Startseite “Who’s Going to Mobilise Darkness and Silence?”: The Construction of Dystopian Spaces in Contemporary British Drama
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“Who’s Going to Mobilise Darkness and Silence?”: The Construction of Dystopian Spaces in Contemporary British Drama

  • Aleks Sierz

    is a Visiting Researcher at the University of Paderborn and adjunct lecturer at Boston University Study Abroad London Programmes. His books include In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today (2001), The Theatre of Martin Crimp (2006/2013), John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (2008), Rewriting the Nation: British Theatre Today (2011), and Modern British Playwriting: The 1990s (2012), as well as other publications about contemporary British theatre. He has also co-authored, with Lia Ghilardi, The Time Traveller’s Guide to British Theatre: The First Four Hundred Years (2015). His latest book is Good Nights Out: A History of Popular British Theatre 1940–2015 (2020).

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    und Merle Tönnies

    is Professor of English Literature and British Cultural Studies at the University of Paderborn. Among her key research areas are British drama and theatre from the nineteenth to the 21st centuries as well as questions of space and British identities. She is co-editor of the series anglistik & englischunterricht and reviews-editor-elect of the Journal of Contemporary Drama in English. Further publications include (En-)Gendering a Popular Theatrical Genre: The Roles of Women in Nineteenth-Century British Melodrama (2014) and the co-edited volume Narrative in Drama (Contemporary Drama in English 18, 2011, with Christina Flotmann).

Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 19. Mai 2021
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Abstract

This article examines the recent explosion of British dystopian plays, analysing their changing characteristics from the 1990 s to the 2010 s. After an initial brief look at precursors, it then focuses on examples of new writing which tackle the idea of dystopia in the absurdist manner typical of the 2000 s. In a third step, the focus is on the dystopian drama of the 2010 s and its more conventionally structured plots, which at the same time increasingly include ironic and parodistic elements. It becomes clear how this comparatively new genre is able to shake off the constraints of traditional dystopian writing and develop recognisable characteristics of its own. Throughout, emphasis is put on the “reality” of the plays’ fictional worlds, on the usage of the stage space, and on how the audience’s relationship with the stage is constructed as a double bind of distance and closeness.

About the authors

Aleks Sierz , FRSA

is a Visiting Researcher at the University of Paderborn and adjunct lecturer at Boston University Study Abroad London Programmes. His books include In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today (2001), The Theatre of Martin Crimp (2006/2013), John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (2008), Rewriting the Nation: British Theatre Today (2011), and Modern British Playwriting: The 1990s (2012), as well as other publications about contemporary British theatre. He has also co-authored, with Lia Ghilardi, The Time Traveller’s Guide to British Theatre: The First Four Hundred Years (2015). His latest book is Good Nights Out: A History of Popular British Theatre 1940–2015 (2020).

Merle Tönnies

is Professor of English Literature and British Cultural Studies at the University of Paderborn. Among her key research areas are British drama and theatre from the nineteenth to the 21st centuries as well as questions of space and British identities. She is co-editor of the series anglistik & englischunterricht and reviews-editor-elect of the Journal of Contemporary Drama in English. Further publications include (En-)Gendering a Popular Theatrical Genre: The Roles of Women in Nineteenth-Century British Melodrama (2014) and the co-edited volume Narrative in Drama (Contemporary Drama in English 18, 2011, with Christina Flotmann).

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Published Online: 2021-05-19
Published in Print: 2021-05-06

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Frontmatter
  3. Introduction: Performing the Future
  4. “Who’s Going to Mobilise Darkness and Silence?”: The Construction of Dystopian Spaces in Contemporary British Drama
  5. More Future? Straight Ecologies in British Climate-Change Theatre
  6. String Figures of Response-ability and the Refusal to Respond in Clare Pollard’s The Weather
  7. Dystopia
  8. Talking to Machines: Simulated Dialogue and the Problem with Turing in Jordan Harrison’s Marjorie Prime
  9. Travel Beyond Stars: Trauma and Future in Mojisola Adebayo’s STARS
  10. End Meeting for All: The Performative Meta-Collages of Forced Entertainment
  11. Viral Theatre: Preliminary Thoughts on the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Online Theatre
  12. The Poetry in Drama, the Drama in Poetry
  13. Book Reviews
  14. Howard Sherman, ed. The 24 Hour Plays Viral Monologues: New Monologues Created during the Coronavirus Pandemic. London: Methuen, 2020, xii + 158 pp., £13.49 (paperback), £10.79 (eBook [watermarked]).
  15. Kemi Atanda Ilori. The Theatre of Ola Rotimi: Power, Politics and Postcolonialism. Leeds: Universal, 2017, viii + 156 pp., €21.90 (paperback).
  16. Wolfgang Schneider and Lebogang Nawa, ed. Theatre in Transformation: Artistic Processes and Cultural Policy in South Africa. Bielefeld: transcript, 2019, 257 pp., £29.99 (paperback).
  17. Lindsey Mantoan. War as Performance: Conflicts in Iraq and Political Theatricality. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, xii + 236 pp., €72.79 (hardback), €72.79 (paperback), €59.49 (PDF ebook).
  18. Miriam Haughton. Staging Trauma: Bodies in Shadow. London: Palgrave, 2018, xiv + 243 pp., €93.59 (hardback), €74.96 (PDF ebook).
  19. Eamonn Jordan. The Theatre and Films of Conor McPherson: Conspicuous Communities. London: Methuen Drama, 2019, xi + 235 pp., £75.00 (hardback), £28.99 (paperback), £64.80 (PDF ebook). Patrick Lonergan. Irish Drama and Theatre Since 1950. London: Methuen Drama, 2019, ix + 263 pp., £65.00 (hardback), £17.99 (paperback), £17.27 (PDF ebook).
  20. Lara Shalson. Theatre & Protest. London: Palgrave, 2017, v + 89 pp., £6.57 (paperback).
  21. Stanton B. Garner Jr. Kinesthetic Spectatorship in the Theatre: Phenomenology, Cognition, Movement. London: Palgrave, 2018, xii + 277 pp., €77.99 (hardback), €25.99 (paperback), €63.06 (PDF ebook).
Heruntergeladen am 26.9.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/jcde-2021-0002/html
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