The trap of what worked: crisis as a law of development in Therapeutic Theatre "TT"

Accounts of how a theatre methodology develops are usually written as lists of improvements. This article proposes a different description, drawn from a single continuous body of practice: development proceeds by crises, and each crisis is produced by the success of the solution preceding it. The instrument that resolved the previous difficulty becomes the next obstacle — not because it failed, but because it worked. The argument borrows its structure, declared as a literary model only, from the Seldon crisis in Asimov's Foundation, where every crisis is double: an internal position made untenable by an external pressure. Three objects are examined against it: the four stages through which a closing device developed, the transitional forms between the three types of the methodology, and one performance in which both halves of a crisis are visible at once.

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Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-09-05
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22358998
Primary Topic
Theatre and Performance Studies
Type
preprint
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preprint

The trap of what worked: crisis as a law of development in Therapeutic Theatre "TT"

Irimie Pompei Pop
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Theatre and Performance Studies
preprint

The trap of what worked: crisis as a law of development in Therapeutic Theatre "TT"

Irimie Pompei Pop
preprint en

Abstract

Accounts of how a theatre methodology develops are usually written as lists of improvements. This article proposes a different description, drawn from a single continuous body of practice: development proceeds by crises, and each crisis is produced by the success of the solution preceding it. The instrument that resolved the previous difficulty becomes the next obstacle — not because it failed, but because it worked. The argument borrows its structure, declared as a literary model only, from the Seldon crisis in Asimov's Foundation, where every crisis is double: an internal position made untenable by an external pressure. Three objects are examined against it: the four stages through which a closing device developed, the transitional forms between the three types of the methodology, and one performance in which both halves of a crisis are visible at once.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Association for Liberty and Equality of Gender (RO)
Peace, Justice and strong institutions
Theatre and Performance Studies
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