Love in Contemporary British Drama

Love in Contemporary British Drama
Author: Korbinian Stöckl
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2021-01-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3110714760

Despite the recent turn to affects and emotions in the humanities and despite the unceasing popularity of romantic and erotic love as a motif in fictional works of all genres, the subject has received surprisingly little attention in academic studies of contemporary drama. Love in Contemporary British Drama reflects the appeal of love as a topic and driving force in dramatic works with in-depth analyses of eight pivotal plays from the past three decades. Following an interdisciplinary and historical approach, the study collects and condenses theories of love from philosophy and sociology to derive persisting discourses and to examine their reoccurrence and transformation in contemporary plays. Special emphasis is put on narratives of love’s compensatory function and precariousness and on how modifications of these narratives epitomise the peculiarities of emotional life in the social and cultural context of the present. Based on the assumption that drama is especially inclined to draw on shared narratives for representations of love, the book demonstrates that love is both a window to remnants of the past in the present and a proper subject matter for drama in times in which the suitability of the dramatic form has been questioned.

debbie tucker green

debbie tucker green
Author: Siân Adiseshiah
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2020-04-15
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 3030345815

This long-awaited book is the first full-length study of the work of the extraordinary contemporary black British playwright, debbie tucker green. Covering the period from 2000 (Two Women) to 2017 (a profoundly affectionate, passionate devotion to someone (-noun)), it offers scholars and students the opportunity to engage in cutting-edge critical debate engendered by tucker green’s innovative dramatic works for stage, television, and radio. This groundbreaking book includes contributions by a range of outstanding scholars, including black playwriting specialists, world-leading contemporary theatre scholars and some of the very best emerging researchers in the field. While always focused on the precision and detail of tucker green’s work, this book simultaneously reframes broader debates around contemporary drama and its politics, poses new questions of theatre, and provokes scholarly thinking in ways that, however obliquely, contribute to the change for which the plays agitate.

Three Poems

Three Poems
Author: Alistair McDowall
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 97
Release: 2023-06-19
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1350427063

I suppose I never questioned why I was only one piece before A woman trapped at home during an air raid. A mother who starts to see double. A whole life in one breath. Three short plays by Alistair McDowall introduce us to three women whose ordinary lives mask extraordinary internal worlds. This trilogy includes the plays Northleigh, 1940, In Stereo and all of it, written for and performed by Kate O'Flynn. This edition was published to coincide with the run at the Royal Court and the Avignon Festival in June 2023.

Moonset

Moonset
Author: Maryam Hamidi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 113
Release: 2023-02-16
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1350405213

Finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2023 I can imagine myself in the future looking back on this all. And looking back I can feel when the fire was lit. Fifteen-year-old Roxy is burning. Lost somewhere between the bonfire of girlhood and the sharp edge of womanhood, she gathers her friends and begins meddling in witchcraft to search for answers. Shadows are lurking, ready to swallow those she loves most in the world. As friendships fray, fire crackles and blood bubbles, the group unravel the bonds that unite and the secrets that surround them. Maryam Hamidi's Moonset is a blazing, coming-of-age tale filled with love, rage and self-discovery, as four young women search for the power they were promised. Moonset is published in Methuen Drama's Plays For Young People series which offers suitable plays for young performers and audiences at schools, youth groups and youth theatres. This edition was published to coincide with the Citizens Theatre production at Tron Theatre and Traverse Theatre, Scotland, in February 2023.

Affects in 21st-Century British Theatre

Affects in 21st-Century British Theatre
Author: Mireia Aragay
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2021-04-09
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 3030584860

This book explores the various manifestations of affects in British theatre of the 21st century. The introduction gives a concise survey of existing and emerging theoretical and research trends and argues in favour of a capacious understanding of affects that mediates between more autonomous and more social approaches. The twelve chapters in the collection investigate major works in Britain by playwrights and theatre makers including Mojisola Adebayo, Mike Bartlett, Alice Birch, Caryl Churchill, Tim Crouch and Andy Smith, Rachel De-lahay, Reginald Edmund, James Fritz, David Greig, Idris Goodwin, Zinnie Harris, Kieran Hurley, Lucy Kirkwood, Anders Lustgarten, Yolanda Mercy, Anthony Neilson, Lucy Prebble, Sh!t Theatre, Penelope Skinner, Stef Smith, Kae Tempest and debbie tucker green. The interpretations identify significant areas of tension as they relate affects to the fields of cognition, politics and hope. In this, the chapters uncover interrelations of thought, intention and empathy; they reveal the nexus between identities, institutions and ideology; and, finally, they explore how theatre can accomplish the transition from a sense of crisis to utopian visions.

A Narratology of Drama

A Narratology of Drama
Author: Christine Schwanecke
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2022-01-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3110724111

This volume argues against Gérard Genette’s theory that there is an “insurmountable opposition” between drama and narrative and shows that the two forms of storytelling have been productively intertwined throughout literary history. Building on the idea that plays often incorporate elements from other genres, especially narrative ones, the present study theorises drama as a fundamentally narrative genre. Guided by the question of how drama tells stories, the first part of the study delineates the general characteristics of dramatic narration and zooms in on the use of narrative forms in drama. The second part proposes a history of dramatic storytelling from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century that transcends conventional genre boundaries. Close readings of exemplary British plays provide an overview of the dominant narrative modes in each period and point to their impact in the broader cultural and historical context of the plays. Finally, the volume argues that throughout history, highly narrative plays have had a performative power that reached well beyond the stage: dramatic storytelling not only reflects socio-political realities, but also largely shapes them.

Mates in Chelsea

Mates in Chelsea
Author: Rory Mullarkey
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 112
Release: 2023-11-17
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1350448370

But I do have a job. I'm a professional viscount. Things aren't looking good for Theodore 'Tug' Bungay. His mother, Lady Agrippina, has a plan to cut off his funds. His fed-up fiancée wants to drag him up the aisle. An oligarch is eyeing up his beloved Northumberland castle. Is Tug's dissolute life about to change completely? Or will he get to carry on doing exactly as he pleases without ever facing any consequences? Rory Mullarkey's riotous new play takes inspiration from Wilde and Wodehouse to create a contemporary comedy of manners set among the dwellers of south-west London who – somehow – remain our country's ruling class. This edition is published to coincide with the world premiere at London's Royal Court Theatre, in November 2023.

Contemporary European Playwrights

Contemporary European Playwrights
Author: Maria M. Delgado
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2020-07-22
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1351620533

Contemporary European Playwrights presents and discusses a range of key writers that have radically reshaped European theatre by finding new ways to express the changing nature of the continent’s society and culture, and whose work is still in dialogue with Europe today. Traversing borders and languages, this volume offers a fresh approach to analyzing plays in production by some of the most widely-performed European playwrights, assessing how their work has revealed new meanings and theatrical possibilities as they move across the continent, building an unprecedented picture of the contemporary European repertoire. With chapters by leading scholars and contributions by the writers themselves, the chapters bring playwrights together to examine their work as part of a network and genealogy of writing, examining how these plays embody and interrogate the nature of contemporary Europe. Written for students and scholars of European theatre and playwriting, this book will leave the reader with an understanding of the shifting relationships between the subsidized and commercial, the alternative and the mainstream stage, and political stakes of playmaking in European theatre since 1989.

Instructions for Correct Assembly

Instructions for Correct Assembly
Author: Thomas Eccleshare
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 137
Release: 2018-04-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1786824965

Maybe turn down the opinionated dial? Hari and Max weren't satisfied with their first attempt at parenthood, so they're giving it a second go. Only this time they've got a 30-day money back guarantee and an easy-to-follow construction manual. They're certain, as long as they follow it step-by-step, he's going to be perfect. This might be a little more complicated than the bed but still, I'm sure its the kind of thing we can crack on our own. Instructions for Correct Assembly premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs on 7 April 2018, in a production directed by Hamish Pirie.