Real Theatre

Draws on musicals, plays and experimental performances to show what theatre is made of and how we experience it.

The Theatre of the Real: Yeats, Beckett, and Sondheim traces the thread of jouissance (the simultaneous experience of radical pleasure and pain) through three major theatre figures of the twentieth century. Gina Masucci MacKenzie's work engages theatrical text and performance in dialogue with the Lacanian Real, so as to re-envision modern theatre as the cultural site where author, actor, and audience come into direct contact with personal and collective traumas. By showing how a transgressively free subject may be formed through theatrical experience, MacKenzie concludes that modern theatre can liberate the individual from the socially constructed self. The Theatre of the Real revises views of modern theatre by demonstrating how it can lead to a collaborative effort required for innovative theatrical work. By foregrounding Yeats's "dancer" plays, the author shows how these intimate pieces contribute to the historical development of musical as well as modern theatre. Beckett's universal dramas then pave the way for Sondheim's postmodern cacophonies of idea and spirit as they introduce comic abjection into modernism's tragic mode. This exciting work from a new author will leave readers with fresh insight to theatrical performance and its necessity in our lives.

This innovative, theoretical work focuses on temporal issues in theatre and the 'chemistry' of theatre - the ways in which a variety of factors in performance combine to make up what we call 'theatre'. Discussing a range of canonical plays, from Shakespeare to Beckett, the book makes a unique contribution to theatre and performance studies.

The Routledge Dictionary of Contemporary Theatre and Performance provides the first authoritative alphabetical guide to the theatre and performance of the last 30 years. Conceived and written by one of the foremost scholars and critics of theatre in the world, it literally takes us from Activism to Zapping, analysing everything along the way from Body Art and the Flashmob to Multimedia and the Postdramatic. What we think of as 'performance' and 'drama' has undergone a transformation in recent decades. Similarly how these terms are defined, used and critiqued has also changed, thanks to interventions from a panoply of theorists from Derrida to Ranciere. Patrice Pavis's Dictionary provides an indispensible roadmap for this complex and fascinating terrain; a volume no theatre bookshelf can afford to be without.

Essays on the touring of Irish theatre, at home and abroad.

This exciting book uniquely combines interviews with scholars and practitioners in theatre studies to look at what most people feel is a pivotal moment of British theatre - the 1990s. With a particular focus on 'in-yer-face theatre', this volume will be essential reading for all students and scholars of contemporary British theatre.

Theatre in the Expanded Field is a fiercely original, bold and daring exploration of the fields of theatre and performance studies and the received narratives and histories that underpin them. Rich with interdisciplinary reference, international, eclectic and broad-ranging in its examples, it offers readers a compelling and provocative reassessment of the disciplines, one that spans pre-history to the present day. Sixty years ago, in 1962, Richard Southern wrote a remarkable book called The Seven Ages of the Theatre. It was unusual in its time for taking a trans-disciplinary, new-historical and avowedly internationalist approach to its subject - nothing less than a totalizing view of its field. Theatre in the Expanded Field does not attempt to mimic Southern's work but rather takes his spirit of adventure and ambition as its frame for the contemporary moment of performance and its diverse pasts. Identifying seven ways of exploring the performance field, from pre-history to postdramatic theatre the book presents studies of both contemporary and historical works not as a chronological succession, but in keeping with their coeval qualities, as movements or 'generations' of connection and interaction, dissensus and interruption. It does this with the same purpose as Richard Southern's original work: to provide for the planning of responsive performance spaces 'now'. Illustrated throughout with line-drawings, Theatre in the Expanded Field is as richly rewarding as it is ambitious and expansive in it vision.

What makes young people care about themselves, others, their communities, and their futures? In Why Theatre Matters, Kathleen Gallagher uses the drama classroom as a window into the daily challenges of marginalized youth in Toronto, Boston, Taipei, and Lucknow. An ethnographic study which mixes quantitative and qualitative methodology in an international multi-site project, Why Theatre Matters ties together the issues of urban and arts education through the lens of student engagement. Gallagher’s research presents a framework for understanding student involvement at school in the context of students’ families and communities, as well as changing social, political, and economic realities around the world. Taking the reader into the classroom through the voices of the students themselves, Gallagher illustrates how creative expression through theatre can act as a rehearsal space for real, material struggles and for democratic participation. Why Theatre Matters is an invigorating challenge to the myths that surround urban youth and an impressive study of theatre’s transformative potential.