A Laclauian Reading of Richard Foreman’s Eddie Goes to Poetry City

The present paper attempts to closely read Richard Foreman’s Eddie Goes to Poetry City (Seattle Version, 1991) in terms of Ernesto Laclau’s Post-Marxist approach to the analysis of the subject with special reference to his concept of the empty signifier. The emergence of Laclau’s Post-Marxism dates back to the mid-80s de facto with his detachment from reductionist Marxism, which at the same time, led to the reformulation of his discourse theory. In practice, Laclau’s discursive-analytical notion of ideology and hegemony eventuated in the deconstruction of key concepts including discourse, floating signifier, empty signifier, antagonism, and the category of the subject. Correspondingly, Foreman in his ontological-hysteric drama, with no premeditated narrative strategy, prevents his reader from reaching premature conclusions and meanings. Foreman's theatre attempts to escape the socially conditioned self by means of releasing impulses as it demonstrates the sway of hysteria over ontology. There is thus a confluence between Laclau's critical concepts and the tenets of Foreman's ontological-hysteric theatre to represent the split character of the identity of the subject in the discursively constructed structures.