Structure in Modern and Postmodern Theater: Performing Power in Third Space A Comparative Study of Ammar Seif’s The Chair and Eugène Ionesco’s The Chairs

Abstract

In the realm of power, even the absence of a chair can inspire revolutions where form collapses and meaning rises from the fragments. This is where political theatre breathes. Transforming the chair into a third space in Eugène Ionesco’s The Chairs and Ammar Seif’s The Chair reveals the legitimacy of power, which is rooted in the memory of violence and the absurdity of discourses. Both plays use the performative body (seating movements, gestures) to criticize the political systems. The present study uses Modern and Postmodern theatre to examine the fragmentation of forms and political discourse, revealing how artistic structures can become mirrors of the crises of the time. While Edward Soja's concept of third space analyses the fragmentation of theatrical structure to examine the chair as a political symbol, Judith Butler's theory of identity performativity highlights the significance of the repeated acts of sitting and rising as expressions of the dominant regime. This study of theatrical structure as a mode of performing power, identity, and resistance in modern and postmodern drama. Grounded in comparative analysis and the theoretical perspectives of Edward Soja, Judith Butler, and Michel Foucault, the study is informed by the following questions: How does space reform itself as a third space of ideological contestation and per formative disclosure in The Chair and The Chairs? How are the repeated physical comportments of characters, especially their sitting and standing, embodied enactments of discipline, desire, and subjection? How do postmodern and absurdist structure elements serve the political critique and aesthetic disruption in the plays? Despite the different contexts (Iraqi/European), the techniques are similar, employing meta-theatre to break the illusion and integrate it with the stenographic space (as a site of conflict). The present study tackles postmodern aesthetics of fragmentation, deconstructing political discourses through aesthetic formation, and providing a model for reading Arab theatrical texts through global theoretical lenses.