Science Fiction and Contemporary British Theatre

AvIan Farnell,Mark Taylor-Batty

Inbunden, Engelska, 2025

Del i serien Methuen Drama Engage

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Beskrivning

Analysing an expanding body of theatre and performance works, Science Fiction and Contemporary British Theatre examines how the themes and images of science fiction are enabling practitioners to intervene on the most urgent social and political issues of the present moment.By exploring the genre’s impact on the live theatrical event, the book presents an original and topical interrogation of issues that remain at the heart of the national and global political agenda, including military conflict, social injustice, economic inequality, migration, nationhood, anti-democratic populism, and climate collapse.The author draws upon a wide range of dramatic forms, from critically acclaimed plays by writers such as Alistair McDowall, Caryl Churchill, Dawn King, Anne Washburn and Ella Road, to devised work, site-specific performance, Shakespearean drama and physical theatre. The book's chapters are based on some of the genre’s most resonant images, including post-apocalyptic wildernesses, dystopian regimes and artificial lifeforms. Furthermore, by placing examples in dialogue with a range of theories and scholars, this book constructs an innovative interdisciplinary framework comprised of theatre studies, sociology, philosophy, economic and political science.Providing an engagingly written, intellectually rich and uniquely compelling analysis, Science Fiction and Contemporary British Theatre charts a new and growing landscape of scholarly research, and establishes science fiction as an exciting, expanding and urgent dramatic and political practice.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2025-08-21
Mått:138 x 218 x 18 mm
Vikt:399 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Serie:Methuen Drama Engage
Antal sidor:216
Förlag:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN:9781350394339

Utforska kategorier

Dramatik inom Skönlitteratur
Teater inom Kultur

Mer om författaren

Ian Farnell is a teaching fellow at the University of Warwick, UK. His research has been published in Contemporary Theatre Review, Theatre Journal and Studies in Theatre and Performance.

Recensioner i media

Farnell’s book makes a significant contribution to theatre and performance studies, science fiction studies and contemporary British drama scholarship. It is elegantly written, elegiac at times, and Farnell’s personal engagement with the work comes through clearly.

Innehållsförteckning

IntroductionScience fiction in contemporary cultureTheatre and science fiction in scholarshipChapter one – Theatre and science fiction: staging realismIntroductionRealism in science fictionRealism in culture and theatre Playing with realism: Caryl ChurchillExploding realism: Alistair McDowallChapter two – Theatre and post-apocalypse: staging ruinsIntroductionThe modern ruin in society, theory and cultureMemory in ruins: Anne Washburn’s Mr BurnsLanguage in ruins: Ed Thomas’s On Bear RidgeThe ruins of capitalism: Stan’s Cafe’s Home of the WrigglerThe nation in ruins: Tajinder Singh Hayer’s North CountryConclusion: beyond ruinationChapter three – Theatre and technology: staging the posthumanIntroductionPosthumanism in society, theory and cultureAndroid camp: Thomas Eccleshare’s Instructions for Correct Assembly and Tim Foley’s Electric RosaryAutomating Consent: Philip Ayckbourn’s Loving Androids and Nessah Muthy’s Sex with Robots & Other DevicesFrom posthumanism to transhumanismStaging virtual reality: Jennifer Haley’s The NetherPost-bodied, post-humanity: RashDash and Unlimited’s Future BodiesChapter four – Theatre and dystopia: staging precarityIntroductionDefining dystopiaContemporary theatre: from crisis to dystopiaDefining precarityMark Ravenhill’s The Cut, Fraser Grace’s Lifesavers and Penelope Skinner’s Meek: precarities of violenceClimate precarity: Caryl Churchill’s Far Away, Dawn King’s Foxfinder and Knaive’s War with the Newts: climate precarityNeoliberal precarity: Ella Road’s The PhlebotomistConclusion: towards a utopian futureConclusionBibliographyIndex