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.
Daugiau informacijos
This book 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.
Introduction
Science fiction in contemporary culture
Theatre and science fiction in scholarship
Chapter one Theatre and science fiction: staging realism
Introduction
Realism in science fiction
Realism in culture and theatre
Playing with realism: Caryl Churchill
Exploding realism: Alistair McDowall
Chapter two Theatre and post-apocalypse: staging ruins
Introduction
The modern ruin in society, theory and culture
Memory in ruins: Anne Washburns Mr Burns
Language in ruins: Ed Thomass On Bear Ridge
The ruins of capitalism: Stans Cafes Home of the Wriggler
The nation in ruins: Tajinder Singh Hayers North Country
Conclusion: beyond ruination
Chapter three Theatre and technology: staging the posthuman
Introduction
Posthumanism in society, theory and culture
Android camp: Thomas Eccleshares Instructions for Correct Assembly and Tim
Foleys Electric Rosary
Automating Consent: Philip Ayckbourns Loving Androids and Nessah Muthys Sex
with Robots & Other Devices
From posthumanism to transhumanism
Staging virtual reality: Jennifer Haleys The Nether
Post-bodied, post-humanity: RashDash and Unlimiteds Future Bodies
Chapter four Theatre and dystopia: staging precarity
Introduction
Defining dystopia
Contemporary theatre: from crisis to dystopia
Defining precarity
Mark Ravenhills The Cut, Fraser Graces Lifesavers and Penelope Skinners
Meek: precarities of violence
Climate precarity: Caryl Churchills Far Away, Dawn Kings Foxfinder and
Knaives War with the Newts: climate precarity
Neoliberal precarity: Ella Roads The Phlebotomist
Conclusion: towards a utopian future
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
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.
