Overview

This study offers a historicization of the 2010s in British theatre with a focus on the representation of systemic violence, exploring productions that engage with concerns of protest, climate crisis, neoliberalism, racism and gender-based violence. It offers a range of case studies from established and emergent playwrights such as Caryl Churchill, Martin McDonagh, Anders Lustgarten, Lucy Kirkwood, Ella Hickson, Jasmine Lee-Jones, debbie tucker green, Zinnie Harris, and Travis Alabanza. Productions of their work in the 2010s are analysed through a framework of cultural theory, philosophy, and theatre and performance studies that offer insightful conceptions of violence and performativity. Central to this book is the belief that theatre has the ability to depict issues of systemic violence in thoughtful and valuable ways, drawing on the medium's specific relations between creatives, texts, spectatorship and audiences to mindfully engage participants in the most pressing societal and cultural concerns of their time.

Full Product Details

Author:   Alex Watson
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Methuen Drama
ISBN:  

9781350387270

ISBN 10:   1350387274
Pages:   240
Publication Date:   22 August 2024
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

Introduction (Camilla Whitehill's Mr Incredible) 'Staging the Systemic': Context and Methodology Unspectacular: The Representation of Violence in 2010s British Theatre and Mr Incredible Overview Chapter One: Violence (Caryl Churchill's Escaped Alone) Tea and Catastrophe: Churchill in the 2010s The Necessary Difficulty of Defining Violence: Arendt, Sontag, and Escaped Alone Making Invisible Violence Visible: Evans, Giroux, Žizek, and Escaped Alone Violence and 'Truth': Butler, Nancy, and Escaped Alone Conclusion Chapter Two: Performativity (Lulu Raczka and Barrel Organ's Some People Talk About Violence and Martin McDonagh's A Very Very Very Dark Matter) Theatrical Strategies and Reality-Making: Perspectives on Performativity and Theatre Injurious Speech: The Violence of Performativity and Some People Talk About Violence Oppressive Recitation: The Performativity of Violence and A Very Very Very Dark Matter Conclusion Chapter Three: Protest (Chris Thorpe's There Has Possibly Been An Incident and debbie tucker green's ear for eye) (Ir)relevancy and (Il)legitimacy in the Public Sphere: Protest, Theatre, and (Non)Violence Nonviolent Progress/Revolutionary Change: Witnessing Black Witnessing in ear for eye Conclusion Chapter Four: Climate Crisis (Ella Hickson's Oil, Duncan Macmillan's Lungs, and Lucy Kirkwood's The Children) The Violent Performativity of Resource Exploitation: Magic Realism and Perspective in Oil Dramaturgies of 2010s British CCT: Domesticity, Cli-Fi, Posthumanism, and Materiality Performative Taxonomical Violence: The Slow Theatre of The Children Conclusion Chapter Five: Brexit and Neoliberalism (Rose Lewenstein's Cougar, Alistair McDowall's Pomona and Simon Stephens's Three Kingdoms) Apocalypse and Dystopia: Theatrical Visions of 2010s British Neoliberalism Empty Europe: Cross-Cultural British-European Theatre and Dramaturgies of Violence Conclusion Chapter Six: Brexit and Racism (Anders Lustgarten's Lampedusa, Zinnie Harris's How to Hold Your Breath, and Somalia Nonyé Seaton's Fall of the Kingdom, Rise of the Foot Soldier) Europeanness and the Other: Lampedusa and How to Hold Your Breath Racism and British Identity: Fall of the Kingdom, Rise of the Foot Soldier Conclusion Chapter Seven: Gender-Based Violence (Katherine Chandler's Bird and Jasmine Lee-Jones's seven methods of killing kylie jenner) The Performative 'Reality' of Gender-Based Violence: Fluid Realism and Bird Breaking (Violent) Forms: Realism-without-truth and seven methods of killing kylie jenner Conclusion Conclusion (Travis Alabanza's Burgerz) Violence and Performativity in 2010s British Theatre: Three Contentions The Power of Performativity: Showing Structural Violence and Burgerz Concluding Remarks Works Cited Appendix: List of Performances Bibliography Index

Reviews

This book offers a rich and transformative account of how violence in all its forms intersects with race and gender, politics and protest, and threads itself through most of the key British plays and performances of the last decade. Watson has written a remarkable book that helps us see our recent theatre in blazingly new light. * Dan Rebellato, Professor of Contemporary Theatre, Royal Holloway University of London, UK *

Author Information

Alex Watson is a principal lecturer at the Institute of Contemporary Theatre, Brighton, BIMM University, UK. His publications include articles for Theatre Notebook (2022) and Contemporary Theatre Review (2022), as well as chapters for Methuen Engage (2022), Contemporary Drama in English (2023), and The Routledge Companion to 20th-Century Theatre (forthcoming).

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