Volume 12, Issue 2

This article examines forms of plausibilisation in British performances that engage with asylum seeking. It argues in two case studies, on Timberlake Wertenbaker’s play Credible Witness (2001) and the theatre project The Trojans (2019), developed in 2018 and 2019 with Syrian refugees in Glasgow, there are multiple aspects of plausibility that are crucial in the drama of migration: the examination of the plausibility features required for a believable asylum story, the use of documentary material and techniques to heighten the performances’ authenticity, the reactivation of ancient rituals and dramaturgies to give weight and a historical perspective to current migration issues, and the appeal to the politicised faith of the audience, their identification with the refugees that is fed by political conviction. As a communal art form, the theatre offers a space for reflection on the legal logic of plausibility in asylum procedures. Rather than demanding a well-founded case, the theatre can explore conflicting plausibilities, develop counter-plausibilities, and thus question the routines of legal procedures as well as of cultural plausibilisation processes that rarely acknowledge the co-production of plausibility.

Amid the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the societal role of theatre is undergoing renewed scrutiny, prompting a reevaluation of its capacity for critical intervention and response. In this context, the emergence of new hybrid and digital forms, particularly the intersection of theatre with extended reality (XR) technologies, such as virtual reality (VR), presents intriguing possibilities. This article centres on the convergence of theatre and VR, with a focus on the pioneering efforts by Tender Claws and Piehole, Agile Lens, Single Thread Theatre, the Ferryman Collective, and Onboard XR. Some of their innovative productions, respectively Tempest (2020), A Christmas Carol (2021), Collider (2021), Gumball Dreams (2022), and NPC (2022), forge distinctive communities, altering audience dynamics through avatars. By examining these recent endeavours in North America, this study delves into VR’s intersections with and departures from analogue community theatre practices. As the metaverse unfolds, new questions arise: can it liberate theatre from systemic constraints or might it risk transforming experiences into tradable commodities, aligning with mainstream neoliberal democratic politics? This inquiry not only probes the transformative capabilities of VR theatre, but also dissects its broader sociopolitical implications at the intersection of art, technology, and society.

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.

This article examines the use of English-language surtitles within Welsh-language performances, aiming to consider their potential impact for a minority-language theatre culture. Having been utilised with increasing frequency over the past decade, their prominence signals an overdue and welcome attempt to expand audiences and to increase access for Welsh-speaking and non-Welsh-speaking audiences alike. Their use is a fairly recent development within the relatively brief history of Welsh-language theatre. Therefore, the study examines their presence in relation to the preceding century and a half and considers how the visual inclusion of English-language text within a Welsh-language mise en scène signals a subtle but potentially substantial interruption to what has historically been the function of the Welsh-language theatrical event. Prior to the use of translation technologies, Welsh-language drama could be performed for a presumed Welsh-language audience with the tacit assumption its linguistic text could be comprehended by all in attendance. This might no longer be the case. But by considering the presence of surtitles as dramaturgical material, the study will consider what the implications of their inclusion might be for a constituent audience that has no need for an English-language translation.

The article traces the production paths of three plays by Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish playwrights with a view on their specific reception in different cultural contexts. David Greig’s Dunsinane (2010), Gary Owen’s Iphigenia in Splott (2015), and David Ireland’s Cyprus Avenue (2016) all explore the theme of connections, cultural transfer, and identity translation in social and political environments which are composed of their Indigenous cultures and the strong presence of the British idiom. The protagonists of these plays navigate linguistic and cultural landscapes shaped by the legacy of colonial domination and by the resurgence of local ethnicities. All three plays depict the search for a renewed identity in the period of devolution and cultural diversity. It is the aim of this article to analyse the successful transfers across borders of cultural environments which these plays perform, as they articulate “local” identities for the sake of home and away audiences.

This article brings contemporary theatre studies into dialogue with the growing range of bisexual scholarship across disciplines. This scholarship argues, among other things, that bisexuality must be understood not as a blend of hetero- and homosexualities, but rather as a unique experience that is subject, at various times, both to homophobia and to another form of discrimination: monosexism. I argue that bisexual erasure, discrimination, and oppression – monosexism – in theatre reinforces and is reinforced by bisexual erasure in the broader culture. Building on the work of Judith Butler, Jill Dolan, Sam See, and others, I suggest that greater awareness of bisexuality in theatre studies might play a part in destigmatizing bisexuality and making offstage bisexual lives more legible and more liveable. The article goes on to analyze representations of bisexuality in three contemporary English-language plays: Stop Kiss (2000) by American playwright Diana Son, Cock (2009) by British playwright Mike Bartlett, and Smoke (2022) by Canadian playwright Elena Belyea.

In her plays, debbie tucker green depicts how Black women transcend sheer subjection and achieve autonomy to deal with colonial oppression, socioeconomic inequalities, and male hegemony. In her 2005 play trade , she addresses interlocking sexism, classism, and racism that have subjugated Black women. tucker green creates a single-sex atmosphere in which white female sexuality is not celebrated at the expense of Black female/male identity and subverts hegemonic masculinity and racial objectification through shattered stereotyping. This article scrutinizes tucker green’s trade by means of the concepts of womanism and agency as strategies to oppose the hegemonic racial, sexual, and social norms, and to examine the development of female (subject) identity. Concerned with both racial and sexual survival, womanism is a strategy employed by Black women to achieve agency through the empowering dynamics of “audacity” and “communitarianism.” Judith Butler’s concept of agency is depicted through the stereotyped characters – Regular, Novice, and Local – and their subversion. tucker green’s proclivity for a structural experimentalism resists stereotyped and coded hegemonic behaviour. She employs cross-race and double casting techniques to challenge sexual identities determined by dominant sexual ideologies. The process of transition to agency and the gradual movement from subjection to resistance is observable not only in the metatheatrical structure of the play but also in the performative language of the characters as constructive steps towards subjectivity.