Criticising Capitalism in the City and on the Stage: The City Street Movement Occupy Wall Street and Tim Price’s Protest Song

Abstract

Abstract Following the 2022 CDE conference’s concern regarding “how theatre and the city are productively embroiled and [. . .] how contemporary Anglophone theatre has redefined [. . .] [and blurred the] borders between centre and periphery, street and stage, performer and spectator” (Garson et al.), I will focus on Tim Price’s Protest Song, which was commissioned by the National Theatre and was staged there in December 2013. Setting the play in the streets of London in front of the iconic urban space of St Paul’s Cathedral, starring a homeless main character, and transgressing the boundaries between theatrical and actual spaces, Price arguably questions conventional urban and social binaries as well as economic and social hierarchies. With the help of experimental and critical strategies, he examines the city street movement Occupy Wall Street and its repercussions. The present article analyses these strategies and asks how they represent, perform, question, and assess urban hierarchies, city street activism, and the financial sector, as they are symbolised by the (urban and mental) spaces of London as capital and London as city of capital. I will furthermore look into how Price’s strategies reframe social inequality and turbo-capitalism as well as to what extent they redefine the borders between centre and periphery, street and stage, performer and spectator.