2 Suspended in time and place
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Marissia Fragkou
Abstract
The chapter examines the work of Dennis Kelly and his preoccupation with the tropes of children at risk and precarious masculinity. Placing his work against the notable increase in representations of endangered children in post-1990s British theatre, it considers the ways in which Kelly’s theatre interlaces the theme of the precarious child with masculinity and violence. More specifically, it shows how the disruption of idealised notions of masculinity leads to toxicity and exposes ideologies about progress, upward mobility, and job security as inherently cruel. This cruelty has a direct impact on children who are the witnesses or victims of toxic masculinity and violence. After briefly considering Kelly’s plays Debris (2003) and Orphans (2009), it shifts attention to Girls & Boys (2018) and its treatment of male violence and child murder. It specifically examines how children in Kelly’s work frequently appear as metaphors of arrested development, thus capturing the essence of human life in an age of uncertainty. By paying attention to the use of monologue to explore grief, this chapter makes the case that the woman’s re-writing of her memories with her children acts as a means by which to humanise her experience. It is this call to imagine other ways of performing masculinity that Kelly is ultimately inviting us to consider.
Abstract
The chapter examines the work of Dennis Kelly and his preoccupation with the tropes of children at risk and precarious masculinity. Placing his work against the notable increase in representations of endangered children in post-1990s British theatre, it considers the ways in which Kelly’s theatre interlaces the theme of the precarious child with masculinity and violence. More specifically, it shows how the disruption of idealised notions of masculinity leads to toxicity and exposes ideologies about progress, upward mobility, and job security as inherently cruel. This cruelty has a direct impact on children who are the witnesses or victims of toxic masculinity and violence. After briefly considering Kelly’s plays Debris (2003) and Orphans (2009), it shifts attention to Girls & Boys (2018) and its treatment of male violence and child murder. It specifically examines how children in Kelly’s work frequently appear as metaphors of arrested development, thus capturing the essence of human life in an age of uncertainty. By paying attention to the use of monologue to explore grief, this chapter makes the case that the woman’s re-writing of her memories with her children acts as a means by which to humanise her experience. It is this call to imagine other ways of performing masculinity that Kelly is ultimately inviting us to consider.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- List of illustrations vii
- Notes on contributors viii
- A foreword xii
- Introduction 1
- I Incubation 19
- 1 DNA in the classroom 21
- 2 Suspended in time and place 39
- 3 ‘I’ll teach you a thing or two’ 55
- II Antibodies 71
- 4 ‘Are you sick, yet? / Are you disgusted, yet?’ 73
- 5 Utopia 90
- 6 Beautiful doom 105
- 7 Subjectivity in Dennis Kelly’s early drama 118
- III False positives 135
- 8 ‘I just want it to be your words’ 137
- 9 ‘What is the difference between made up and real?’ 152
- 10 ‘What else isn’t true?’, or, Dennis Kelly’s expressionism 170
- 11 Atopia 184
- IV Variants 201
- 12 ‘Now look, are you going to tell me a story or not?’ 203
- 13 Dennis Kelly’s The Gods Weep at the Royal Shakespeare Company 217
- 14 Performing stories, engaging audiences 233
- Conclusion 251
- Index 264
- Plates 267
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- List of illustrations vii
- Notes on contributors viii
- A foreword xii
- Introduction 1
- I Incubation 19
- 1 DNA in the classroom 21
- 2 Suspended in time and place 39
- 3 ‘I’ll teach you a thing or two’ 55
- II Antibodies 71
- 4 ‘Are you sick, yet? / Are you disgusted, yet?’ 73
- 5 Utopia 90
- 6 Beautiful doom 105
- 7 Subjectivity in Dennis Kelly’s early drama 118
- III False positives 135
- 8 ‘I just want it to be your words’ 137
- 9 ‘What is the difference between made up and real?’ 152
- 10 ‘What else isn’t true?’, or, Dennis Kelly’s expressionism 170
- 11 Atopia 184
- IV Variants 201
- 12 ‘Now look, are you going to tell me a story or not?’ 203
- 13 Dennis Kelly’s The Gods Weep at the Royal Shakespeare Company 217
- 14 Performing stories, engaging audiences 233
- Conclusion 251
- Index 264
- Plates 267
