This book examines a series of contemporary plays where writers put theatre itself on stage. The texts examined variously dramatize how theatre falls short in response to the demands of violence, expose its implication in structures of violenceincluding racism and gender-based violenceand illustrate how it might effectively resist violence through reconfiguring representation. Case studies, which include Jackie Sibblies Drurys We Are Proud to Present and Fairview, Ella Hicksons The Writer and Tim Crouchs The Author, provide a range of practice-based perspectives on the question of whether theatre is capable of accounting for and expressing the complexities of structural and interpersonal violence as both lived in the body and borne out in society. The book will appeal to scholars and artists working in the areas of violence, theatre and ethics, witnessing, memory and trauma, spectatorship and contemporary dramaturgy, as well as to those interested in both the doubts and dreams we have about the role of theatre in the twenty-first century.
1. Introduction: Staging the Role of Theatre.- 2. Performative Violence
and Self-reflexive Dramaturgy.- 3. Touching Something Real.- 4. The Ethics
of Imagining Others.- 5. Staging Rage.- 6. Metatheatrical Dramaturgies of
Reception.- 7. Conclusion.
Emma Willis is a senior lecturer in Drama at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her research lies at the intersection of contemporary performance and dramaturgy, spectatorship and ethics and investigates the roles that theatre and theatricality play in our negotiations of subjectivity, community and responsibility in contemporary life. Recent publications include Theatricality, Dark Tourism and Ethical Spectatorship: Absent Others (2014), and journal articles and chapters variously exploring metatheatricality, acting pedagogy, kindness and shopping malls.
