Madness in Contemporary British Theatre

Madness in Contemporary British Theatre
Author: Jon Venn
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2021-08-30
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 3030797821

This book considers the representation of madness in contemporary British theatre, examining the rich relationship between performance and mental health, and questioning how theatre can potentially challenge dominant understandings of mental health. Carefully, it suggests what it means to represent madness in theatre, and the avenues through which such representations can become radical, whereby theatre can act as a site of resistance. Engaging with the heterogeneity of madness, each chapter covers different attributes and logics, including: the constitution and institutional structures of the contemporary asylum; the cultural idioms behind hallucination; the means by which suicide is apprehended and approached; how testimony of the mad person is interpreted and encountered. As a study that interrogates a wide range of British theatre across the past 30 years, and includes a theoretical interrogation of the politics of madness, this is a crucial work for any student or researcher, across disciplines, considering the politics of madness and its relationship to performance.

Rethinking Character in Contemporary British Theatre

Rethinking Character in Contemporary British Theatre
Author: Cristina Delgado-García
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2015-11-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3110333910

The category of theatrical character has been swiftly dismissed in the academic reception of no-longer-dramatic texts and performances. However, claims on the dissolution of character narrowly demarcate what a subject is and how it may appear. This volume unmoors theatre scholarship from the regulatory ideals of liberal humanism, stretching the notion of character to encompass and illuminate otherwise unaccounted-for subjects, aesthetic strategies and political gestures in recent theatre works. To this aim, contemporary philosophical theories of subjectivation, European theatre studies, and experimental, script-led work produced in Britain since the late 1990s are mobilised as discussants on the question of subjectivity. Four contemporary playtexts and their performances are examined in depth: Sarah Kane’s Crave and 4.48 Psychosis, Ed Thomas’s Stone City Blue and Tim Crouch’s ENGLAND. Through these case studies, Delgado-García demonstrates alternative ways of engaging theoretically with character, and elucidating a range of subjective figures beyond identity and individuality. Alongside these analyses, the book traces a large body of work that has experimented with speech attribution since the early twentieth-century. This is a timely contribution to contemporary theatre scholarship, which demonstrates that character remains a malleable and politically-salient notion in which understandings of subjectivity are still being negotiated.

Contemporary British Drama

Contemporary British Drama
Author: David Lane
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2010-09-09
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0748686797

This book offers an extended analysis of writers and theatre companies in Britain since 1995, and explores them alongside recent cultural, social and political developments. Referencing well-known practitioners from modern theatre, this book is an excelle

Contemporary British Theatre

Contemporary British Theatre
Author: V. Angelaki
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013-09-06
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9781137010124

This edited collection brings together a team of internationally prominent academics and delivers cutting-edge discourse on the strongly emerging tradition of experimentation in contemporary British theatre - redefining what the dramatic stands for today. Each chapter of the collection focuses on influential contemporary plays and playwrights.

Jacques Lecoq and the British Theatre

Jacques Lecoq and the British Theatre
Author: Franc Chamberlain
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2013-07-04
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1136465014

Jacques Lecoq and the British Theatre brings together the first collection of essays in English to focus on Lecoq's school of mime and physical theatre. For four decades, at his school in Paris, Jacques Lecoq trained performers from all over the world and effected a quiet evolution in the theatre. The work of such highly successful Lecoq graduates as Theatre de Complicite (The Winter's Tale with the Royal Shakespeare Company and The Visit, The Street of Crocodiles and The Causcasian Chalk Circle with the Royal National Theatre) has brought Lecoq's work to the attention of mainstream critics and audiences in Britain. Yet Complicte is just the tip of the Iceberg. The contributors to this volume, most of them engaged in applying Lecoq's work, chart some of the diverse ways in which it has had an impact on our conceptions of mime, physical theatre, actor training, devising street theatre and interculturalism. This lively - even provocative - collection of essays focuses academic debate and raises awareness of the impact of Lecoq's work in Britain today.

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.

Contemporary British Theatre

Contemporary British Theatre
Author: Theodore Shank
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Total Pages: 243
Release: 1996
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780312172244

Contemporary British Theatre surveys the complex and dynamic theatre of the eighties and early nineties reflecting a country that is multicultural, multiethnic and multinational. The contributors - artists, scholars and critics - offer insights into the unique forms of theatre performance devised to express the tensions and pressures of our time. For the paperback edition a new preface has been written, including several updating pieces from individual contributors.

Contemporary British Drama

Contemporary British Drama
Author: Catherine Rees
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2019-11-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1350309559

This guide offers a comprehensive account of British theatre from the 1960s to the present day. Placing critical commentary at the heart of its analysis, it explores how theatre critics and scholars have sought to understand and write about modern theatre, from the earliest reviews to revivals appearing decades later. With studies of contemporary reviews and archival material, Contemporary British Drama offers readers the opportunity to learn about British theatre in its original context and to chart shifting critical perceptions over the decades. It provides a crucial juxtaposition between the development of British theatre and its contemporaneous critical response, supplying an invaluable insight into the critical climate of recent decades. From feminist playwrighting to In-Yer-Face theatre, this is the ideal companion for undergraduate students of literature and theatre in need of an introduction to the debates surrounding contemporary British drama.

Play on

Play on
Author: Alistair Fair
Publisher: Lund Humphries Publishers Limited
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9781848222151

This book documents--and celebrates--Britain's contemporary theater architecture. It is about the conception, design, and delivery of spaces for drama between 2008 and 2018, a period of economic recession and financial austerity that has nonetheless seen a significant number of well-received theater-building projects. Intended not only for theater enthusiasts but also for individuals and organizations that may be contemplating a capital project of their own, Play On provides detailed "contemporary histories" of ten recent projects. It includes new theaters, like Liverpool's prize-winning Everyman Theatre and Cast in Doncaster, as well as major refurbishment and restoration projects such as the National Theatre in London and the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow. Architects whose work is discussed include Haworth Tompkins, Aedas Arts Team, Bennetts Associates, Richard Murphy Architects, and Page\Park. An extended introductory section sets the case studies in their historical and contemporary contexts and draws out key themes, including sustainability, accessibility, and the need for theaters to be efficient yet welcoming public spaces.

British Theatre Design

British Theatre Design
Author: John Goodwin
Publisher: Phoenix
Total Pages: 208
Release: 1998
Genre: Crafts & Hobbies
ISBN: 9780753801291

With more than 300 photographs showcasing the work of over 130 designers -- each image accompanied by the artist's own notes -- this collection presents the best, most comprehensive overview of modern English theatrical style. These magnificent sketches, stage sets, and costumes come from drama, musicals, ballet, and opera. They include Alison Chitty's suspended, golden representation of the heavens for several Shakespeare plays; Patrick Robertson's and Rosemary Vercoe's modern-day conception of Rigoletto, and John Napier's elaborate, futuristic creation for Starlight Express.