Before the Fall: Looking Back on the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “This Other Eden” Season (2001)
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Benjamin Poore
Benjamin Poore is Senior Lecturer in Theatre at the University of York. His books include Heritage, Nostalgia and Modern British Theatre: Staging the Victorians (2012), Theatre & Empire (2016) and Sherlock Holmes from Screen to Stage: Post-Millennial Adaptations in British Theatre (2017, all for Palgrave Macmillan). He has published several articles and book chapters on contemporary adaptations of literary and historical characters including Count Dracula, Joseph Merrick, Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens, and is the editor of Neo-Victorian Villains (Brill, 2017). Ben is also a member of the Death and Culture Network based at the University of York, and his forthcoming projects include a co-edited collection entitled Contemporary Gothic Drama
Abstract
This paper argues for a reassessment of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “This Other Eden” season, which presented a range of new work in London in early 2001. It places the season in its historical context, in a British political landscape dominated by New Labour and its optimism about remaking the nation, and also in a world that within six months was to experience the turmoil of the September 11th attacks. Using Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History as a starting point, this essay analyses the ‘time-hop’ dramaturgies of two of the season’s plays in particular, Moira Buffini’s Loveplay and Luminosity by Nick Stafford. The turn of the millennium marked the beginning of the end for Adrian Noble’s tenure as Artistic Director of the RSC, and this paper argues that the placeless quality of the “This Other Eden” season – neither wholly a product of Stratford nor London – was symptomatic of tensions at the time, both within this flagship national organisation and in the nation at large.
About the author
Benjamin Poore is Senior Lecturer in Theatre at the University of York. His books include Heritage, Nostalgia and Modern British Theatre: Staging the Victorians (2012), Theatre & Empire (2016) and Sherlock Holmes from Screen to Stage: Post-Millennial Adaptations in British Theatre (2017, all for Palgrave Macmillan). He has published several articles and book chapters on contemporary adaptations of literary and historical characters including Count Dracula, Joseph Merrick, Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens, and is the editor of Neo-Victorian Villains (Brill, 2017). Ben is also a member of the Death and Culture Network based at the University of York, and his forthcoming projects include a co-edited collection entitled Contemporary Gothic Drama
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© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Introduction
- Nation and Negation (Terrible Rage)
- “Can I Tell You about It?”: England, Austerity and “Radical Optimism” in the Theatre of Anders Lustgarten
- Theatricalizing the National Housing Crisis in Mike Bartlett’s Game and Philip Ridley’s Radiant Vermin
- BlackLivesMatter: Remembering Mark Duggan and David Oluwale in Contemporary British Plays
- Fake News and Drama: Nationalism, Immigration and the Media in Recent British Plays
- Experiencing Nationlessness: Staging the Migrant Condition in Some Recent British Theatre
- Multiculturalism, (Im)Migration, Theatre: The National Arts Centre, Ottawa, a Case of Staging Canadian Nationalism
- ‘For We Are American’: Postmodern Pastiche and National Identity in Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play
- ‘The State of Us’: Challenging State-Led Narratives through Performance during Ireland’s ‘Decade of Centenaries’
- The State We’re in: Violence and Working-Class Women on and off the Contemporary Irish Stage
- Before the Fall: Looking Back on the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “This Other Eden” Season (2001)
- From Chimera to Reality: Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica or ‘What State Are We in?’
- Does Verbatim Theatre Still Talk the Nation Talk?
- “What I’m Aspiring to Be Is a Good Dramatist”: Alecky Blythe in Conversation with Chris Megson
- A Victory for Real People: Dangers in the Discourse of Democratisation
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Introduction
- Nation and Negation (Terrible Rage)
- “Can I Tell You about It?”: England, Austerity and “Radical Optimism” in the Theatre of Anders Lustgarten
- Theatricalizing the National Housing Crisis in Mike Bartlett’s Game and Philip Ridley’s Radiant Vermin
- BlackLivesMatter: Remembering Mark Duggan and David Oluwale in Contemporary British Plays
- Fake News and Drama: Nationalism, Immigration and the Media in Recent British Plays
- Experiencing Nationlessness: Staging the Migrant Condition in Some Recent British Theatre
- Multiculturalism, (Im)Migration, Theatre: The National Arts Centre, Ottawa, a Case of Staging Canadian Nationalism
- ‘For We Are American’: Postmodern Pastiche and National Identity in Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play
- ‘The State of Us’: Challenging State-Led Narratives through Performance during Ireland’s ‘Decade of Centenaries’
- The State We’re in: Violence and Working-Class Women on and off the Contemporary Irish Stage
- Before the Fall: Looking Back on the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “This Other Eden” Season (2001)
- From Chimera to Reality: Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica or ‘What State Are We in?’
- Does Verbatim Theatre Still Talk the Nation Talk?
- “What I’m Aspiring to Be Is a Good Dramatist”: Alecky Blythe in Conversation with Chris Megson
- A Victory for Real People: Dangers in the Discourse of Democratisation
