Afterword: “Your time’s expired”: Spatiotemporal Dramaturgies of the Contemporary

Abstract

Abstract: This afterword responds to the contents of this special issue by returning to Jan Kott’s Szkice o Szekspirze and exploring the fuzzy language around contemporaneity, resonance, and relevance. Contemporaneity in theatrical productions often manifests in either very vague or very specific terms, and often serves a predominantly aesthetic function. Taking the cue of Shakespeare’s time-skipping later plays Pericles and The Winter’s Tale —both of which resist a straightforward depiction of a “now”—and focusing on Cheek by Jowl’s 2018–19 Périclès, Prince de Tyr , this afterword draws together the arguments made throughout this special issue to propose a model of contemporaneity as experiential immediacy, which aligns with recent attempts to understand contemporaneity at the point of reception.