The British Theatre

Volume Two begins in 1660 with the restoration of King Charles II to the throne and the reestablishment of the professional theater. It follows the far-reaching development of the form over more than two centuries to 1895.

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.

Between 1960 and 2010, a new generation of British avant-garde theater companies, directors, designers, and performers emerged. Some of these companies and individuals have endured to become part of theater history while others have disappeared from the scene, mutated into new forms, or become part of the establishment. Reverberations across Small-Scale British Theatre at long last puts these small-scale British theater companies and personalities in the scholarly spotlight. By questioning what "Britishness" meant in relation to the small-scale work of these practitioners, contributors articulate how it is reflected in the goals, manifestos, and aesthetics of these companies.

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.

This lavishly illustrated book offers the first full, interdisciplinary investigation of the historical evidence for the presence of ancient Greek tragedy in the post-Restoration British theatre, where it reached a much wider audience - including women - than had access to the original texts. Archival research has excavated substantial amounts of new material, both visual and literary, which is presented in chronological order. But the fundamental aim is to explain why Greek tragedy, which played an elite role in the curricula of largely conservative schools and universities, was magnetically attractive to political radicals, progressive theatre professionals, and to the aesthetic avant-garde. All Greek has been translated, and the book will be essential reading for anyone interested in Greek tragedy, the reception of ancient Greece and Rome, theatre history, British social history, English studies, or comparative literature.

Harold Pinter is universally described as Britain's leading dramatist. This book evaluates the justification for this appellation. It examines his work in relation to changes taking place in the New British Theatre after the so-called theatrical revolution of 1956, and draws attention to those autobiographical experiences that have been transmuted into his art. Beginning with a look at the nature of British theatre prior to 1956, Peacock then describes Pinter's early life in the East End of London, his career as an actor, and his early writing. The discussion follows Pinter's life and work from ^IThe Room^R in 1957 to his most recent play, Ashes to Ashes in 1996. The author argues that although Pinter has not instigated an aesthetic revolution, he has, more significantly, through his representation of human behavior, provoked a new way of viewing the world.

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.

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.