama provides a critical insight into the workings of contemporary patriarchal society and highlights the impact such social arrangements can have on the female body and female identity. The way in which the female body and physicality are portrayed and used to accentuate the themes of the play is analysed through examples of the construction of characters and situations of the language of lines and stage notes from the translation of the play, which is included in this issue. Given the focus of the analysis on the textual aspect of the play, at this stage the study does not claim to analyse its staging tradition or contextualise the period of its creation.