Companion to British-Jewish Theatre Since the 1950s

Dr. Jeanette Malkin holds the chair of the Theatre Studies Department at the Hebrew University Jerusalem. She co-edited the book Jews and the Making of Modern German Theatre (2010) and is the author of Memory-Theatre and Postmodern Drama (1999) and Verbal Violence in Contemporary Drama: From Handke to Shepard (1992). She has received two major grants for her research from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) for her project “Triangulation: Jewish Cultural Markings in German and American Theatre” (2005-2009); the second from the German Lower Saxony-Israel Joint Research Project funds (Niedersächsisches Vorab) of the Volkswagen Stiftung for the project “Hyphenated Cultures: Contemporary British Jewish Theatre” (2016-2019) in collaboration with Prof. Eckart Voigts (TU Braunschweig).Dr. Eckart Voigts is Professor of English Literature at TU Braunschweig, Germany. He has written, edited and co-edited numerous books and articles, such as Introduction to Media Studies (Klett 2004), Janespotting and Beyond: British Heritage Retrovisions since the Mid-1990s (Narr 2005), Adaptations – Performing Across Media and Genres (2009), Reflecting on Darwin (2014) and Dystopia, Science Fiction, Post-Apocalypse (2015), Companion to Adaptation Studies (co-edited with Dennis Cutchins and Katja Krebs). He is on the Board of the journals Adaptation, Adaptation inFilm and Performance, Anglistik and JESELL as well as the book series Transmedia (coedited by Matt Hills and Dan Hassler-Forest). Sarah J. Ablett has studied English literature, philosophy, and creative writing at the Universities of Hamburg, Manchester, Heidelberg, and Hildesheim, and completed her doctorate at TU Braunschweig. She has taught literary and cultural studies and was part of the research project »Hyphenated Cultures: Contemporary British-Jewish Theatre« funded by the VolkswagenStiftung. Her latest publication is a book on Dramatic Disgust. Aesthetic Theory and Practice from Sophocles to Sarah Kane (transcript, 2020).

Organized in five parts, the chapters are concise and snappy, providing stimulus for further thought. The collection faces the troubling issue of antisemitism in British society throughout and successfully achieves its stated aim to address ‘the neglected dimension of Jewishness’ in theatre while avoiding ‘simplistic essentialism’ … [It] provides a wealth of material for further consideration and research and makes the reader want to read all of the plays, see the television programmes and learn more about the writers.

• Introduction 1 Invisible Otherness: British-Jewish Theatre since the 1950s Eckart Voigts, TU Braunschweig, Germany and Jeanette R. Malkin, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, IsraelPart One The Post-War East-End Scene: Pinter, Wesker, Berkoff, Kops2 The Theatre of Arnold Wesker: Didactic, Utopian, BiblicalPeter Lawson, Open University, London, UK3 Re-staging the Jewish East End: Steven Berkoff and Bernard Kops Jeremy Solomons, University of Reading, UK4 The Theatre of Harold Pinter: Staging Indefinable and Divided ‘Jewishness’ Peter Lawson 5 ‘A Jew who Writes’: The Shadow of the Holocaust in Harold Pinter’s Work Mark Taylor-Batty, University of Leeds, UKPart Two Force Fields and Faultlines: The Holocaust, Antisemitism, and the Israel-Palestine Conflict6 Holocaust Commemoration in Contemporary British Theatre: Eva Hoffman’s Play, The Ceremony Phyllis Lassner, Northwestern University, Chicago. USA7 Dramatic Responses to the Resurgence of Antisemitism: on Trial – the Blood Libel. Arnold Wesker and Steven Berkoff Axel Stähler, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK8 Representing the Israel/Palestine Conflict in Contemporary British-Jewish Theatre Mike Witcombe,University of Bath, UKPart Three Contemporary British-Jewish Playwrights and Theatres in Britain: Continuities and Departures9 ‘Affiliation and Belonging’: Contemporary British-Jewish Women Playwrights Eckart Voigts and Sarah Jane Ablett, TU Braunschweig, Germany10 Three Ways of Being a Contemporary British-Jewish Playwright: Tom Stoppard, Patrick Marber, Ryan Craig Jeanette R. Malkin 11 Staging Jewishness in the 21st Century: The Key Venues Cyrielle Garson, Avignon Université, FrancePart Four Television Drama12 British-Jewish Television Drama: Jack Rosenthal to the Present Sue Vice, University of Sheffield, UK13 ‘It was f***ing biblical, mate’: The Maturity of British Television DramaNathan Abrams, University of Bangor, UKPart Five Interviews with Contemporary British Theatre Artists (from 2017/2018)14 Nicholas Hytner 15 Julia Pascal16 Patrick Marber 17 Ryan Craig 18 John Nathan