How Diasporic?: Psychogeographies of the New Britain in (Post-)Millennial British Theatre
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Elizabeth Sakellaridou
Abstract
Around the millennial years it was a priority for both the British Government and the Media to promote the changing, multicultural face of Britain. Contemporary British drama and its critics have also been largely preoccupied by the same agenda. How far are such spectacular representations of “new nationhood” indicative of actual, fundamental changes in the way Britishness is conceived today? How much of these aspirations has been fulfilled?
As the dilemmas of cultural belonging and identity formation are deepening in a rapidly moving transnational economy and crucial political reconfigurations, many new British plays remap the territory for their troubled and de-rooted characters on both sides of the cultural and ethnic divide.
Through the discussion of selected (post)millennial plays written by White, Black and Asian British dramatists, the aim of this essay is to examine how far their characters’ city and hinterland psychogeographies reflect a progressive or regressive image of Britain and Britishness and in what ways they are welcoming a “New Britain” of global-migrant identities or are still nourishing a nostalgic, monocultural utopia of the past.
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Note
This essay was written for a conference presentation and then revised for publication before the ISIS neo-terrorist activities and the Syrian and African peoples’ massive exodus to Europe are urgently changing the mental, ethical and legislative attitudes of European countries to immigration.
© 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Flying Free from History and Reality: Dramatic Representations of the “Crocodile Dilemma” in the Theatre of Martin McDonagh
- Quoting Poetry, Translating Music (and Vice Versa): Mediation in Tennessee Williams’s Something Cloudy, Something Clear
- Staging Childhood Holocaust Survivor Trauma: Diane Samuels’s Kindertransport
- “Times long contrasts:” o e d I p u s (2014)
- How Diasporic?: Psychogeographies of the New Britain in (Post-)Millennial British Theatre
- The Passive Gaze and Hyper-Immunised Spectators: The Politics of Theatrical Live-Broadcasting
- Reviews
- Jade Rosina McCutcheon and Barbara Sellers-Young, eds. Embodied Consciousness: Performance Technologies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 229 pp., £55. Nicola Shaughnessy, ed. Affective Performance and Cognitive Science: Body, Brain and Being. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, 300 pp., £75.
- Martin Middeke, Peter Paul Schnierer, Christopher Innes, and Matthew C. Roudané, eds. The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary American Playwrights. London: Bloomsbury, 2014, 479 pp., £ 19, 99.
- Birgit Däwes and Marc Maufort, eds. Enacting Nature: Ecocritical Perspectives on Indigenous Performance. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2014, 262 pp., € 50.30 (softcover).
- Christophe Collard. Artist on the Make: David Mamet’s Work across Media and Genres. Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 2012, 366 pp., 25 €.
- Vicky Angelaki, ed. Contemporary British Theatre: Breaking New Ground. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, xxxi + 192 pp., € 67.00.
- Dan Rebellato, ed. Modern British Playwrighting 2000–2009. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, ix + 340 pp. (paperback).
- Jürs-Munsby, Karen, Jerome Carroll, and Steve Giles, eds. Postdramatic Theatre and the Political: International Perspectives on Contemporary Performance. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, vii + 324 pp., £65 (hardback), £19.99 (paperback), £19.99 (PDF ebook).
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Flying Free from History and Reality: Dramatic Representations of the “Crocodile Dilemma” in the Theatre of Martin McDonagh
- Quoting Poetry, Translating Music (and Vice Versa): Mediation in Tennessee Williams’s Something Cloudy, Something Clear
- Staging Childhood Holocaust Survivor Trauma: Diane Samuels’s Kindertransport
- “Times long contrasts:” o e d I p u s (2014)
- How Diasporic?: Psychogeographies of the New Britain in (Post-)Millennial British Theatre
- The Passive Gaze and Hyper-Immunised Spectators: The Politics of Theatrical Live-Broadcasting
- Reviews
- Jade Rosina McCutcheon and Barbara Sellers-Young, eds. Embodied Consciousness: Performance Technologies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 229 pp., £55. Nicola Shaughnessy, ed. Affective Performance and Cognitive Science: Body, Brain and Being. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, 300 pp., £75.
- Martin Middeke, Peter Paul Schnierer, Christopher Innes, and Matthew C. Roudané, eds. The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary American Playwrights. London: Bloomsbury, 2014, 479 pp., £ 19, 99.
- Birgit Däwes and Marc Maufort, eds. Enacting Nature: Ecocritical Perspectives on Indigenous Performance. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2014, 262 pp., € 50.30 (softcover).
- Christophe Collard. Artist on the Make: David Mamet’s Work across Media and Genres. Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 2012, 366 pp., 25 €.
- Vicky Angelaki, ed. Contemporary British Theatre: Breaking New Ground. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, xxxi + 192 pp., € 67.00.
- Dan Rebellato, ed. Modern British Playwrighting 2000–2009. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, ix + 340 pp. (paperback).
- Jürs-Munsby, Karen, Jerome Carroll, and Steve Giles, eds. Postdramatic Theatre and the Political: International Perspectives on Contemporary Performance. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, vii + 324 pp., £65 (hardback), £19.99 (paperback), £19.99 (PDF ebook).
