Methuen Drama Agitations: Text, Politics and Performances – serie

This is the first book to examine how the concept and disagreements around post-truth have been explored in the world of theater and performance. It covers a wide spectrum of manifestations and expressions—from the plays of Caryl Churchill, Anne Washburn, and David Henry Hwang, to the inherent theatricality of press conferences, FBI interviews and protests that embrace the confusion created by post-truth rhetoric to muddy issues and deflect blame, to theatrical performance, where the nature of truth is challenged through staged visuals which run counter to what the audience hears, provoking a debate about where the truth actually lies.With contributions by scholars from around the world, Theater in a Post-Truth World considers a wide array of examples from American and British drama and politics, Australian theater, and the work of performance artist Marina Abramovic. Together these provide a glimpse into how the theater in its many forms provides a venue to raise awareness and encourage critical thinking about the contemporary ubiquity of post-truth.

This is the first book to examine how the concept and disagreements around post-truth have been explored in the world of theater and performance. It covers a wide spectrum of manifestations and expressions—from the plays of Caryl Churchill, Anne Washburn, and David Henry Hwang, to the inherent theatricality of press conferences, FBI interviews and protests that embrace the confusion created by post-truth rhetoric to muddy issues and deflect blame, to theatrical performance, where the nature of truth is challenged through staged visuals which run counter to what the audience hears, provoking a debate about where the truth actually lies.With contributions by scholars from around the world, Theater in a Post-Truth World considers a wide array of examples from American and British drama and politics, Australian theater, and the work of performance artist Marina Abramovic. Together these provide a glimpse into how the theater in its many forms provides a venue to raise awareness and encourage critical thinking about the contemporary ubiquity of post-truth.

Offering one of the first scholarly examinations of digital and distanced performance since the global shutdown of theaters in March 2020, Barbara Fuchs provides both a record of the changes and a framework for thinking through theater's transformation.Though born of necessity, recent productions offer a new world of practice, from multi-platform plays on Zoom, WhatsApp, and Instagram, to enhancement via filters and augmented reality, to urban distanced theater that enlivens streetscapes and building courtyards. Based largely outside the commercial theater, these productions transcend geographic and financial barriers to access new audiences, while offering a lifeline to artists. This study charts how virtual theater puts pressure on existing assumptions and definitions, transforming the conditions of both theater-making and viewership. How are participatory, site-specific, or devised theater altered under physical-distancing requirements? How do digital productions blur the line between film and theater? What does liveness mean in a time of pandemic?In its seven chapters, Theater of Lockdown focuses on digital and distanced productions from the Americas, Europe, and Australia, offering scholarly analysis and interviews. Productions examined include Theater in Quarantine’s “closet work” in New York; Forced Entertainment’s (Sheffield, UK), End Meeting for All, I, II, and III; the work of Madrid-based company Grumelot; and the virtuosic showmanship of EFE Tres in Mexico City.

Offering one of the first scholarly examinations of digital and distanced performance since the global shutdown of theaters in March 2020, Barbara Fuchs provides both a record of the changes and a framework for thinking through theater's transformation.Though born of necessity, recent productions offer a new world of practice, from multi-platform plays on Zoom, WhatsApp, and Instagram, to enhancement via filters and augmented reality, to urban distanced theater that enlivens streetscapes and building courtyards. Based largely outside the commercial theater, these productions transcend geographic and financial barriers to access new audiences, while offering a lifeline to artists. This study charts how virtual theater puts pressure on existing assumptions and definitions, transforming the conditions of both theater-making and viewership. How are participatory, site-specific, or devised theater altered under physical-distancing requirements? How do digital productions blur the line between film and theater? What does liveness mean in a time of pandemic?In its seven chapters, Theater of Lockdown focuses on digital and distanced productions from the Americas, Europe, and Australia, offering scholarly analysis and interviews. Productions examined include Theater in Quarantine’s “closet work” in New York; Forced Entertainment’s (Sheffield, UK), End Meeting for All, I, II, and III; the work of Madrid-based company Grumelot; and the virtuosic showmanship of EFE Tres in Mexico City.

How are Black artists, activists, and pedagogues wielding acts of rebellion, activism, and solidarity to precipitate change? How have contemporary performances impacted Black cultural, social, and political struggles? What are the ways in which these acts and artists engage varied Black identities and explore shared histories?Contemporary Black Theatre and Performance investigates these questions to illuminate the relationship between performance, identity, intersectionality, and activism in North America and beyond. It features contributions from scholars, artists, and activists from across disciplines who explore the nuances and varied forms of Black performance in the 21st century while incorporating performance-based methodologies and queer and black feminist theories.Among the many topics addressed by contributors are antiracist pedagogy, Black queer identity formation in Black playwriting, digital blackface, and Black women's subversive practices within contemporary popular culture. It encompasses dramatic analysis of Lynn Nottage's Sweat, Tarell Alvin McCraney's Choir Boy, and acts of resistance during the Black Lives Matter summer 2020 highway protests. A series of conversations with artists and scholars are woven throughout the book’s three sections, including with playwrights Christina Anderson and Donja R. Love, and Willa Taylor, Director of Education and Community Engagement at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago.

How are Black artists, activists, and pedagogues wielding acts of rebellion, activism, and solidarity to precipitate change? How have contemporary performances impacted Black cultural, social, and political struggles? What are the ways in which these acts and artists engage varied Black identities and explore shared histories?Contemporary Black Theatre and Performance investigates these questions to illuminate the relationship between performance, identity, intersectionality, and activism in North America and beyond. It features contributions from scholars, artists, and activists from across disciplines who explore the nuances and varied forms of Black performance in the 21st century while incorporating performance-based methodologies and queer and black feminist theories.Among the many topics addressed by contributors are antiracist pedagogy, Black queer identity formation in Black playwriting, digital blackface, and Black women's subversive practices within contemporary popular culture. It encompasses dramatic analysis of Lynn Nottage's Sweat, Tarell Alvin McCraney's Choir Boy, and acts of resistance during the Black Lives Matter summer 2020 highway protests. A series of conversations with artists and scholars are woven throughout the book’s three sections, including with playwrights Christina Anderson and Donja R. Love, and Willa Taylor, Director of Education and Community Engagement at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago.

The crafts of governance and diplomacy are spectacular, theatrical, and performative. Performing Statecraft investigates the performances of states, their leaders, and their citizens on an expanded field of the global arts of statecraft to consider the role of performance in the domestic and international affairs of states, and the interventions into global politics by artists, scholars, and activists.Treating theatre as both an art form and a practice of political actors, this book draws together scholarship on the embodied dimensions of governance, the stagecraft of revolution, arts activism on the world stage, sports performance by heads of state, the performativity of national dress, speechmaking and colonialism, war and medicine, singing diplomats, indigenous sovereignties, and performed nationalisms. It brings the perspective and methods of performance studies to bear on global politics, offering exciting new insights into encounters between states, sovereigns, and people. Whether one is watching a campaign speech, a nightly news broadcast, a sacred dance, or a play about global conflict, these chapters make clear the importance of performance as a tool wielded by amateurs and professionals to articulate the nation in global spaces.

The crafts of governance and diplomacy are spectacular, theatrical, and performative. Performing Statecraft investigates the performances of states, their leaders, and their citizens on an expanded field of the global arts of statecraft to consider the role of performance in the domestic and international affairs of states, and the interventions into global politics by artists, scholars, and activists.Treating theatre as both an art form and a practice of political actors, this book draws together scholarship on the embodied dimensions of governance, the stagecraft of revolution, arts activism on the world stage, sports performance by heads of state, the performativity of national dress, speechmaking and colonialism, war and medicine, singing diplomats, indigenous sovereignties, and performed nationalisms. It brings the perspective and methods of performance studies to bear on global politics, offering exciting new insights into encounters between states, sovereigns, and people. Whether one is watching a campaign speech, a nightly news broadcast, a sacred dance, or a play about global conflict, these chapters make clear the importance of performance as a tool wielded by amateurs and professionals to articulate the nation in global spaces.

'Tender and rigorous, this book invites readers to linger with difficult pasts and consider how best to grasp their hauntings, demands and manifestations in the present. This is a book about mourning as well as holding, a simultaneous act of exhumation and a laying to rest.' anna six, author of Madness, Art, and Society: Beyond Illness ‘This is an extraordinary book, in which queer theatre and performance become sites of celebration and resistance, as well as holding the potential for performers and audiences to work through painfully felt yet difficult to articulate experiences towards feelings of hope. Replete with rigorous, generous and creative readings, it is also a meditation on Walsh’s own emotional engagement with queer theatre and performance, and how our cultural attachments can sustain, enliven and contain us.’Noreen Giffney, psychoanalytic psychotherapist and author of The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis Why do contemporary queer theatre and performance appear to be possessed by the past? What aesthetic practices and dramaturgical devices reveal the occupation of the present by painful history? How might the experience of theatre and performance relieve the present of its most arduous burdens?Following recent legislation and cultural initiatives across many Western countries hailed as confirming the darkest days for LGBTQ+ people were over, this book turns our attention to artists fixed on history’s enduring harm. Guiding us through an eclectic range of examples including theatre, performance, installation and digital practices, Fintan Walsh explores how this work reckons with complex cultural and personal histories. Among the issues confronted are the incarceration of Oscar Wilde, the Holocaust, racial and sexual objectification, the AIDS crisis and Covid-19, alongside more local and individual experiences of violence, trauma and grief.Walsh traces how the queer past is summoned and interrogated via what he elaborates as the aesthetics and dramaturgies of possession, which lend form to the still-stinging aches and generative potential of injury, injustice and loss. These strategies expose how the past continues to haunt and disturb the present, while calling on those of us who feel its force to respond to history’s unresolved hurt.

'Tender and rigorous, this book invites readers to linger with difficult pasts and consider how best to grasp their hauntings, demands and manifestations in the present. This is a book about mourning as well as holding, a simultaneous act of exhumation and a laying to rest.' anna six, author of Madness, Art, and Society: Beyond Illness ‘This is an extraordinary book, in which queer theatre and performance become sites of celebration and resistance, as well as holding the potential for performers and audiences to work through painfully felt yet difficult to articulate experiences towards feelings of hope. Replete with rigorous, generous and creative readings, it is also a meditation on Walsh’s own emotional engagement with queer theatre and performance, and how our cultural attachments can sustain, enliven and contain us.’Noreen Giffney, psychoanalytic psychotherapist and author of The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis Why do contemporary queer theatre and performance appear to be possessed by the past? What aesthetic practices and dramaturgical devices reveal the occupation of the present by painful history? How might the experience of theatre and performance relieve the present of its most arduous burdens?Following recent legislation and cultural initiatives across many Western countries hailed as confirming the darkest days for LGBTQ+ people were over, this book turns our attention to artists fixed on history’s enduring harm. Guiding us through an eclectic range of examples including theatre, performance, installation and digital practices, Fintan Walsh explores how this work reckons with complex cultural and personal histories. Among the issues confronted are the incarceration of Oscar Wilde, the Holocaust, racial and sexual objectification, the AIDS crisis and Covid-19, alongside more local and individual experiences of violence, trauma and grief.Walsh traces how the queer past is summoned and interrogated via what he elaborates as the aesthetics and dramaturgies of possession, which lend form to the still-stinging aches and generative potential of injury, injustice and loss. These strategies expose how the past continues to haunt and disturb the present, while calling on those of us who feel its force to respond to history’s unresolved hurt.

Written in the aftermath of the Covid crisis, this open access book brings the past, present and future of theatre-going together as it explores the nature of the relationships between performance practitioners, arts organisations and their audiences.Proposing that the pandemic forced a re-evaluation of what it means to be an audience, and combining historical and current cultural sector perspectives, the book reflects on how historical conventions have conditioned present day expectations of theatre-going in the UK. Helen Freshwater examines the ways in which developments in technology, architecture and forms of communication have influenced what is expected by and of audiences, reflecting changes in theatre’s cultural status and place in our lives.Drawing on the first-hand experiences of festival director and performance practitioner Kate Craddock, it also contends that practitioners now need to turn their attention to care, access and sustainability, arguing that the pandemic taught us, above all, that it is possible to do things differently. Part vision, part provocation, part critical interrogation, Theatre and its Audiences offers an insightful appraisal of past norms and assumptions to set out a bold argument about where we should go from here.The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Newcastle University.

Written in the aftermath of the Covid crisis, this open access book brings the past, present and future of theatre-going together as it explores the nature of the relationships between performance practitioners, arts organisations and their audiences.Proposing that the pandemic forced a re-evaluation of what it means to be an audience, and combining historical and current cultural sector perspectives, the book reflects on how historical conventions have conditioned present day expectations of theatre-going in the UK. Helen Freshwater examines the ways in which developments in technology, architecture and forms of communication have influenced what is expected by and of audiences, reflecting changes in theatre’s cultural status and place in our lives.Drawing on the first-hand experiences of festival director and performance practitioner Kate Craddock, it also contends that practitioners now need to turn their attention to care, access and sustainability, arguing that the pandemic taught us, above all, that it is possible to do things differently. Part vision, part provocation, part critical interrogation, Theatre and its Audiences offers an insightful appraisal of past norms and assumptions to set out a bold argument about where we should go from here.The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Newcastle University.

This interdisciplinary volume offers new insights into the connections between populism and performance. As a driving force of the contemporary left, the populist logic offers a way for progressive politics to radicalize actions against the elite, fostering greater democratization of societies at a time of socio-political and environmental crisis. Exploring the populist roots of a number of performances, the contributors to this study analyze the potentials and limits of the new forms of left populism for more democratic ways of living together.Combining performance studies and political theory, Performing Left Populism demonstrates how various performance practices give rise to populism. It shows how both civic performances (including grassroots, civil movements, political speeches, state policies and media campaigns) and artistic performances (such as theatre, dance, music and artistic activism) contribute to these processes. By these means, the book examines the processes of constructing ‘a people’ through both the real/civic and imaginary/artistic perspectives.Offering scholars and practitioners a thought-provoking analysis of the ways in which performance can be viewed politically, as a social practice capable of mobilizing alternative ways of living and invigorating democracy, this study expands the debate about left populism towards strategies of mobilization, collectivism and democratic politics.

This interdisciplinary volume offers new insights into the connections between populism and performance. As a driving force of the contemporary left, the populist logic offers a way for progressive politics to radicalize actions against the elite, fostering greater democratization of societies at a time of socio-political and environmental crisis. Exploring the populist roots of a number of performances, the contributors to this study analyze the potentials and limits of the new forms of left populism for more democratic ways of living together.Combining performance studies and political theory, Performing Left Populism demonstrates how various performance practices give rise to populism. It shows how both civic performances (including grassroots, civil movements, political speeches, state policies and media campaigns) and artistic performances (such as theatre, dance, music and artistic activism) contribute to these processes. By these means, the book examines the processes of constructing ‘a people’ through both the real/civic and imaginary/artistic perspectives.Offering scholars and practitioners a thought-provoking analysis of the ways in which performance can be viewed politically, as a social practice capable of mobilizing alternative ways of living and invigorating democracy, this study expands the debate about left populism towards strategies of mobilization, collectivism and democratic politics.

Exploring a wide variety of examples of activist performances, such as David Buckel’s self-immolation, and the January 6th capitol insurrection, this book analyses activist performance through the lens of postdramatic theatre theory.Staging Change poses the provocative question: are activists addicted to drama? Scrimer examines the ways in which the performance and reception of protest is informed by the logic of dramatic theatre, and argues that such performative arrangements are so naturalized that they can limit the ability of activists and their audiences to imagine different ways of precipitating change. By combining performance analysis, interviews with artists and activists, and autoethnographic accounts of the author’s own experiences as an environmental activist, the book illustrates the limitations and alternatives to dramatic representation in activist performance.The last decade has seen an increase in political demonstrations worldwide, particularly following the excitement and disappointments of the Arab Spring uprisings. We have seen several notable movements such as the Occupy movement, the mobilization of Black Lives Matter, and the #MeToo movement. In response, scholars, artists, and activists from diverse disciplines have produced an exciting array of practical and theoretical approaches for talking about and thinking through activism. Utilizing these interdisciplinary approaches, Scrimer offers us a theoretical inquiry into the possible applications of Hans-Thies Lehmann’s postdramatic theatre theory in the context of political activism, and subsequently extends an alternative conceptual model for activist performance beyond the dramatic paradigm.

Exploring a wide variety of examples of activist performances, such as David Buckel’s self-immolation, and the January 6th capitol insurrection, this book analyses activist performance through the lens of postdramatic theatre theory.Staging Change poses the provocative question: are activists addicted to drama? Scrimer examines the ways in which the performance and reception of protest is informed by the logic of dramatic theatre, and argues that such performative arrangements are so naturalized that they can limit the ability of activists and their audiences to imagine different ways of precipitating change. By combining performance analysis, interviews with artists and activists, and autoethnographic accounts of the author’s own experiences as an environmental activist, the book illustrates the limitations and alternatives to dramatic representation in activist performance.The last decade has seen an increase in political demonstrations worldwide, particularly following the excitement and disappointments of the Arab Spring uprisings. We have seen several notable movements such as the Occupy movement, the mobilization of Black Lives Matter, and the #MeToo movement. In response, scholars, artists, and activists from diverse disciplines have produced an exciting array of practical and theoretical approaches for talking about and thinking through activism. Utilizing these interdisciplinary approaches, Scrimer offers us a theoretical inquiry into the possible applications of Hans-Thies Lehmann’s postdramatic theatre theory in the context of political activism, and subsequently extends an alternative conceptual model for activist performance beyond the dramatic paradigm.

This volume redefines the radical by exploring a range of contemporary theatre and performance produced in response to the politico-cultural climate of 21st-century India. Offering a critique of dominant power structures in India, this book showcases how the rise in censorship and intolerance of dissent has brought forth new forms of political and aesthetic radicalism. Theatre has found many ways to perform the radical as a form of resistance, intersecting with other art forms as well as the political itself in its performative articulations. Chapters include discussions of the performance of protest; creation of an alternative worldview through indigenous rituals and cultural festivals; world-making through transformative encounters; devised plays and documentary theatre as tools of dissent; radical imperatives of care in animated videos and short films; scenography and the actor’s body as sites of resistance, the performance of faith as survival in a hostile world and conversations with artists. The radical in contemporary Indian theatre and performance is shown to lie in creating a new ‘transgressive aesthetic,’ often formally hybrid, to project alternative perspectives and possibilities.Balancing theory, context and performance analysis, this volume brings out an underexplored aspect of 21st-century Indian theatre and performance. Through its focus on different iterations of the radical in a democratic society and performance, it articulates theatre’s ability to disrupt the status quo and reveal the possibilities of change.

International, interdisciplinary and urgent, this edited collection of 15 essays explores performances of resistance to Russian authoritarianism since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, with a particular focus on the 21st century under Putin’s leadership.Against the backdrop of Russia’s Post-Soviet history of rising nationalism and war in Ukraine, this volume challenges what we consider expressions of resistance. How can we evaluate their potential to contest autocracy? In a repressive climate, how do expressions, languages and forms of resistance re-emerge, replicate and intersect across past decades and artistic mediums? How do they reveal perspectives of the other and gesture toward the future? These pressing questions are answered by engaging with a wide variety of theoretical frameworks including bio-politics, feminism, decoloniality and intersectionality.The volume is organized into three sections that explore artistic expression, gender and postcolonial critique. A sweeping geographical range is examined, including Ukraine, Belarus, Hungary, Poland and the Caucasus and Central Asian regions of the former Soviet Union, reflecting more broadly on the shifting political landscape of Eastern Europe and Eurasia. The mediums covered are equally diverse, encompassing social and religious rituals in the public sphere, public speaking, collective or individual re-enactments of past traumatic events, traditional storytelling, social media activism and journalism. To contemplate resistance is to trace its shifting forms and to affirm its existence – even when it is excluded from public discourse, rendered invisible, censored or denied.

Unpacking the phenomenon of celebrity presidents, this book explores how theatrical techniques function as expedient yet potentially dangerous tools in contemporary politics.What can be done once politics is seen only as performance, and hybrid wars or nuclear annihilation are perceived to be just another spectacle?By limiting its scope to former actors and showbusiness figures, this book centers on the prominent 20th- and 21st-century populist leaders Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, and Volodymyr Zelensky. It explores how such figures transitioned from theatrical engagements to the presidency, including how their political life was reframed as a theatrical event.This book reveals the various ways these presidents approached political performance and incorporated entertainment elements into it in order to shift the norms of political representation and disrupt communication modes. It further explores how these populist figures personalized and fictionalized their presidential role by means of storytelling and the bodily enactment of their myth.In contrast to the methodology of TV entertainment used in Reagan’s era, modern technology has permitted Trump and Zelensky to embrace an innovative ‘distributed aesthetics’ approach. Owing to its virtual nature, this technique transcends spatial and temporal limitations, while simultaneously rendering celebrity presence ubiquitous and exaggerating the illusion of intimacy between ruler and populace.