Abstract This article explores how water performs on the contemporary stage. Drawing on theorists such as Rosi Braidotti, Karen Barad, and Joanna Zylinska, we investigate water in its various dramaturgical functions as matter, medium, and metaphor to sketch performance alternatives that highlight nonhuman forms of agency. Focusing on the work of sound artist and geographer AM Kanngieser and their use of water to listen to the Anthropocene as well as on the Filter Theatre production of David Farr’s play Water (2007/2013), we want to highlight how diffraction and resonance alternately provide ways of rethinking traditional configurations of making meaning. The sonic dimension of water, in particular, turns into a productive site for manifesting the heightened relationality of the Anthropocene world. The article thus argues that the material dramaturgies of water show how the crucial interactions between science, philosophy, and performance manage to sketch new posthuman knowledge formations.
{"title":"To Be Like Water: Material Dramaturgies in Posthumanist Performance","authors":"R. Mosse, Anna Street","doi":"10.1515/jcde-2022-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2022-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article explores how water performs on the contemporary stage. Drawing on theorists such as Rosi Braidotti, Karen Barad, and Joanna Zylinska, we investigate water in its various dramaturgical functions as matter, medium, and metaphor to sketch performance alternatives that highlight nonhuman forms of agency. Focusing on the work of sound artist and geographer AM Kanngieser and their use of water to listen to the Anthropocene as well as on the Filter Theatre production of David Farr’s play Water (2007/2013), we want to highlight how diffraction and resonance alternately provide ways of rethinking traditional configurations of making meaning. The sonic dimension of water, in particular, turns into a productive site for manifesting the heightened relationality of the Anthropocene world. The article thus argues that the material dramaturgies of water show how the crucial interactions between science, philosophy, and performance manage to sketch new posthuman knowledge formations.","PeriodicalId":41187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Drama in English","volume":"10 1","pages":"116 - 132"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48809248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Ecodramaturgy, a critical framework that interrogates the implicit ecological values in any play or production, is explained here and then used to demonstrate the central tenets of climate theatre, including theatre’s potential for decolonisation, interspecies understanding, and community engagement. Burning Vision (2002) by Marie Clements employs a ceremonial performance form to unearth the hidden history of uranium mining on Dene lands as it argues for environmental justice and the authority of Indigenous oral traditions. Sila (2014) by Chantal Bilodeau foregrounds the interdependence of culture and community across species. Finally, Salmon Is Everything (2006) by Theresa J. May amplifies the voices of Indigenous communities most affected by ecological loss. Taken together, these plays and their productions underscore the potential for theatre-making to function as a democratising force in the Anthropocene.
{"title":"Kinship and Community in Climate-Change Theatre: Ecodramaturgy in Practice","authors":"T. May","doi":"10.1515/jcde-2022-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2022-0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Ecodramaturgy, a critical framework that interrogates the implicit ecological values in any play or production, is explained here and then used to demonstrate the central tenets of climate theatre, including theatre’s potential for decolonisation, interspecies understanding, and community engagement. Burning Vision (2002) by Marie Clements employs a ceremonial performance form to unearth the hidden history of uranium mining on Dene lands as it argues for environmental justice and the authority of Indigenous oral traditions. Sila (2014) by Chantal Bilodeau foregrounds the interdependence of culture and community across species. Finally, Salmon Is Everything (2006) by Theresa J. May amplifies the voices of Indigenous communities most affected by ecological loss. Taken together, these plays and their productions underscore the potential for theatre-making to function as a democratising force in the Anthropocene.","PeriodicalId":41187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Drama in English","volume":"10 1","pages":"164 - 182"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44073988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article reflects on the sociopolitical, cultural, and health landscape(s) of our current moment in time, addressing how intersecting crises have delivered us to an unprecedented moment for drama, theatre, and performance. As communities across the world have had to dispense with staples of everyday life – attending live theatre performances being one of these –, so art, in all its forms, has never been more significant in its capacity to bring us together, even if modes of togetherness have shifted in their referentiality and locationality. As the article proposes, we need to take an intuitive approach to the appreciation of how our ecologies – in their broadest iteration – have been impacted and realigned by the COVID-19 pandemic in such ways that we can expect that our future scholarship(s) on plays, place, and landscape will and, indeed, ought to reflect this experience. Dialogues on theatre and environment, which are already intersectional, are now receiving yet another focusing lens through the pandemic.The article also suggests that our understandings of how our ecologies have been adapted invite a consideration of new modes of engaging with the environment in our discourses – and of the very term itself and what it might encompass – and new economies in calibrating our discourses to reflect our radically redistributed individual and collective experiences. The text offers examples of categories that emerge particularly strongly where spatial liminality is key; in so doing, it asserts that in-betweenness is a central element towards understanding our contemporary role and responsibilities: from collapsing binaries (environment/economy) to the unmoored experience of our times.
{"title":"Writing in the Green: Imperatives towards an Eco-n-temporary Theatre Canon","authors":"Vicky Angelaki","doi":"10.1515/jcde-2022-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2022-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article reflects on the sociopolitical, cultural, and health landscape(s) of our current moment in time, addressing how intersecting crises have delivered us to an unprecedented moment for drama, theatre, and performance. As communities across the world have had to dispense with staples of everyday life – attending live theatre performances being one of these –, so art, in all its forms, has never been more significant in its capacity to bring us together, even if modes of togetherness have shifted in their referentiality and locationality. As the article proposes, we need to take an intuitive approach to the appreciation of how our ecologies – in their broadest iteration – have been impacted and realigned by the COVID-19 pandemic in such ways that we can expect that our future scholarship(s) on plays, place, and landscape will and, indeed, ought to reflect this experience. Dialogues on theatre and environment, which are already intersectional, are now receiving yet another focusing lens through the pandemic.The article also suggests that our understandings of how our ecologies have been adapted invite a consideration of new modes of engaging with the environment in our discourses – and of the very term itself and what it might encompass – and new economies in calibrating our discourses to reflect our radically redistributed individual and collective experiences. The text offers examples of categories that emerge particularly strongly where spatial liminality is key; in so doing, it asserts that in-betweenness is a central element towards understanding our contemporary role and responsibilities: from collapsing binaries (environment/economy) to the unmoored experience of our times.","PeriodicalId":41187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Drama in English","volume":"10 1","pages":"26 - 43"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66931215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Looking at Simon McBurney’s award-winning solo performance The Encounter (2015), this paper examines the play’s contribution to environmental humanities through an ecocritical study of its combined use of state-of-the-art sound design and the age-old art of storytelling to address the link between the ecological and spiritual crises that we are facing. The Encounter relates the real story of the American photographer Loren McIntyre who lived with the Mayoruna tribe for six weeks in 1969 after getting lost in the Amazon rainforest. Relying heavily on sound design to take us deep into the jungle, the show addresses our relation to nature and technology and elicits our empathy to denounce the dictates of a globalised world ruled and threatened by neoliberal and neocolonial capitalistic ideologies. As the brain – and the stage – become the forest, The Encounter challenges the notions of distance and separation from the Other in favour of a deep sense of interconnectedness. Using Donna J. Haraway’s 2016 book Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, this article sheds light on how The Encounter invites us to recognise the urgency of defining what it means to live together in “response-ability on a damaged earth” (Haraway 2) and how the intermedial, hybrid qualities of the play found not a “post-human” but, on the contrary, a “com-post” theatre piece (11).
{"title":"Encounters in the Chthulucene: Simon McBurney’s Theatre of Compost","authors":"S. Ayache","doi":"10.1515/jcde-2022-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2022-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Looking at Simon McBurney’s award-winning solo performance The Encounter (2015), this paper examines the play’s contribution to environmental humanities through an ecocritical study of its combined use of state-of-the-art sound design and the age-old art of storytelling to address the link between the ecological and spiritual crises that we are facing. The Encounter relates the real story of the American photographer Loren McIntyre who lived with the Mayoruna tribe for six weeks in 1969 after getting lost in the Amazon rainforest. Relying heavily on sound design to take us deep into the jungle, the show addresses our relation to nature and technology and elicits our empathy to denounce the dictates of a globalised world ruled and threatened by neoliberal and neocolonial capitalistic ideologies. As the brain – and the stage – become the forest, The Encounter challenges the notions of distance and separation from the Other in favour of a deep sense of interconnectedness. Using Donna J. Haraway’s 2016 book Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, this article sheds light on how The Encounter invites us to recognise the urgency of defining what it means to live together in “response-ability on a damaged earth” (Haraway 2) and how the intermedial, hybrid qualities of the play found not a “post-human” but, on the contrary, a “com-post” theatre piece (11).","PeriodicalId":41187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Drama in English","volume":"10 1","pages":"99 - 115"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47131396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The article argues that the so-called Capitalocene, proposed by Jason W. Moore, augments Anthropocenic reasoning by addressing the systemic and ideological shortcomings threatening the very basics of human existence that hitherto have so often been neglected or simply missed by “Green Arithmetic” and a naive belief in technology. The readings of Philip Ridley’s Shivered (2012) and David Eldridge’s In Basildon (2012) illustrate that the Capitalocene and its attempts at understanding the ecological and social consequences of global capitalism offer an exciting new lens for the analysis of contemporary political drama, especially with regard to the ecology of industrial plants in the post-manufacturing age.
本文认为,杰森·摩尔(Jason W. Moore)提出的所谓“资本世”(Capitalocene),通过解决威胁人类生存基本要素的系统和意识形态缺陷,增强了人类世的推理。迄今为止,这些缺陷经常被“绿色算术”(Green Arithmetic)和对技术的天真信仰所忽视或忽视。菲利普·雷德利(Philip Ridley)的《颤抖》(2012)和大卫·埃尔德里奇(David Eldridge)的《在巴斯尔登》(2012)表明,资本新世及其对理解全球资本主义的生态和社会后果的尝试,为分析当代政治戏剧提供了一个令人兴奋的新视角,尤其是在后制造业时代的工业工厂生态方面。
{"title":"An Ecology of Plants: The Post-Manufacturing Age in Philip Ridley’s Shivered and David Eldridge’s In Basildon","authors":"Christian Attinger","doi":"10.1515/jcde-2022-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2022-0014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article argues that the so-called Capitalocene, proposed by Jason W. Moore, augments Anthropocenic reasoning by addressing the systemic and ideological shortcomings threatening the very basics of human existence that hitherto have so often been neglected or simply missed by “Green Arithmetic” and a naive belief in technology. The readings of Philip Ridley’s Shivered (2012) and David Eldridge’s In Basildon (2012) illustrate that the Capitalocene and its attempts at understanding the ecological and social consequences of global capitalism offer an exciting new lens for the analysis of contemporary political drama, especially with regard to the ecology of industrial plants in the post-manufacturing age.","PeriodicalId":41187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Drama in English","volume":"10 1","pages":"215 - 230"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47151439","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Oil explorations by multinational corporations in Nigeria have grave consequences on the ecosystem. Gas flaring, oil spillage, and other forms of land and water pollution seriously degrade the natural environment as well as displace Nigerians from their homes and traditional occupations. Pollution has caused increased flooding, erosion, and dearth of both food and fishes, leading to poverty and hidden hunger, among other problems. More destructive is the reactionary disposition of the Nigerian state to climate change and ecological disasters. Beside the provision of make-shift structures and relief materials to flood victims, there are hardly any proactive efforts on the ground to check the activities of multinational corporations operating in the country. Greg Mbajiorgu’s eco-drama Wake Up Everyone (2011) depicts the challenges of the climate crisis in contemporary Nigeria. A close reading and critical analysis of the play, which is a microcosm of the country, illuminates the ways these challenges affect Nigerians and the need for action. Apart from displacing individuals from their homes, flooding takes a heavy toll on the agricultural sector, as most crops and livestock production systems in Nigeria are not yet fully technology-based and are, therefore, susceptible to environmental degradation. As a result, the flooding of farms and plantations, damaging crops and seedlings, leads to a corresponding degree of food scarcity/insecurity and indeed inflation in the cost of farm produce. This paper concludes that conscious efforts suggested in the play should be made to forestall multinational corporations from further pillaging the environment, and that government functionaries saddled with the task of forging active measures to stem the effects of climate change in the country should rise to their responsibilities.
跨国公司在尼日利亚的石油勘探对当地生态系统造成了严重的影响。天然气燃烧、石油泄漏以及其他形式的土地和水污染严重破坏了自然环境,并使尼日利亚人流离失所,离开家园和传统职业。污染导致洪水、水土流失加剧,粮食和鱼类短缺,导致贫困和隐性饥饿等问题。更具破坏性的是尼日利亚政府对气候变化和生态灾害的反动态度。除了向水灾受害者提供临时建筑和救济物资外,几乎没有任何积极的实地努力来检查在该国经营的跨国公司的活动。Greg Mbajiorgu的生态剧《Wake Up Everyone》(2011)描绘了当代尼日利亚气候危机的挑战。这部剧是尼日利亚的一个缩影,通过对它的仔细阅读和批判性分析,可以看出这些挑战是如何影响尼日利亚人的,以及采取行动的必要性。除了使个人流离失所之外,洪水还对农业部门造成了沉重打击,因为尼日利亚的大多数作物和牲畜生产系统尚未完全以技术为基础,因此容易受到环境退化的影响。因此,农场和种植园被洪水淹没,作物和幼苗遭到破坏,导致相应程度的粮食短缺/不安全,实际上导致农产品成本的通货膨胀。本文的结论是,剧中提出的有意识的努力应该阻止跨国公司进一步掠夺环境,而肩负着制定积极措施以遏制该国气候变化影响的任务的政府官员应该承担起他们的责任。
{"title":"Eco-Drama, Multinational Corporations, and Climate Change in Nigeria","authors":"R. C. Amaefula","doi":"10.1515/jcde-2022-0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2022-0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Oil explorations by multinational corporations in Nigeria have grave consequences on the ecosystem. Gas flaring, oil spillage, and other forms of land and water pollution seriously degrade the natural environment as well as displace Nigerians from their homes and traditional occupations. Pollution has caused increased flooding, erosion, and dearth of both food and fishes, leading to poverty and hidden hunger, among other problems. More destructive is the reactionary disposition of the Nigerian state to climate change and ecological disasters. Beside the provision of make-shift structures and relief materials to flood victims, there are hardly any proactive efforts on the ground to check the activities of multinational corporations operating in the country. Greg Mbajiorgu’s eco-drama Wake Up Everyone (2011) depicts the challenges of the climate crisis in contemporary Nigeria. A close reading and critical analysis of the play, which is a microcosm of the country, illuminates the ways these challenges affect Nigerians and the need for action. Apart from displacing individuals from their homes, flooding takes a heavy toll on the agricultural sector, as most crops and livestock production systems in Nigeria are not yet fully technology-based and are, therefore, susceptible to environmental degradation. As a result, the flooding of farms and plantations, damaging crops and seedlings, leads to a corresponding degree of food scarcity/insecurity and indeed inflation in the cost of farm produce. This paper concludes that conscious efforts suggested in the play should be made to forestall multinational corporations from further pillaging the environment, and that government functionaries saddled with the task of forging active measures to stem the effects of climate change in the country should rise to their responsibilities.","PeriodicalId":41187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Drama in English","volume":"10 1","pages":"183 - 198"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43286619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The concept of resilience is frequently described within neoliberal discourses as the ability of individuals to bounce back from shocks and reflexively adapt to changing circumstances. In ecological sciences, however, resilience is more commonly understood as the capacity of systems to radically transform themselves, when their usual mode of operation is challenged, rather than simply reverting to their original state. This article considers how live action role-play, as a form of participatory performance, might support ecological resilience by enabling players to actively reflect on their cultural practices in constructing the systems of their play and develop new capacities in the process through intersubjective exchanges with diverse others.The notion of performing resilience is concretised through discussion of artistic research residencies at Trumpington Community Orchard in Cambridge in 2017 and the Peartree Bridge estate in Milton Keynes in 2018. These projects explored how encounters with unfamiliar spaces and beings might enable participants to play with their resilient changeability. Specifically, the article addresses the value of spatial reflexivity in building resilience, proposing spatial defamiliarization as an aesthetic strategy for transcending the immediate familiarity of habitual practices, expanding participants’ horizons of perception and imagination. These arguments yield a theoretical model for cultivating resilience through participatory performance termed anchorage-leverage. This model suggests that habit can provide the foundation for potential transformations of cultural practices as existing capacities are reconfigured by new relational connections, conferring new affordances that enable participants to radically reconfigure the ecologies in which they play and live.
{"title":"Performing Resilience: Anchorage and Leverage in Live Action Role-Play Drama","authors":"Jamie Harper","doi":"10.1515/jcde-2022-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2022-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The concept of resilience is frequently described within neoliberal discourses as the ability of individuals to bounce back from shocks and reflexively adapt to changing circumstances. In ecological sciences, however, resilience is more commonly understood as the capacity of systems to radically transform themselves, when their usual mode of operation is challenged, rather than simply reverting to their original state. This article considers how live action role-play, as a form of participatory performance, might support ecological resilience by enabling players to actively reflect on their cultural practices in constructing the systems of their play and develop new capacities in the process through intersubjective exchanges with diverse others.The notion of performing resilience is concretised through discussion of artistic research residencies at Trumpington Community Orchard in Cambridge in 2017 and the Peartree Bridge estate in Milton Keynes in 2018. These projects explored how encounters with unfamiliar spaces and beings might enable participants to play with their resilient changeability. Specifically, the article addresses the value of spatial reflexivity in building resilience, proposing spatial defamiliarization as an aesthetic strategy for transcending the immediate familiarity of habitual practices, expanding participants’ horizons of perception and imagination. These arguments yield a theoretical model for cultivating resilience through participatory performance termed anchorage-leverage. This model suggests that habit can provide the foundation for potential transformations of cultural practices as existing capacities are reconfigured by new relational connections, conferring new affordances that enable participants to radically reconfigure the ecologies in which they play and live.","PeriodicalId":41187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Drama in English","volume":"10 1","pages":"83 - 98"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43556325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mark Brown. Modernism and Scottish Theatre since 1969: A Revolution on Stage. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, xvii + 254 pp., € 80.24 (hardback), € 24.99 (softcover).","authors":"D. Pattie","doi":"10.1515/jcde-2022-0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2022-0019","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Drama in English","volume":"10 1","pages":"259 - 260"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44687794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article explores the ways in which contemporary theatre is engaging with English national questions. In the context of the current devolutionary movements in Britain, I apply a national specificity, focusing on plays and performances which address the politics of just one of the three nations within Britain: England. While this study of the specifics of England and Englishness is already well-established in literary studies (Gardiner) and political science (Kenny; Nairn), there is yet to be a sustained critical engagement with England in theatre studies. Following a discussion of Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem (2009) in light of its planned West End revival in 2022, I then turn to two recent theatrical representations of England in Mike Bartlett’s Albion (2017 and 2020) and the Young Vic’s My England shorts (2019), which I propose offer more rigorous, reflexive explorations into English national identity. As questions over England’s cultural and political representation become increasingly loaded and difficult to navigate, I suggest that the beginnings of this English national register in the theatre marks an attempt to nuance these debates, opening a productive space for critical inquiry.
{"title":"This Is England 2021: Staging England and Englishness in Contemporary Theatre","authors":"G. Edwards","doi":"10.1515/jcde-2021-0024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2021-0024","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article explores the ways in which contemporary theatre is engaging with English national questions. In the context of the current devolutionary movements in Britain, I apply a national specificity, focusing on plays and performances which address the politics of just one of the three nations within Britain: England. While this study of the specifics of England and Englishness is already well-established in literary studies (Gardiner) and political science (Kenny; Nairn), there is yet to be a sustained critical engagement with England in theatre studies. Following a discussion of Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem (2009) in light of its planned West End revival in 2022, I then turn to two recent theatrical representations of England in Mike Bartlett’s Albion (2017 and 2020) and the Young Vic’s My England shorts (2019), which I propose offer more rigorous, reflexive explorations into English national identity. As questions over England’s cultural and political representation become increasingly loaded and difficult to navigate, I suggest that the beginnings of this English national register in the theatre marks an attempt to nuance these debates, opening a productive space for critical inquiry.","PeriodicalId":41187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Drama in English","volume":"9 1","pages":"281 - 303"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45661273","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sarah J. Ablett. Dramatic Disgust: Aesthetic Theory and Practice from Sophocles to Sarah Kane. Bielefeld: transcript, 2020, 199 pp., €38.00 (paperback), €37.99 (PDF ebook).","authors":"Laurens De Vos","doi":"10.1515/jcde-2021-0028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2021-0028","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Drama in English","volume":"9 1","pages":"330 - 333"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41521913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}