A Concise Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Drama

Focusing on major and emerging playwrights, institutions, and various theatre practices this Concise Companion examines the key issues in British and Irish theatre since 1979. Written by leading international scholars in the field, this collection offers new ways of thinking about the social, political, and cultural contexts within which specific aspects of British and Irish theatre have emerged and explores the relationship between these contexts and the works produced. It investigates why particular issues and practices have emerged as significant in the theatre of this period.

Focusing on major and emerging playwrights, institutions, and various theatre practices this Concise Companion examines the key issues in British and Irish theatre since 1979. Written by leading international scholars in the field, this collection offers new ways of thinking about the social, political, and cultural contexts within which specific aspects of British and Irish theatre have emerged and explores the relationship between these contexts and the works produced. It investigates why particular issues and practices have emerged as significant in the theatre of this period.

List of Illustrations ixNotes on Contributors xAcknowledgements xiiiIntroduction 1Nadine Holdsworth and Mary LuckhurstPart I National Politics and Identities 51 Europe in Flux: Exploring Revolution and Migration in British Plays of the 1990s 7Geoff Willcocks2 'I'll See You Yesterday': Brian Friel, Tom Murphy and the Captivating Past 26Claire Gleitman3 Black British Drama and the Politics of Identity 48D. Keith Peacock4 Northern Irish Drama: Speaking the Peace 66Tom MaguirePart II Sites, Cities and Landscapes 855 The Production of 'Site': Site-Specific Theatre 87Fiona Wilkie6 Staging an Urban Nation: Place and Identity in Contemporary Welsh Theatre 107Heike Roms7 The Landscape of Contemporary Scottish Drama: Place, Politics and Identity 125Nadine HoldsworthPart III The Body, Text and the Real 1478 The Body's Cruel Joke: The Comic Theatre of Sarah Kane 149Ken Urban9 Physical Theatre: Complicite and the Question of Authority 171Helen Freshwater10 Verbatim Theatre, Media Relations and Ethics 200Mary LuckhurstPart IV Science, Ethics and New Technologies 22311 Theatre and Science 225David Higgins12 From the State of the Nation to Globalization: Shifting Political Agendas in Contemporary British Playwriting 245Dan Rebellato13 Theatre for a Media-Saturated Age 263Sarah GormanIndex 283