Theatres of Contagion

Fintan Walsh is Reader in Theatre and Performance in the Department of English and Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London, UK, and Co-Director of Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Theatre. His books include Queer Performance and Contemporary Ireland: Dissent and Disorientation (2016), Theatre & Therapy (2013), and Male Trouble: Masculinity and the Performance of Crisis (2010). He is Senior Editor of Theatre Research International.

Theatres of Contagion is a rich and wide-ranging collection of essays that offers new and engaging perspectives on theatre’s multiple relationships with contagion. The volume traverses historical periods from the early modern to the contemporary, a diverse range of genres and practices, on and off-stage, and draws on an array of disciplines. This expansive design, in tandem with individual authors’ detailed analyses of specific practices and histories, results in a collection that nuances understandings of how theatre has conceived contagion’s operation, its effects and affects, and vital entanglements in culture and socio-political structures.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroduction1. Contagious Performance: Between Illness and Ambience Fintan Walsh, Birkbeck, University of London, UKPart One: Infectious Bodies and Behaviours2. Viral Hamlet: History, Memory, Kinship Fintan Walsh3. ‘A plague o’ both your houses’: Auditory Contagion and Affective Frequencies in Musical and Intercultural Theatres Marcus Cheng Chye Tan, Nanyang Technological University Singapore4. ‘Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding’: Infectious Sights in Shakespeare’s Theatre of Contagion Shani Bans, University College London, UK5. Catching a Feeling: A Practice-based Inquiry into Affective Contagion in Elizabeth Inchabld’s The Massacre Rebecca McCutcheon, Royal Holloway, University of London, UKPart Two: Sites of Contamination and Containment6. Plague, Inc.: Theatre’s Engagement with Mechanisms of Contagion and Containment Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, University of Oxford, UK7. Is there a doctor in the house? The Myth and Reality of Audience Psychogenic and Neurological Responses to the Theatre of Horror Julius Green, Birkbeck, University of London, UK8. ‘I don’t know why she’s crying’: Contagion and Criminality in Clean Break’s Dream Pill and Little on the inside Molly McPhee, University of Melbourne, Australia 9. Nomadic Contagions and the Performance of Infrastructure in Dale Farm’s Post-eviction Scene Lynne McCarthy, University of East London, UKPart Three: Conducting Emotions, Moods and Minds 10.The Paradox of Immersion: Mechanisms of Contagion and Separation in Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More Ana Pais, University of Lisbon, Portugal11.Outer and Inner Contagions Mark Pizzato, UNC Charlotte, USA12.Theatre, Appification and VR Apps: Disability Simulations as an Intervention in ‘Affective Realism’ Liam Jarvis, University of Essex, UKNotes on ContributorsBibliographyIndex