Throughout the history of western theatre, animals onstage have invariably been read in relation to human concerns. The reviews of Stef Smith’s Human Animals (2016) at the Royal Court followed in this tradition, interpreting the play’s central animal players as symbolic stand-ins for humans. By examining the particularity of the non-human animals at the centre of Human Animals’ urban eco-crisis, this article aims to rectify previous anthropocentric readings and acknowledge the agency and autonomy of the play’s non-human animals, namely pigeons and foxes. Building on Una Chaudhuri’s ‘Theatre of Species’, this article demonstrates Human Animals’ deep engagement with animal alterity, subverting conventional socio-zoological classifications of ‘pest’ animals and popular preconceptions of pigeons and foxes in British culture. While Smith’s play uses the dystopian mode to dramatize a small-scale, localized eco-crisis, this article highlights how its focus on urban animal encounters and zoonotic disease holds broader implications for re-imagining inter-species relations and planetary health. An award-winning playwright, Isla Cowan is also a PhD student at the University of Glasgow. Her current research investigates ideas of ecological consciousness in contemporary Scottish theatre and is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (SGSAH).

中文翻译：

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Stef Smith 的《人类动物》中的害虫和人

纵观西方戏剧的历史，舞台上的动物总是被解读为与人类关注的事物有关。Stef Smith 的评论人类动物（2016）在皇家宫廷遵循这一传统，将戏剧的中心动物玩家解释为人类的象征性替身。通过研究处于中心的非人类动物的特殊性人类动物'城市生态危机，本文旨在纠正以往以人类为中心的解读，承认该剧中非人类动物，即鸽子和狐狸的能动性和自主性。本文以 Una Chaudhuri 的“物种剧场”为基础，展示了人类动物' 与动物异质性的深入接触，颠覆了传统的社会动物学对“害虫”动物的分类以及英国文化中对鸽子和狐狸的流行先入之见。虽然史密斯的戏剧使用反乌托邦模式来戏剧化一场小规模的局部生态危机，但本文强调了它对城市动物遭遇和人畜共患病的关注如何对重新想象物种间关系和行星健康具有更广泛的意义。Isla Cowan 是一位屡获殊荣的剧作家，也是格拉斯哥大学的博士生。她目前的研究调查当代苏格兰戏剧中的生态意识理念，并由艺术与人文研究委员会 (SGSAH) 资助。