A documentary project on communist secret services in the former Eastern bloc
Parallel Lives. A Documentary Theatre Project on Secret Police in Eastern Europe is a long-term project of Slovakia’s international theatre festival Divadelná Nitra in 2013: Six teams of artists from six countries (Germany, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania) created plays and performances on the basis of files they had researched in the archives of the former communist secret services of their respective countries. Based on this material and adopting a wide variety of artistic approaches, they staged the life stories of people connected with secret service activities – as victims or offenders.
The book Parallel Lives is a document of this project, putting it into a historical and political context, and locating it academically in relation to theatre studies. The book reflects on the possibilities, opportunities and risks of current approaches to documentary theatre in the countries of the former Eastern bloc.
This publication is available at ERSTE Foundation Library.
