Drama on Drama : Dimensions of Theatricality on the Contemporary British Stage

This book gives an in-depth and invigorating analysis of reflexivity in recent British drama - the way drama comments on drama. The interplay of dramatic forms, the cross-fertilization of historical traditions are explored in relation to major contemporary authors and theatrical practices. When drama takes itself as its own object of study it paradoxically highlights the most vital issues of its time. Key questions are raised about the nature of theatricality in play-writing and performance in this the first full-length treatment of the subject. Front Matter....Pages i-xv Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Greeks in Drama: Four Contemporary Issues....Pages 3-14 The Revival of Medieval Forms in Recent Political Drama....Pages 15-29 Cultural Transformations of Subversive Jacobean Drama: Contemporary Sub-Versions of Tragedy, Comedy, and Tragicomedy....Pages 30-58 Women Beware Women by Howard Barker (with Thomas Middleton): The ‘Terrible Consistency’....Pages 59-71 Japanese Theatrical Forms in Edward Bond’s The Bundle and Jackets....Pages 72-88 Front Matter....Pages 89-89 Now Converging, Now Diverging: Beckett’s Metatheatre....Pages 91-107 Pinter and the Pinteresque: An Author Trapped by His Own Image?....Pages 108-120 ‘The Play’s the Thing’: The Metatheatre of Timberlake Wertenbaker....Pages 121-135 Tom Stoppard’s Metadrama: The Haunting Repetition....Pages 136-151 Hauntings: Ghosts and the Limits of Realism in Cloud Nine and Fen by Caryl Churchill....Pages 152-167 Front Matter....Pages 169-169 Watching for Dolphins by John McGrath: The Single Voicing of a Multiple Voice Performance....Pages 171-183 Devising Drama on Drama: The Community and Theatre Traditions....Pages 184-195 Representing Gender/Representing Self: A Reflection on Role Playing in Performance Theory and Practice....Pages 196-214 Translating, Adapting, Rewriting: Three Facets of Christopher Hampton’s Work as a Playwright....Pages 215-230 Les Enfants de Parodie: The Enlightened Incest of Anglo-American Musicals....Pages 231-245 Back Matter....Pages 246-256 Drama has always claimed its paradoxical nature. It meditates on the artificiality of its conventions within the framework of those same conventions. This innovative collection explores different forms of reflexivity in recent British drama providing the first in-depth analysis of this essential aspect of the genre. The interplay of dramatic forms and cultural codes and the cross-fertilization of historical traditions are explored. Key questions are raised and insights given into the nature of theatricality in playwriting and performance. Cutting across the critical schools of the twentieth century, the essays reassess major contemporary dramatists and theatrical practices in the light of reflexivity: Beckett, Pinter, Wertenbaker, Bond, Barker, Churchill, Stoppard, McGrath and Hampton, devised theatre, Anglo-American musicals, performance theory and practice. Contemporary interpretations of historical forms appear as a major challenge for writers, producers and actors.