This book investigates contemporary British and Irish performances that stage traumatic narratives, histories, acts and encounters. It includes a range of case studies that consider the performative, cultural and political contexts for the staging and reception of sexual violence, terminal illness, environmental damage, institutionalisation and asylum. In particular, it focuses on 'bodies in shadow' in twenty-first century performance: those who are largely written out of or marginalised in dominant twentieth-century patriarchal canons of theatre and history. This volume speaks to students, scholars and artists working within contemporary theatre and performance, Irish and British studies, memory and trauma studies, feminisms, performance studies, affect and reception studies, as well as the medical humanities.

Miriam Haughton is Lecturer at the O'Donoghue Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance at the National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland. She has co-edited the collection Radical Contemporary Theatre Practices by Women in Ireland (2015) and published multiple essays in international journals, including Contemporary Theatre Review , Modern Drama , and Irish Studies Review .

Explores a range of performances in Ireland and the UK that engage with trauma and suffering Focuses on figures who have previously been marginalised by dominant patriarchal theatrical and historical canons Considers the staging of a range of traumatic episodes, including sexual violence, terminal illness, and asylum

Autorentext

Miriam Haughton is Lecturer at the O'Donoghue Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance at the National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland. She has co-edited the collection Radical Contemporary Theatre Practices by Women in Ireland (2015) and published multiple essays in international journals, including Contemporary Theatre Review, Modern Drama, and Irish Studies Review.

Zusammenfassung
Contemporary Irish, Northern Irish and British theatre is increasingly staging performances driven by traumatic experiences and events, both individual and collective. Often, these traumas are foregrounded through corporeal and psychic experiences, and relate to sexuality, abuse, racial/ethnic discriminations, mental illnesses and death. This new book analyses how contemporary theatre and performance in Ireland and the UK (including work by Anu Productions, Marina Carr, Sarah Kane, Laura Wade and Theatre of Witness) is addressing, and intervening, in experiences of private and public trauma.

Inhalt

1. Introduction: Staging the Unknowable, the Unspeakable, the Unrepresentable.2. VIOLATION: On Raftery's Hill (2001) by Marina Carr.3. LOSS: Colder Than Here (2005) by Laura Wade.4. CONTAINMENT: Laundry (2011) directed by Louise Lowe, ANU Productions.- 5. EXILE: Sanctuary(2013) directed by Teya Sepinuck for Derry Playhouse 'Theatre of Witness'.6. Conclusion: Relationality.