The Contemporary History Play

Benjamin Poore is Professor of Theatre at the University of York, UK. He is the author of Heritage, Nostalgia and Modern British Theatre: Staging the Victorians (2012); Theatre and Empire (2016); and Sherlock Holmes from Screen to Stage (2017). He has also edited the collection Neo-Victorian Villains (2017) and co-edited Contemporary Gothic Drama (2018). Ben's interests include histories of playwriting, literary and neo-Victorian adaptations, and the uses of historical material in theatre-making practices.

Benjamin Poore argues that contemporary British playwriting that invokes history can be positioned on a spectrum that ranges from recovering untold stories, which offer an additional narrative to dominant understandings of history, to challenging the very foundations of historical knowledge itself.The Contemporary History Play asks what happens when a new mode of interpretation is applied to contemporary history plays and tracks the evolving uses of history in 21st-century playwriting across the UK.In the middle of this range sits a more experimental type of theatre - the liquid or porous postmodern history play - which experiments with form; de-emphasises narrative; collapses spaces and time; problematises traditional characterisation and heritage; debunks the notion of history as teaching lessons; and ultimately offers a counter narrative to history.Featuring a detailed consideration of 30 plays and productions, from Moira Buffini's Silence (1999) to Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's Emilia (2019), the book interrogates the work of playwrights such as Zinnie Harris, Moira Buffini, Rona Munro, Rory Mullarkey, DC Moore and Ella Hickson. It draws on original interviews and archival material held by organisations such as the V&A, Shakespeare's Globe, the Almeida, the RSC and the National Theatre and identifies a tradition of new writing over the past twenty years that has not been accounted for previously.

Draws on both original interview and archival material to enhance the scholarly material

Introduction1.History versus Dramaturgy2.The Biographical History Play3.The Intergenerational History Play4.Polychronic History PlaysCoda: Alternate and Fantastic HistoriesBibliography