Towards a History of COVID-Era Theatre: Philip Ridley’s The Beast Will Rise

Thomas A. Oldham

doi:10.1515/jcde-2024-2021

Article

Towards a History of COVID-Era Theatre: Philip Ridley’s The Beast Will Rise

Thomas A. Oldham
is an Associate Professor of theatre at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. There, he teaches courses in theatre history, script analysis, playwriting, and dramaturgy. His research interests include depictions of violence in early modern English drama and In-Yer-Face theatre. Recent publications have appeared in the journals Shakespeare Bulletin and Ecumenica as well as in the collections British Literature and Technology, 1600–1830 and After In-Yer-Face Theatre: Remnants of a Theatrical Revolution. Tom is also a dramaturg with credits from professional and educational theatres in Nebraska, New York, Indiana, Maine, and Texas.

Published/Copyright: October 1, 2024

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From the journal Journal of Contemporary Drama in English Volume 12 Issue 2

Abstract

This article examines Philip Ridley’s The Beast Will Rise (2020) as a significant example of COVID-era theatre, in terms of both its aesthetic impact and its historical importance. This series of fifteen monologues, recorded under lockdown conditions and posted to YouTube, is an underexamined work by a major playwright that simultaneously deepens his oeuvre while serving as a groundbreaking artistic statement on quarantine. Through an analysis of the content, many of Ridley’s familiar preoccupations are discernible, including the crisis of characters pushed to make extreme choices in dark, near grotesque worlds; these concerns prove to be quite fitting for a pandemic world as well. Further, analyzing the form of the videos shows them to be representative of the way the genre of COVID theatre evolved in the initial weeks of lockdown: the simplicity of self-taping gave way to more experimental techniques. Finally, an examination of The Beast Will Rise’s place in the history of COVID theatre reveals a metanarrative that serves as a warning to today’s theatre-makers and the world at large: the tendency to ignore lessons learned in favor of returning to the status quo is strong but must be resisted.

Keywords: COVID theatre; Philip Ridley; The Beast Will Rise

About the author

Thomas A. Oldham

is an Associate Professor of theatre at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. There, he teaches courses in theatre history, script analysis, playwriting, and dramaturgy. His research interests include depictions of violence in early modern English drama and In-Yer-Face theatre. Recent publications have appeared in the journals Shakespeare Bulletin and Ecumenica as well as in the collections British Literature and Technology, 1600–1830 and After In-Yer-Face Theatre: Remnants of a Theatrical Revolution. Tom is also a dramaturg with credits from professional and educational theatres in Nebraska, New York, Indiana, Maine, and Texas.

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Published Online: 2024-10-01

Published in Print: 2024-09-30

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2024-2021

Keywords for this article

COVID theatre; Philip Ridley; The Beast Will Rise