A Concise Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Drama

List of Illustrations ix
 
Notes on Contributors x
 
Acknowledgements xiii
 
Introduction 1
Nadine Holdsworth and Mary Luckhurst
 
Part I National Politics and Identities 5
 
1 Europe in Flux: Exploring Revolution and Migration in British Plays of the 1990s 7
Geoff Willcocks
 
2 'I'll See You Yesterday': Brian Friel, Tom Murphy and the Captivating Past 26
Claire Gleitman
 
3 Black British Drama and the Politics of Identity 48
D. Keith Peacock
 
4 Northern Irish Drama: Speaking the Peace 66
Tom Maguire
 
Part II Sites, Cities and Landscapes 85
 
5 The Production of 'Site': Site-Specific Theatre 87
Fiona Wilkie
 
6 Staging an Urban Nation: Place and Identity in Contemporary Welsh Theatre 107
Heike Roms
 
7 The Landscape of Contemporary Scottish Drama: Place, Politics and Identity 125
Nadine Holdsworth
 
Part III The Body, Text and the Real 147
 
8 The Body's Cruel Joke: The Comic Theatre of Sarah Kane 149
Ken Urban
 
9 Physical Theatre: Complicite and the Question of Authority 171
Helen Freshwater
 
10 Verbatim Theatre, Media Relations and Ethics 200
Mary Luckhurst
 
Part IV Science, Ethics and New Technologies 223
 
11 Theatre and Science 225
David Higgins
 
12 From the State of the Nation to Globalization: Shifting Political Agendas in Contemporary British Playwriting 245
Dan Rebellato
 
13 Theatre for a Media-Saturated Age 263
Sarah Gorman
 
Index 283

Nadine Holdsworth is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick. She has published widely on twentieth and twenty-first century British theatre and is the author of Joan Littlewood's Theatre (Cambridge University Press, 2011), Theatre & Nation (Palgrave, 2010) and Joan Littlewood (Routledge, 2006). She has also edited John McGrath's collected writings on theatre, Naked Thoughts That Roam About (Nick Hern, 2002) and his Plays for England (Exeter University Press, 2005).
 
Mary Luckhurst is Professor of Modern Drama and co-founder of the prestigious new Department of Theatre, Film and Television at the University of York. She has edited A Companion to Modern British and Irish Drama (Blackwell 2006) and is the author of Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre (2006), co-author of The Drama Handbook: A Guide to Reading Plays (2002), and co-editor of Theatre and Celebrity in Britain, 1660-2000 (2005). She has also edited The Creative Writing Handbook: Techniques for New Writers (1996), On Directing: Interviews with Directors (1999), and On Acting: Interviews with Actors (2002) and Playing for Real (Palgrave 2010). She is a National Teaching Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and in 2012-13 was among 14 leading UK scholars to be awarded an international scholarship in recognition of her outstanding contributions to theatre pedagogy and research.

"As an introduction to contemporary British and Irish drama and its literature, this Blackwell concise companion is excellent.... But be careful, intellectual stimulation is certain!" ("Reference Reviews", April 2009)

"This volume provides valuable insight into the issues and practices of contemporary theater. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals." ( Choice , 1 January 2014)