Abstract
This paper addresses the theme of fear and anxiety in contemporary drama and performance through a consideration of the trope of the dystopian near-future as it has re-occurred in a significant number of recent British plays. It takes as its starting point the contention that the prevalence and persistence of this motif makes it worthy of investigation. The plays under discussion do not re-inscribe socio-political problems, or the status quo, by pretending to be objective records of the real world. Instead they create alternative fictional near-future worlds, exploratory dystopias that deliberately perform anxiety-inducing and estranging critical interrogations of current cultural and political concerns. Drawing on the work of Raymond Williams this essay seeks to show that the critical and emotional insights offered by these play-worlds are made possible only through the process of our pondering their strangeness. Each example stages its own particular disruption of theatrical realism and in so doing engages critically both with the British realist theatrical tradition, and also with the wider cultural discourses about ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ that haunt our contemporary neoliberal moment and the emotions these discourses produce.
About the author
is Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching) at Kingston University, London. She has published widely in the field of Scottish theatre and performance and is the author of The Theatre of Anthony Neilson (Bloomsbury, 2017) and Theatre and Scotland (Palgrave, 2013). Her work also appears in a number of anthologies and journals. Her article “‘Killing Joy as a World Making Project’: Anger in the Work of debbie tucker green” was published in Contemporary Theatre Review 28.3, in the autumn of 2018. Trish is from Glasgow.
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