Proceeding from the observation that Gotthold Ephraim Lessingʼs famous Hamburgische Dramaturgie (Hamburg Dramaturgy) soon abandons the analysis of actual performances in favour of a discussion of character, the article explores Lessingʼs problematic relationship with the performing body, situating it in the context of an increasingly textual culture. It shows the implications of this move in terms of gender prescriptions before discussing Lessingʼs ‘disgust’ with a particular performance of his Emilia Galotti. Reading this example with Lessingʼs treatise Laokoon and drawing on Julia Kristevaʼs theory of abjection, it argues that Lessingʼs struggle with the performers reveals a profound crisis in subject formation in the sense that the disturbing corporality of the performing body is always threatening sympathetic identification. The article concludes that the Dramaturgie itself constitutes an ‘abjection’ of performance. A postscript opens up the view onto the contemporary relevance and refiguration of Lessingʼs Laokoon in the Laokoon Festival in Hamburg.