Bloomsbury Methuen Drama Research Articles

Rachel Fensham. Theory for Theatre Studies: Movement. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2021, x + 191 pp., £14.99 (paperback), £45.00 (hardback), £13.49 (ebook).

Rachel Fensham. <i>Theory for Theatre Studies: Movement</i>. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2021, x + 191 pp., £14.99 (paperback), £45.00 (hardback), £13.49 (ebook).

The Life of Training by John Matthews (review)

Reviewed by: The Life of Training by John Matthews Garret Camilleri THE LIFE OF TRAINING. John Matthews. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2019; pp. 216. John Matthews’ book, The Life of Training, is the third of his printed works positioned between the Philosophy and Drama subjects in the library. From the text’s introduction, readers will join the continuation of Matthews’ studies on performance training linked to the human experience seen in his previous works: Training for Performance (2011) and Anatomy of Performance (2014). Matthews› text is grounded heavily in Hannah Arendt›s research on the convergence between thinking, willing, and judging from her book, The Life of the Mind (1978). The Life of the Mind shares many overlapping concepts with Matthews as they examine human thought concerning external stimuli, thought versus thinking, and the human experience of time. The Life of Training explores the connection between thinking and training within the context of time, framed by Theatre. It does not aspire to transfer practical applications of pedagogy or techniques. Instead, it considers «how training as a process indivisible from thinking constitutes the temporal aspect of the human experience of living, which will necessarily be constituted differently in this life or that life» (24). Matthews claims that all forms of training are inseparable from time and therefore produce it. He argues that training arises from an actor›s past (knowledge). Actors, as trainees, engage their history with their future, which is [End Page 116] the destination of their efforts. Consequently, all training is then honed within the present (Now); time informs training, and training informs the human experience of time. While each chapter ahistorically engages in independent conversations around performance training, a throughline of this book is general temporality. One of the book’s strengths is its supportive research. In preparation, Matthews conducted a series of interviews with co-workers at the Theatre Royal Plymouth in the United Kingdom. While instructing and directing the theatre’s acting program, Matthews discovered a shared sentiment from his conversations: “training is being done better in other fields; that institutions of sport in particular... are training practitioners of these crafts better than actor-training institutions” (7). His interviews continued to other performance-based disciplines, like an Olympic dive team, which supports his thesis in chapter four. Although it is not a unique comparison, I appreciated the link between occupations and often highlighted passages deviating from the theatre. The Life of Training’s methodological framework is thoughtfully scaffolded and logical. The bibliography will appeal to a broad cross-section of readership as Matthews borrows from established canon frameworks (Stanislavsky, Grotowski, and Suzuki) while inviting international voices to join his discourse. The documentation reinforcing his arguments ranges from Heinrich von Kleist›s essay, Über das Marionettentheater, to Etienne Souriau›s book, La Correspondance des Arts. The Life of Training is a rich but dense contribution to conditioning and performance theory, and the book may leave more questions than explanations for many theatre practitioners. Unless you are already aware of the numerous philosophical concepts mentioned in this book, you should not expect an encyclopedic dive into their inner workings. The Life of Training divides into seven chapters that correspond with a biological characteristic of human life: Homeostasis, Growth, Stimulation, Organization, Adaptation, Reproduction, and Heritability. The scope of topics in this book is discursively vast. Readers will find themselves revisiting historical figures like David Garrick, then on the next page, they will read about nuclear war, robot uprising, and how training could be the reason for our extinction “amid an increasingly threatening environment that humans themselves have helped to create” (103). Each chapter begins with an anthropomorphized marionette illustration by the artist Andy Park. Park’s sketches are a welcome addition to the book because they embody the chapter’s theme and visually reinforce them. Each chapter then functions as a stand-alone analysis of a particular human condition that relates to temporality in performance training. For example, in chapter three, “Stimulation,” Matthews discusses the nebulous concept of Now (in-the-moment performance) and its relationship to training through actions that contribute to the development of humankind. An argument in «Stimulation» is that Now, is not what “we generally...

The Theatre of Anthony Neilson by Trish Reid

Reviewed by: The Theatre of Anthony Neilson by Trish Reid Marc Shaw (bio) Trish Reid. The Theatre of Anthony Neilson. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017. Pp viii + 215. $60. Trish Reid's book The Theatre of Anthony Neilson is the first full-length study of the Scottish playwright's work, making it an important moment in Anthony Neilson scholarship. Up until now, Neilson scholars have published single chapters or journal articles that explore one to three of Neilson's plays in the context of contemporary writing (British, Scottish) or an academic angle (e.g., mental health, spectatorship). Reid's thorough book covers all sixteen of Neilson's works from 1991 to 2016, even unpublished manuscripts; and, Reid often shines a scholarly light on a particular moment that illuminates Neilson's characters in fresh ways, proving that his work is ready for this deeper critical study. Before The Theatre of Anthony Neilson, one of the most thorough examinations of his work came in Aleks Sierz's chapter contextualized as part of the 90s "In-Yer-Face" label. Reid's book is more academic than Sierz's work, and she presents Neilson as a theatre-maker who coaxes his new productions in inventive ways—as writer, director, collaborator. Sierz gives us excellent, detailed descriptions and analyses of early Neilson plays like Penetrator, The Censor, and Normal, but Reid goes deeper into theoretical ideas. With Penetrator, for example, Reid applies Judith Butler and other scholars to more deeply deconstruct the main characters' gender identities—an approach that opens up our understanding of Tadge especially. In the next chapter, Reid applies Peggy Phelan's psychoanalytic ideas to Normal, arguing that the empirical real and the imagined can hold equal weight in the characters' minds and in our reading—questioning what is "normal" by showing the effect the Dusseldorf Ripper (Kurten) has on his young lawyer (Wehner). As the play gets increasingly subjective in the second half, the blur between rational and irrational is important because "Neilson seems at once to disapprove and yet also approve of the notion that the subjective rebel, the individual who privileges inner and outer realities, should be true to his calling, whatever the cost, and perhaps even to suggest that this figure is more like us than not" (53). Reid also presents Neilson as more theatre-maker than playwright, explaining that, "as the new millennium dawned, critics viewing his work through the prism of in-yer-face began to look forward to a new Neilson piece in the expectation of something reliably controversial and sexually explicit. It was at this point that Neilson changed direction," focusing on "formal experimentation as … choice of subject matter" (5, 7). While David Lane had mentioned Neilson as a theatrical deviser who uses actors as part of his writing process, the exploration is not as detailed and informative as what we find in Reid's book. [End Page 435] Wisely, Reid never favors one particular theoretical approach over another. Past academic explorations in Neilson scholarship have analyzed his work through such lenses as camp, pornography, the sublime, spectatorship, and madness and psychiatry. Reid builds on that prior scholarship as she divides her book into different strands of analysis that she calls "Dramaturgies …" These show the variety of Neilson's foci in his writing, including his dramaturgies of (1) Love: Relationship Plays; (2) Horror: Staging Nightmares; (3) Imagination: Looking Inside; (4) Generosity: Seasonal Entertainment; and (5) Presence: Staging Liveness. Several times Reid mentions the difficulty in finding through-lines to someone's life work, but these divisions work well, especially in the career of someone like Neilson, who has written on such a wide range of subject matter. Within each individual chapter, Reid explores the plays that fit that given dramaturgy chronologically. Hence chapter 1, "Dramaturgies of Love: Relationship Plays," covers Penetrator (1993), The Censor (1997), and Stitching (2002). Reid focuses on Neilson's collaborative creative process too: she explains that "rather than arriving on the first day of rehearsals with a finished play, or even a draft, Neilson begins with little more than an idea and a group of actors and designers with whom he then develops the show during the rehearsal period" (2...

Clare Finburgh. Watching War on the Twenty-First Century Stage: Spectacles of Conflict. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017, xv + 355 pp., £76.50 (hardback), £26.99 (paperback), £21.59 (PDF ebook).

Article Clare Finburgh. Watching War on the Twenty-First Century Stage: Spectacles of Conflict. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017, xv + 355 pp., £76.50 (hardback), £26.99 (paperback), £21.59 (PDF ebook). was published on November 1, 2021 in the journal Journal of Contemporary Drama in English (volume 9, issue 2).

Molly Mullen. Applied Theatre: Economies. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2019, xiv + 265 pp., £38.31 (hardback), £31.10 (paperback), £22.58 (Kindle ebook).

Article Molly Mullen. Applied Theatre: Economies. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2019, xiv + 265 pp., £38.31 (hardback), £31.10 (paperback), £22.58 (Kindle ebook). was published on November 1, 2021 in the journal Journal of Contemporary Drama in English (volume 9, issue 2).

Contemporary Scenography: Practices and Aesthetics in German Theatre, Arts and Design ed. by Birgit E. Wiens

Reviewed by: Contemporary Scenography: Practices and Aesthetics in German Theatre, Arts and Design ed. by Birgit E. Wiens Barbora Příhodová CONTEMPORARY SCENOGRAPHY: PRACTICES AND AESTHETICS IN GERMAN THEATRE, ARTS AND DESIGN. Edited by Birgit E. Wiens. Performance + Design. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2019; pp. 248. Depending on the culture one comes from, scenography remains a contested term, innovative and useful for some, for others obscure or compromised. Even as a growing number of scholars writing in English have embraced the term, there is no universal consensus on its meaning. The book Contemporary Scenography: Practices and Aesthetics in German Theatre, Arts and Design, edited by Birgit E. Wiens, is a welcome contribution to the discussion, as it brings perspectives from German-speaking countries whose strong tradition of theatre and performance design is well known. Focusing on scenography in Germany after 1989 (with some examples from Austria and Switzerland) and intended for international readership, the book draws on the conference The Art of Scenography: Epistemes and Aesthetics (2016) that Wiens, adjunct senior lecturer at LMU/University of Munich and the author of Intermediale Szenographie (2014), organized as part of her larger research project. The volume consists of twelve chapters, containing a combination of analyses and reflections by artists and academics, as well as conversations with scenographers and artists. The book is divided in three parts: "Part One: Scenography in and beyond the Theatre: Aesthetics and Epistemes," "Part Two: Circulation of Scenographic Knowledge and Cultural Transfer," and "Part Three: Rethinking Scenography," in addition to the editor's robust critical introduction and a "preliminary résumé" by the editor in conversation with the architect and scenographer Serge von Arx. Finding her own place among the multiple definitions of scenography, Wiens borrows from Michel Foucault to designate it a "dispositif," or "a praxis and a discourse within a cultural and social framework" (26). This definition allows her to consider not only the production of scenography, which traditionally receives most critical attention, but also its reception and its "institutional contexts and discursive settings" (27). Wiens then delineates dual aims for her project: to "grasp the various concepts of scenography" and to "inspire a new way of examining the multifaceted, rapidly changing fields of this cross-disciplinary art and design practice" (6). While her concept of scenography is open and complex, every chapter of the book, whether addressing scenography onstage, in museums and exhibition spaces, or in urban interventions, focuses on space as it intersects with other elements, such as light and projections. Besides a brief mention of Bert Neumann's costume work, costume, for example, is entirely absent. Usually, scenography is conceptualized as an umbrella term for all design elements in performance (sets, costumes, lights, projections, sound, objects and props, and so on), although in lived language, the term is sometimes narrowed down to sets, and therefore space, a perspective that Contemporary Scenography seems to echo. Part 1 is the richest and most expansive, providing insights into the creative processes of prominent figures of scenography, such as Aleksandar Denić, Bert Neumann, Klaus Grünberg, and Katrin Brack. What is therefore revealed is the significance and imaginative force of design in German-speaking theatre. Scenography, as presented here, functions as an equal among performance's components, with scenographers as vital partners in production who traverse the dramaturgical, directorial, and acting processes. Denić, in conversation with Wiens, characterizes his designs as "playgrounds that offer a variety of options," but also "worlds of their own" (40). He likens the moment when he presents his designs before an artistic team to "travelling to some other planet"; it is then up to the team to "survive on that planet" (40). Sophie Rois, one of Germany's leading actresses, who, like the late Bert Neumann, was a long-term member of the Berlin Volksbühne, notes that Neumann's sets, often used as a starting point of rehearsal, worked as "open structures" that were both "resistive," offering "moments of risk and surprise," and also co-performers onstage (51). Rois's is a unique testimony, given that focus is usually on the collaboration between director and designer, but rarely on the interactions between designer and performers. Next, in her intriguing analysis of...

The Theatre and Films of Conor McPherson: Conspicuous Communities by Eamonn Jordan

Reviewed by: The Theatre and Films of Conor McPherson: Conspicuous Communities by Eamonn Jordan Susan Cannon Harris THE THEATRE AND FILMS OF CONOR McPHERSON: CONSPICUOUS COMMUNITIES. By Eamonn Jordan. Critical Companions series. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2019; pp. 248. What exactly does one want from a “critical companion”? That is the question I was left with after finishing The Theatre and Films of Conor McPherson: Conspicuous Communities (2019), the most recent entry in the Critical Companions series published by Bloomsbury for its Methuen Drama imprint. Edited by Patrick Lonergan and Kevin J. Wetmore Jr., the series runs to about thirty volumes, some dedicated to genres, movements, or histories, and others to single authors. Eamonn Jordan’s contribution follows the series formula: about 85 percent of the book is written by him, with the remaining 15 percent made up of a cluster of short pieces by other authors who provide “alternative perspectives”—in this case, an interview with McPherson, critical essays by Lisa Fitzpatrick and Maha Alatawi, and a brief musing by New York Times theatre critic Ben Brantley. Although Jordan is listed as sole author, this book is thus neither a scholarly monograph nor an edited collection, but a kind of lopsided hybrid. Possibly this model was designed for the volumes that synthesize a large body of disparate material into a coherent narrative, with the critical essays [End Page 125] then rectifying some of that narrative’s omissions. Even so, as I worked my way through The Theatre and Films of Conor McPherson, I began to wonder about the purpose of the book-length, single-author survey. If the goal is to gather all the information a scholar might need about a particular figure in one place, it seems to me that something digital and easily updated would do a better job, at least for authors who are still alive and productive. If the purpose is to lay down a baseline for future critical readings of that author’s work, then at some point analysis and interpretation have to take precedence over the collection of information. If the purpose is to provide instructors with contextual material to assign to students along with the plays and films, then we would expect whatever chapter we are assigning to make a clear argument about the work that could then be expanded on or debated in discussion. The Theatre and Films of Conor McPherson only really fulfills the first of these expectations. It provides a comprehensive overview of McPherson’s career in theatre, film, and television, from the early monologue plays of the 1990s through the Bob Dylan–inspired musical Girl from the North Country (2017). It is organized thematically around McPherson’s favorite modes and preoccupations, some familiar (monologue plays, the supernatural) and some more surprising (there is a chapter on “Apocalyptic Dispossessions” and another on Christmas). Even readers familiar with McPherson’s catalog will be introduced to new works, whether it be the profoundly unsettling two-hander Come on Over or the differently disturbing BBC miniseries Paula. As in his earlier Dissident Dramaturgies, Jordan provides valuable accounts of first productions. He also helpfully collates the first round of critical responses to many of these plays and films. Jordan notes in his introduction that he tried “to be as comprehensive as possible about each work” he discusses (5), and in this he has very much succeeded. Jordan also promises readers an analysis and interpretation of McPherson’s work that will take in “gendered arguments” (11) but focus on McPherson’s engagement with neoliberalism. Here the results are mixed. Jordan argues that McPherson’s fascination with small-time crooks is a critique of “the ‘commodification of everything’” that avoids “being simplistically hostile to contemporary capital, which most critics of neoliberalism seem to be” (11–12). This is a reasonable and promising approach. But here as in so many of the later chapters, Jordan marches the reader plot point by plot point through each of the works discussed until analysis is overwhelmed by summary. Chapter after chapter strikes out in a promising direction, only to lose its way in a forest of information and wander into anticlimax. For instance, Jordan devotes a section of his...

The Methuen Drama Handbook of Interculturalism and Performance ed. by Daphne P. Lei and Charlotte McIvor

Reviewed by: The Methuen Drama Handbook of Interculturalism and Performance ed. by Daphne P. Lei and Charlotte McIvor Ric Knowles THE METHUEN DRAMA HANDBOOK OF INTERCULTURALISM AND PERFORMANCE. Edited by Daphne P. Lei and Charlotte McIvor. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2020; pp. 260. The second decade of the twenty-first century saw a renewal of interest in a reinvigorated intercultural performance studies that has been called by some "the new interculturalism" and, at the end of the decade, by the editors of The Methuen Drama Handbook of Interculturalism and Performance, "Wave Three: 'Other Interculturalisms'" (following "Wave One: Emergence and Backlash" in the 1970s to 1990s, and "Wave Two: Consolidation" in the early 2000s to 2010). The third wave that this volume consolidates and advances, the editors argue, focuses on "projects and histories arising from migrant and/or minoritarian practices and practitioners, often in collaborative and community-based interculturalism-from-below" (241). It has featured challenging work by scholars such as Leo Cabranes-Grant, Marcus Chen Chye Tan, and Royona Mitra, as well as Erika Fischer-Lichte and her colleagues at Berlin's International Research Centre, Interweaving Performance Cultures, and notably, in their previous work independently, Daphne P. Lei and Charlotte McIvor, the coeditors of the volume under review. In planning the volume, Lei and McIvor "purposely looked for the hidden crevices and niches, neglected affect, and silent voices," seeking out scholars of "African, Latin American, Middle Eastern, Asian, and Oceanic performances" (1), and it is indeed this breadth and eclecticism of case studies from globally minoritized cultures that is the distinguishing feature and major contribution of the volume. The editors have also provided a useful five-part organizational structure for the book and its subject; a guide, by way of an alternative listing of chapters according to keywords, allowing readers to develop their own paths through the subject; and, in "waves," a new metaphor to add to the already existing crossroads, crosscurrents, networks, rhizomes, and interweavings that have attached themselves to intercultural performance in the past half century. "We believe," Lei proposes, "that theatre and performance studies must recognize interculturalism/interculturalization as a continually unstable and turbulent process. … Ocean waves never visit the shore and return home 'empty handed'—they always leave something behind and take something away" (3; emphasis in original). Finally, McIvor and Justine Nakase have provided a fulsome and extremely useful (for scholars and teachers) annotated bibliography of the foundational texts, major contributions, and keywords associated with each of their three waves. While the editors have provided organizational principles, a structuring metaphor, and a guide to resources, the volume's contributors have offered, for the most part, compelling case studies that fill in some of the crevices in scholarship in a field that has overwhelmingly emerged from the Global West and North. Part 1 revisits what editor Lei has previously called "hegemonic intercultural theatre" (HIT), which exploits the raw material, labor, and performance traditions of the Third World for the financial and cultural benefit of the West. This section features a revisiting by Marcus Cheng Chye Tan of Peter Brook's Battlefield (a distillation of his infamous Mahabharata), in which the politics of listening "re-soundingly" contradict the creators' claims to universality (13). Following up on his important 2012 book Acoustic Interculturalism, Tan offers sound—including accents, vocalization, rhythm, and listening—as an alternative analytical framework to dominant visual ones. The section also includes Emily Sahakian's analysis of Caribbean writer Maryse Condé's An tan revolisyon as complex strategic "inter-theatre" with Ariane Mnouchkine's classic 1789, and Arnab Banerji's analysis of Indian playwright Badal Sircar's problematic repatriations of Western appropriations of Indian theatrical forms. Parts 2 and 3, "Networking New Interculturalisms" and "Interculturalism as Practice," feature two of the strongest chapters in the collection, essays that, like Tan's, go beyond the particularity of their case studies to articulate new and broader principles. Diana Looser, writing about Oceania as "a space of crossings and connections" (78), selects two case studies, not from large, well-resourced sites such as Aotearoa, Fiji, or Hawai'i, but from the Tuamotu Archipelago and Norfolk Island, usually considered remote and isolated, but here shown to be far from...

Ivo van Hove: From Shakespeare to David Bowie Edited by Susan Bennett and Sonia Massai. Performance Books. London and New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2018; pp. xxiv + 237, 46 illustrations. $115 cloth, $37.95 paper, $34.15 e-book.

Ivo van Hove: From Shakespeare to David Bowie Edited by Susan Bennett and Sonia Massai. Performance Books. London and New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2018; pp. xxiv + 237, 46 illustrations. $34.15 e-book. - Volume 61 Issue 3

Contemporary Women Stage Directors: Conversations on Craft by Paulette Marty

Reviewed by: Contemporary Women Stage Directors: Conversations on Craft by Paulette Marty Jacqueline Goldfinger Contemporary Women Stage Directors: Conversations on Craft. By Paulette Marty. Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2019. Cloth $80.00, Paper $24.00. 304 pages. Contemporary Women Stage Directors: Conversations on Craft by Paulette Marty is an invaluable resource for any theatre student or practitioner who is interesting in expanding their knowledge of both the craft of directing and the philosophy behind the approach that different directors bring to their creative process. While interview-based texts often focus on past successes and aesthetics, Marty covers past work while pushing forward to help us imagine the future of theatre, through the lens of prominent directors. This book belongs on your shelf next to recent releases such as Black Acting Methods, which expands on the traditional role of the theatre artist, both in training and in performance. While many texts explore artists' work retrospectively, by interviewing mid-career directors and giving them the space to discuss both the past, present, and future of their practice, Marty crafts a unique experience for readers that allows them to learn from, and imagine with, today's top artists in real time. This results in an energetic teaching text with many jumping off points for in-class discussion about directing, and also provides examples of new approaches to process that students can immediately apply in the rehearsal room. Marty's easily navigable and teachable book takes readers on a clear and multi-faceted journey through a director's process, from selecting an individual project to building a career. Unlike other significant texts on directing, in which interviews of directors are separated by chapter breaks, Marty's text integrates the interviews into chapters organized by theme, which allows readers to more easily compare approaches, ideas, and suggestions. This organizational structure allows for teachers to smoothly integrate the text into syllabi, which are usually arranged by topic. The directors Marty interviews all identify as mid-career, yet they come from a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, interests, and aesthetic drives, which [End Page 164] makes for a thought-provoking and compelling read. This diversity of experience leads to an enormous difference in process, aesthetic, and approach. For example, May Adrales comes to directing from a background in studying storytelling as an on-the-page literary process, while Rachel Chavkin studied with SITI Company and Suzuki which are very physical processes. Both directors discuss how their background influences their different approaches to work, and the author treats both artists' perspectives equally (30). This diversity of perspectives, in turn, will appeal to artists and educators with a wide range of interests. Unlike other texts which tend to favor one or two ways of working, this text embraces many ways of working, which makes it more applicable to more students and general readers than traditional directing books that focus on particular lineages or modes of directing. The directors who are interviewed have each found a way to carve a niche for their voice out of the noise of the contemporary performing arts scene. Their evolutions as artists are captivating stories for artists and students who might be concerned about their own trajectory, which may or may not look like a traditional route to directing professionally. For example, director Adrales notes in her interview, "I was a Modern Studies and Literature major in college and, in literature class, I came across David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly. That was so eye-opening because I had not seen or read plays at that point that offered a political perspective from an Asian American point of view. I started reading all of his work and became so enthralled with it that I began to see a different path for myself (3 0). In addition, this book highlights that a director's individual motivation, insight, and appeal often come from years of internal journeys and external discoveries that coalesce into personal practice. As Sarah Benson says: "The design process is often where I really find a play. Obviously, there's already been something that's made me want to work on this play; but through the design process, I get more specific about why...

The Theatre of Tom Murphy: Playwright Adventurer by Nicholas Grene

Reviewed by: The Theatre of Tom Murphy: Playwright Adventurer by Nicholas Grene Deirdre O'Leary The Theatre of Tom Murphy: Playwright Adventurer. By Nicholas Grene. Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017. Cloth $71.40, Paper $20.96, eBook $18.86. xv + 252 pages. There are several challenges to writing a monograph about celebrated Irish playwright Tom Murphy (1935-2018). First, there is his prodigious output: twenty full-length plays, eight adaptations, six television plays, and one novel. While other writers have also amassed significant bodies of work, the sheer number and variety of dramatic genres making up Murphy's dramaturgy render neat categorization of his work difficult. From the realism of A Whistle in the Dark, to the expressionism of A Crucial Week in the Life of a Grocer's Assistant, the history play Famine, the gangster noir of The Blue Macushla, the domestic drama The Wake, and the allegorical The Sanctuary Lamp, Murphy's dramatic oeuvre is purposefully referential, polyphonic, and frustrating for the writer hoping to describe a singular style as distinctly his. Finally, there is Murphy's practice of revising each of his works every time one is revived. Thus, many of his plays exist in multiple published versions. Yet Murphy's very mix of genres and stylistic approaches warrants Nicholas Grene's insightful analysis. [End Page 143] Significantly, The Theatre of Tom Murphy makes rich use of the Tom Murphy archive, which formally opened at Trinity College, Dublin, in 2010. Grene focuses his study on all of Murphy's original plays, supplementing his analyses with meticulous research into every draft, revision, and author note. The result is a nuanced study of Murphy's complex dramaturgy as a practice of revision, where his dramas are understood as literary texts, performance texts, and texts in revision. Where Grene succeeds most is in tracing and documenting the development of Murphy's storytelling and mapping his plays' shifting relationships with scholars and audiences. His book is an immensely valuable addition to the field of Irish theatre. Grene organizes his study across eight chapters, beginning with the author's critical biography. The remaining chapters are grouped thematically, rather than chronologically. Chapter 2 traces the development of Murphy's first play, On the Outside (1959), and its companion, On the Inside (1974). The works are considered in relation to two other early works, A Crucial Week in the Life of a Grocer's Assistant (1969) and A Whistle in the Dark, Murphy's early breakthrough hit of 1961. The grouping of these plays allows for a thematic consideration of the male characters having been shaped, as well as limited, by the patriarchal grip of the Catholic church, the class divisions rampant in the Irish economy, and the gendered nationalist discourse of the free state. Chapter 3 considers Murphy's attempt to stage plays based on foundational periods of Irish history. While the focus of the chapter is on his major play Famine (1968), Grene links this with two lesser known works, The Patriot Game (1991), a commemorative play about the 1916 rising, and his wildly unsuccessful The J. Arthur Maginnis Story (1976), a spoof history about storytelling and the making of Guinness. Grene considers the relationship of staging "history" in the Active medium of theatre, and considers how the reception of such history changes as audiences are further removed from the historical events depicted. Chapter 4 pairs The Blue Macushla (1980) with Conversations on a Homecoming (1985) and documents Murphy's practice of revision. Grene provides valuable research into the extended eighteen-year genesis of Homecoming. Chapters 5 and 6 focus on themes of location and dislocation, with The Wake (1998) and The House (2000) demonstrating Murphy's use of the most Irish of mise-en-scènes, the rural domestic space. In both plays he considers how material acquisitiveness informs twenty-first-century ideas of Celtic Tiger Irishness. Conversely, The Sanctuary Lamp (1975) and The Morning After Optimism (1971) are not bound by specific temporal or spatial settings—The Sanctuary Lamp is set in a church (religion not specified) and Optimism is set in a forest. In both plays he creates theatre worlds in which time and history are not integral to the...

Postdramatic Theatre and Form ed. by Michael Shane Boyle, Matt Cornish, and Brandon Woolf

Reviewed by: Postdramatic Theatre and Form ed. by Michael Shane Boyle, Matt Cornish, and Brandon Woolf Dean Wilcox POSTDRAMATIC THEATRE AND FORM. Edited by Michael Shane Boyle, Matt Cornish, and Brandon Woolf. Methuen Drama Engage series. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2019; pp. 280. In the twenty years since Hans-Thies Lehmann gathered the disparate work of artists like Robert Wilson, Sarah Kane, the Wooster Group, and Tadeusz Kantor under the banner of "postdramatic theatre," the term has been applied to an ever-increasing assortment of works, artists, and disciplines. Much like Martin Esslin's "Theatre of the Absurd," Lehmann's moniker has taken on a life of its own. This volume seeks to problematize the term by reflecting on its various uses and abuses, and in many cases offering theoretical connections at which Lehmann's work only hints. The volume opens by exploring form as it pertains to performance in opposition to literary analysis. The editors are careful to note that this focus has often undercut concentration on social issues such as feminism, race, gender, and economics. Addressing these concerns, the work is divided into two parts, "Formal Aspects" and "Social Formations." In many respects, this volume can be considered a dialogue with Lehmann's approach, particularly stemming from the influence of his mentor, Peter Szondi. Wisely, Elinor Fuchs offers both a historical overview and a critique of the evolutionary tropes employed by Szondi and absorbed by Lehmann. Fuchs interrogates these critics over the use of a tripartite Hegelian structure in which "[t]he third, 'post' phase for Szondi abandons the classic shape of the pattern, and suggests decay, while the 'post' phase for Lehmann suggests a liberation, and even [End Page 267] a starting over" (27). In an attempt to avoid this culde-sac, Fuchs proposes two divergent categories: "drama," forged from the dialogic tradition; and "performance," which owes a debt to the avantgarde. In the latter, the performative aspects take precedence over literary and textual elements, creating a separate tradition rather than an evolution of a singular form. Fuchs's articulation of this division provides the framework for the text as a whole, which deals with Lehmann's characterization of the postdramatic "rather ambiguously as both a rupture with and a continuation of traditional drama" (33). Throughout, key elements of Lehmann's definition, such as narration, self-reflexivity, fragmentation, disruption of presence, and a shared space between performer and audience, reoccur as iterative themes as well as points of contention. These ideas are challenged on the basis not of validity but rather of the limitations of Lehmann's scope in defining them. Each author addresses one or more of these concepts and broadens the extent to which they can be applied and assessed. Emphasis is given to discussions of alternative spaces, festivals, state-supported theatres, contemporary dance, the Lacanian real, and dementia as devising strategies. Grappling with the limits of Lehmann, most authors employ alternative strategies for analysis located, for example, in the notion of the palimpsest via explorations of specific directing processes and texts; in pastiche, such as in the relatively new form of "concept-dance," in which critical distance and self-reflective practice inform the performance of quoted dance material where "the process of remembering in itself is considered a performative process" (165); and in "broader geographic and political economic forces beyond artist control" (50). "Formal Aspects" tackles the elements discussed by Lehmann in his section on aspects: text, space, time, body, and media. Each is addressed by an individual author in a "chapter" rather than an "essay," a clever approach maintained throughout that allows the volume to articulate a whole built from fragments. Even so, each essay requires a perpetual adjustment to a new voice, complete with a different perspective and theoretical position, and in some cases the chapters read like slices of larger arguments. As a result and to its benefit, the work appears like a multifaceted object, in which each surface allows a different vantage point. "Social Formations" offers inquiry into the avantgarde and the postdramatic within the context of festival performances, Lehmann's notion of the "real" filtered through Lacan, "l'ecriture de plateau" or "set writing" in contemporary French theatre, concept...

Adaptation in Contemporary Theatre: Performing Literature By Frances Babbage. Methuen Drama Engage. London and New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2018; pp. viii + 270. $102 cloth, $39.95 paper, $35.95 e-book. - Adapting Translation for the Stage Edited by Geraldine Brodie and Emma Cole. London and New York: Routledge, 2017; pp. xix + 298, 9 illustrations. $155 cloth, $54.95 e-book.

Adaptation in Contemporary Theatre: Performing Literature By Frances Babbage. Methuen Drama Engage. London and New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2018; pp. viii + 270. $102 cloth, $39.95 paper, $35.95 e-book. - Adapting Translation for the Stage Edited by Geraldine Brodie and Emma Cole. London and New York: Routledge, 2017; pp. xix + 298, 9 illustrations. $155 cloth, $54.95 e-book.

Puppets and Cities: Articulating Identities in Southeast Asia by Jennifer Goodlander

Reviewed by: Puppets and Cities: Articulating Identities in Southeast Asia by Jennifer Goodlander Lisa Morse PUPPETS AND CITIES: ARTICULATING IDENTITIES IN SOUTHEAST ASIA. By Jennifer Goodlander. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2018; pp. 224. In Puppets and Cities, Jennifer Goodlander investigates the relationship among puppet performances, their audiences, and the city spaces they inhabit to determine how such interactions inform local and national identity. An ethnographic survey divided into case studies, the book begins with a theoretically orienting first chapter in which the author characterizes the city not simply as a performance space but as itself a puppet—dependent on human interaction to express identity. Building on the framework of social theorist P. W. Preston, who asserts that identity is a product of locale, network, and memory, the author aligns the city with Preston’s locale, the theatre with network, and the puppet with memory. Goodlander then explores the interrelationship among these elements within specific cities, considering their individual history, cultural values, economies, and traditions. In all, Puppets and Cities is an excellent resource for all students of Southeast Asian puppetry, as well as for theatre and performance scholars more generally. Following a brief overview of major periods in Indonesian history, chapter 2 considers two museums, and the puppet displays within them, as places where history and modernity co-create diverse Indonesian identities. Located near Jakarta’s center, the Museum Nasional Indonesia (MNI) is a product of colonial and postcolonial influences, displaying placards, puppet figures, and collected images of puppets as not only traditional ancient forms, but also as performing objects with specific personalities and characteristics that are relevant today. Within these contexts, Goodlander examines the interrelationship of past and present, and a progression from an ethnographic Dutch colonial view of wayang to an Indonesian postcolonial perspective favoring distinct Indonesian identities. While European influences permeate displays at the MNI, [End Page 399] images of Indonesian independence invoke a sense of nostalgia in the Museum Wayang. Goodlander describes an exhibit of wayang revolusi, which is a modern form of wayang encouraging Indonesian nationalism, as a space where local and global identities are put on display and celebrated. In this way, both museums engage with the past and present as they move toward building a national identity. Chapters 3 and 4 concentrate on puppet performances from Siem Reap, Cambodia, first the 2013 Season of Cambodia Festival (SOC) near the former twin towers site in New York City, and second the 2016 Giant Puppetry Project in Siem Reap. In both cases, Goodlander reveals how the past and the present are renegotiated in performance. The semiotics of the performance space for the SOC Festival’s sbiek thom (large puppet) performance aligned the genocide in Cambodia with the terrorist attacks in New York City, achieving a shared “memory after violence” that amplified the festival’s message of transformation and healing (44). Goodlander discusses how performers reimagine sbeik thom traditions, nearly erased by the Khmer Rouge, to envision a new Cambodian identity through inter-cultural performance. Three years later, the Giant Puppetry Project’s central parade, which brought together local and international audiences, artists, and sponsors, provides an opportunity for Good-lander to rethink the relationship between audience and performance in the formation of community. In her analysis, the parade exposes how Cambodia’s dependence on foreign aid and global influence holds back the reclamation of Khmer identity. Positioning the village at the center of Southeast Asian identity in chapter 5, Goodlander examines characteristics of tradition (country) and modernity (city) in a variety of performances from Laos, Indonesia, and Vietnam, in each case revealing an underlying longing for nostalgia. Modeled on a development in California yet built on a rice field on the island of Java, the residential development of Kotabaru in Bandung, Indonesia was the location for the Gunungan International Mask and Puppet Festival, which presented a traditional Balinese shadow puppetry (wayang kulit) performance with an international aesthetic. Describing innovations such as special lighting, projections, and the co-presence of human and puppet actors onstage, combined with traditional wayang aesthetics and characters in a rural setting, Goodlander illustrates a longing for rural identity within the modern landscape in a fusion of past and present. In chapter...

Firey Temporalities in Theatre and Performance: The Initiation of History by Maurya Wickstrom

Reviewed by: Fiery Temporalities in Theatre and Performance: The Initiation of History by Maurya Wickstrom Rosa E. Schneider FIERY TEMPORALITIES IN THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE: THE INITIATION OF HISTORY. By Maurya Wickstrom. Methuen Drama Engage series. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2018; pp. 264. At the nexus of phenomenology, theatre/performance studies, and the philosophy of time, Maurya Wickstrom’s excellent and finely detailed Fiery Temporalities in Theatre and Performance: The Initiation of History offers a new politics of time that rejects the sense of a stable and triumphant march forward, while imagining a new orientation toward the future and disrupting imperialist and racist histories along the way. For theatre scholars, her book shifts focus from the way performances end (the climax, the denouement, the “11 o’clock number”) to how performances initiate new beginnings and create moments of extended possibility in place of endings. These possibilities depend on Wickstrom’s three theories of time: the new present, penultimate time, and kairos. All three challenge the notion of finite endings as well as, in the case of the second chapter, revolution. As Wickstrom rightly argues, if the conception of time is altered, so the definition of history is transformed. History, in her estimation, is not a narrative of events or movements, but a state of possibility that can bring about new conditions of justice. This reframing is particularly intriguing for the theatre, as plays about history and historical subjectivity have entered a new renaissance—for example, in the works of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Paula Vogel, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Naomi Wallace, and Lynn Nottage. Although Wickstrom does not engage with these plays specifically, her theories of temporality are particularly useful for explaining how plays that are concerned with history manipulate time not only in their dramaturgies, but also in their approach to historical periodization. Although her claims about temporality are complex, she expertly illuminates them through thickly described performance analyses that range over a variety of forms. Wickstrom’s first chapter is a detailed introduction, outlining her theoretical concepts, guiding principles, and terminology. She begins to explore the new possibilities offered by her theories of time in chapter 2, in which she reads a pair of plays on the Haitian revolution through Alain Badiou’s theory of the “new present.” Badiou’s argument is that when revolutionary ideals reappear in different forms in different moments in time, they produce “new presents.” Wickstrom reads C. L. R. James’s Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History and Aimé Césaire’s The Tragedy of King Christophe as successful stagings of the triumph of this new present. For example, in James’s second scene, which dramatizes the beginning of the revolution in a voodoo ceremony, the leaders of the new rebellion harness the energy of both a previous slave rebellion led by a slave named Mackandal and the more recent French Revolution, as Dessalines declares that his comrades’ password shall be “Liberty or Death.” This moment mingles three revolutionary moments by bringing the present and the past onto the stage simultaneously. The “new present” reframes both these plays from tragedies of failure to resurgences of revolutionary possibility. This refocus takes advantage of the theatre’s process of embodiment, by which audiences see these revolutions play out before their eyes again and again. If chapter 2 reinvents the way we see the past, the third chapter uses several performance analyses to reveal how theatre can stretch out the moments before the end. While the previous chapter is inspired by Badiou, this one takes its cue from Giorgio Agamben and his conception of penultimate time—the time before the end (her colloquial example is the time between a diagnosis of terminal cancer and the moment of death). While penultimate time does not prevent death for Wickstrom, the theory changes the way that we understand the meaning of life. Death is no longer the culmination [End Page 121] of life, but existence becomes measured by the time we have to change time. For theatre studies scholars, this perspective shifts attention away from endings and toward process. Wickstrom details her theory of penultimate time using a richly described performance of Gob Squad’s 2016...

Postdramatic Theatre and Form ed. by Michael Shane, Matt Cornish, and Brandon Woolf

Reviewed by: Postdramatic Theatre and Form ed. by Michael Shane, Matt Cornish, and Brandon Woolf Peter A. Campbell Postdramatic Theatre and Form. Edited by Michael Shane Boyle, Matt Cornish, and Brandon Woolf. Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2019. Cloth $144.00, Paper $53.99, eBook $114.20. 266 pages. 10 illustrations. Since its publication in 1999, Hans-Thies Lehmann's Postdramatic Theatre has become a critical site for discussion of contemporary theatre and performance, and the "postdramatic" has become a catch-all for a certain kind of experimental performance work that subverts traditional expectations of dramatic form and theatrical space. This new edited collection, Postdramatic Theatre and Form, includes contributions from an impressive selection of scholars from the United States and Europe, and serves as a critical retrospective on Lehmann's now twenty-year-old monograph as it focuses on the ways that the postdramatic relates to form. [End Page 159] The introduction by editors Michael Shane Boyle, Matt Cornish, and Brandon Woolf begins with the proposition that the study of theatrical form is "the simultaneous entwinement of the overlapping social mediations that give shape to theatre, and which theatre shapes in turn" (1). The chapters that follow demonstrate the efficacy of this approach as the contributing authors embrace contextual readings of both Lehmann and the works discussed in the terms of the postdramatic. The most compelling critique of Lehmann comes in Ryan Anthony Hatch's chapter midway through the collection, "Galleries: Resituating the Postdramatic Real." Hatch argues that Lehmann's "text suffers from an impoverished conception of the real" (133). He takes Lehmann's phrase "the irruption of the real" to task for its acontextual usage, arguing that the Lacanian origins of the phrase suggest that in any aesthetic event there is nothing outside of semblance—the "real" could only be the result of an accident, not a planned part of a performance. Similarly, Nicholas Ridout, in his chapter "Media: Intermission," uses Fredric Jameson's analysis of late capitalism to highlight Lehmann's observations of the role of media in everyday life. Ridout argues that Lehmann's highlighting of "interrupting" drama or theatre is not necessarily an "irruption" because it is already built into the modern versions of the form. As with Jameson's postmodern, there is no way outside, whether as a viewer of theatre or of a piece of video art. These formal analyses nicely complement the skeptical approaches to using "postdramatic" as a descriptive term for certain types of theatre and performance. Most chapters use the term to problematize methodologies that would valorize "experimental" theatre, instead analyzing the inherent complexities of attempts to create performances that do not rely on the world-building that often characterizes the theatrical production of dramatic texts. In her chapter, "Space: Postdramatic Geography in Post-Collapse Seattle," Jasmine Mahmoud examines Implied Violence, an experimental theatre collective that staged site-specific work in Great Recession-era Seattle, to interrogate the ways that performances and their aesthetics can depend on geography and real estate. For Mahmoud, the "post" in postdramatic refers to theatre that finds alternate spaces in part because of economic opportunity, or the lack thereof. Likewise, in "Festival: Conventional Disruption, or, Why Ann Liv Young Ruined Rebecca Patek's Show," Andrew Freidman shares a lively analysis of events at the American Realness Festival in New York City in 2014 that focuses not only on the art and the artists but on the institutional and economic structures that legitimize so-called postdramatic work. Matt Cornish, in turn, provides a valuable object lesson in the inherent privilege of much postdramatic theatre, and the different valorizations of dramatic form in the migrant theatres of contemporary Berlin. In his chapter "Migration: Common and Uncommon Grounds," he shows how the postdramatic, when institutionalized, can prevent marginalized populations like Turkish immigrants in Germany from using their stories to achieve certain kinds of political identity and power. [End Page 160] The discussion of the postdramatic also moves into the process of making theatre and performance. Kate Bredeson analyzes contemporary French theatres that emphasize scenography and landscape over drama and dialogue. Edith Cassiers, Timmy De Laet, and Luk Van den Dries explore the directing notebooks of Romeo Castellucci and Guy Cassiers...

Contemporary Adaptations of Greek Tragedy: Auteurship and Directorial Visions ed. by George Rodosthenous

Reviewed by: Contemporary Adaptations of Greek Tragedy: Auteurship and Directorial Visions ed. by George Rodosthenous Tiffany Pounds-Williams Contemporary Adaptations of Greek Tragedy: Auteurship and Directorial Visions. Edited by George Rodosthenous. Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017. Cloth $108.00, Paper $29.95, eBook $26.95. 296 pages. Contemporary Adaptations of Greek Tragedy: Auteurship and Directorial Visions, edited by George Rodosthenous, is a long-overdue study of the role of the director in crafting modern adaptations of ancient Greek tragedies. Besides being an insightful look at varying approaches, objectives, spectators, and needs, this book is [End Page 145] also a helpful catalog of significant adaptations of Greek tragedy. One of the only other such works that come to mind is George Steiner's 1984 Antigones, though it obviously focuses solely on the legacy of the titular character rather than the variety of classical figures that Rodosthenous's book does. The adaptations discussed, stemming from each of the "big three" (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides), are both stylistically and geographically diverse, including work by artists such as Tadashi Suzuki in Japan, Bryan Doerries and the Theater of War in the US, Ariane Mnouchkine in France, and Theodoros Terzopoulos in Greece. Rodosthenous's collection is part of a wider trend in the last two decades of increased scholarly focus on and artistic adaptations or translations of Greek classics, exemplified by such recent works as Tina Chanter and Sean D. Kirkland's 2015 The Returns of Antigone : Interdisciplinary Essays and Olga Kekis' 2019 Hypertheatre : Contemporary Radical Adaptation of Greek Tragedy. For his part, Rodosthenous centers his collection on the argument that auteurs of Greek adaptations differ from directors due to their substantial control of the play, rivaling that of the playwright. These are worthy of study due to the conversations they spark within various communities: military veteran, Christian Orthodox, and 1960s New York feminist activist communities being leading exemplars. The eleven chapters of Contemporary Adaptations of Greek Tragedy are organized into three parts—";Global Perspectives," "Directing as Dialogue with the Community," and "Directorial Re-Visions"—in addition to an introduction and a short "Exodus." The chapters are written by theatre lecturers, such as Marianne McDonald, directors, like Rodosthenous, and critics, like Andrew Haydon. The introduction clearly acknowledges and discusses in depth the nature and responsibility of adaptations and auteurs, the necessity of a second volume to discuss additional auteurs, the obligation to compile a similar study on comedy, and the value of continuing to produce such old stories. Penelope Chatzidimitriou's essay, "Tadashi Suzuki and Yukio Ninagawa: Reinventing the Greek Classics; Reinventing Japanese Identity after Hiroshima," is one of the strongest in the collection. In it, she discusses the gender-ambiguous version of Medea by Yukio Ninagawa, which incorporates traditional Japanese theatrical conventions found in Bunraku and Kabuki, both customarily performed entirely by men, and how that ambiguity allows for commentary on similar Attic acting conventions as well as the history of male femininity in Japanese culture. Chatzidimitriou argues that the onnagata role of Medea is challenged by Ninagawa's choice of an androgynous character through its rejection of social norms inherent in the play and thus becomes neo-onnagata. This is a useful contribution to a discussion on auteurs, as it demonstrates a fusion of old and new community values. Other productions considered in the "Global Perspectives" section are Suzuki's The Trojan Women, Terzopoulos's The Persians and Prometheus Bound, and various productions by Katie Mitchell in Britain. [End Page 146] The second section of the book, "Directing as Dialogue with the Community," stresses the relationship that can occur between adaptations and the communities in which they are performed. In her essay, "Directing Greek Tragedy as a Ritual: Mystagogy, Religion, and Ecstasy," Magdalena Zira sums this up well with the Greek word Mυσταγωγία or mystagogy, a performance in which an audience is so absorbed that it participates on a spiritual level and is "transported to another plane" (122). Zira connects this idea to the Cyprus Theatre Organization and Nikos Charalambous's The Suppliants, which incorporated Christian Orthodoxy and whose audience had recently experienced the 1974 Turkish invasion and subsequent lack of governmental support in locating missing family members. Other adaptations discussed in this section are...

Fiery Temporalities in Theatre and Performance: The Initiation of History By Maurya Wickstrom. Methuen Drama Engage. London and New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2018; pp. x + 249. $102 cloth, $39.95 paper, $91.80 e-book.

Fiery Temporalities in Theatre and Performance: The Initiation of History By Maurya Wickstrom. Methuen Drama Engage. London and New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2018; pp. x + 249. $102 cloth, $39.95 paper, $91.80 e-book.

The Theatre of Tom Murphy: Playwright Adventurer by Nicholas Grene

Reviewed by: The Theatre of Tom Murphy: Playwright Adventurer by Nicholas Grene Adam Goldstein The Theatre of Tom Murphy: Playwright Adventurer. By Nicholas Grene. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. Pp. xv + 233. $102.00, hardcover. In a more than fifty-year career of diverse creations ranging from productions at iconic international theatres to Broadway, Hollywood, and beyond, Irish playwright Tom Murphy carved a long journey to establish himself as one of world’s most vital and dynamic playwrights. Recognized as an invaluable cultural voice in the exploration of Irish identity, Murphy’s canon explodes assumptions of colonial, postcolonial, and an ever-evolving Ireland through a myriad of dramatic forms, structures, and voices. Cementing Murphy’s cultural significance, Irish president Michael D. Higgins wrote in his official statement following the playwright’s passing in May 2018, “The importance of Tom Murphy’s contribution to Irish theatre is immeasurable and outstanding. We have had no greater use of language for the stage than in the body of work produced by Tom Murphy since his earliest work in the 1960s. His themes were not only those which had influenced the very essence of Irishness, emigration, famine and loss—they were universal in their reach.” This notion of “universality” represents the exciting launchpad for Nicholas Grene’s [End Page 250] extraordinary critical companion book, The Theatre of Tom Murphy: Playwright Adventurer. This wonderfully comprehensive “deep-dive” into the vast landscape of Murphy’s storytelling endeavors to analyze each of Murphy’s works—both major and minor—in the hopes of granting universal viability for the playwright’s work, not only to his native Ireland but to the world of theatre at large. Grene loads the beginning of his work with an assertion that Murphy’s writing, particularly in comparison to his contemporary, the globally lauded Irish icon Brian Friel, is “understudied and undervalued” (xiv). Garry Hynes, artistic director of Druid Theatre Company, echoes this sentiment in the 2018 New York Times report of Murphy’s death, that non-Irish audiences often struggle with his plays because Murphy does not gift his audience easy thematic, narrative, or personal access points. Murphy’s plays are challenging for global audiences to penetrate because as Hynes states, he is “unflinching in his rage about the way things were. He wrote with a very raw essence.” This rawness of essence sparks the subtitle of the work “playwright adventurer,” which identifies both the greatness and the challenge of the playwright in critique. Grene proposes that Murphy is an “adventurer” in that he discovers a story as it emerges and adapts form to fit this emergence rather than write to a predetermined style, outline, structure, or theatrical vocabulary. Through an exhaustive exploration of archival information as well as via significant direct interviews with the playwright himself, Grene guides us into the heart of a writer who follows impulse, delves into the visceral of the moment, and who does not need to know in advance where a story is heading to arrive at powerful catharsis. The author skillfully implies that the challenge for Murphy’s work in achieving “universality” lies in the sheer difficulty in pinning down the playwright’s voice. Murphy’s worlds jump from the page as individual moments in the playwright’s mind that transcend one voice and instead mine numerous the-atrical vocabularies, sounds, tones, and tools in the pursuit of complex truths. Grene examines Murphy’s plays thematically rather than chronologically. He groups works under linking categories that denote important connective tissues that span Murphy’s career. This structure allows the reader to view Murphy’s narrative complexity through a lens of recurring questions, themes, and ideas rather than through a basic linear chronology. Further, by looking at the playwright’s creative process in crafting each story, the book’s framework observes Murphy’s work as incredibly political by identifying it as utterly personal. Grene sees Murphy’s work as universal because it is so universally human despite its often-localized vantage point. The first chapter, “Retrospectives,” lays out the playwright’s biographical [End Page 251] information as well Grene’s key strategy of exploring Murphy’s process rather than just product. Through this refreshing method of analysis...

Ecologies of Precarity in Twenty-First Century Theatre: Politics, Affect, Responsibility by Marissia Fragkou

Reviewed by: Ecologies of Precarity in Twenty-First Century Theatre: Politics, Affect, Responsibility by Marissia Fragkou Shelby Brewster Ecologies of Precarity in Twenty-First Century Theatre: Politics, Affect, Responsibility. By Marissia Fragkou. Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2019. Cloth $110.00, Paper $39.95, eBook $35.95. ix + 233 pages. In 1992 sociologist Ulrich Beck published Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, proposing risk and its management as the defining conditions of contemporary life. Beck's thesis proved exceedingly popular across a number of fields and furthered an understanding of the world as punctuated by a succession of emergencies, crises, and catastrophes. Marissia Fragkou's Ecologies of Precarity offers an alternative theorization of the contemporary moment as not a "state of exception and an unprecedented emergency of huge magnitude" (4), but instead as a social ecology of precarity in which climate change, dispossession, violence, intolerance, and other issues are complexly related. Through an explicitly feminist lens, Fragkou identifies precarity as a trope which, she argues, "carries the potential to reanimate our understanding of identity and the 'human' and our communal responsibility for the lives of Others against the backdrop of a spiralling uncertainty in the new millennium" (10). Although she focuses on British theatre, Fragkou maintains that, as a social ecology, precarity is not geographically bound (12). She aims to shift identity politics as it has been theorized under neoliberalism broadly, that is, as primarily based on individual traits such as race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. This "paradigm shift" from identity to precarity offers potential for new forms of ethical relations in an uncertain world (10). The core of the book analyzes theatrical representations of precarity in a loosely chronological survey of the trope's appearance on the British stage from the 1990s to 2016. As a "sticky" affect in the Ahmedian sense (9), precarity arises across a number of theatrical works. The majority of Fragkou's examples are specific productions of scripted dramas, though she does address a performance installation and a devised performance. By tracing precarity through numerous theatrical examples, Fragkou demonstrates how the trope can either challenge the status quo or perpetuate the conditions that make it possible. The first chapter positions the theatre of the 1990s as a key forerunner of millennial theatre. She [End Page 157] revisits the political environment of Britain which gave rise to in-yer-face theatre, offering an alternate historiography of plays that staged "the good life" (17). The three case studies she examines in this chapter—Mark Ravenhill's Shopping and Fucking (1996), Phyllis Nagy's Never Land (1998), and Caryl Churchill's The Skriker (1994)—all uncover the precariousness of "happiness narratives" (46) that dominated both Britain and Europe in the 1990s. These three plays offer different dramaturgical structures that each show how intimacy can become a space for new relationalities forged through precarity. The following four chapters each analyze a dimension of precarity represented on the British stage in the first fifteen years of the twenty-first century. Each chapter follows a similar structure: historical context, a theoretical frame, and a discussion of several theatrical case studies. Chapter 2 focuses on the affective and political work created by "the trope of the precarious child" (49). Fragkou maintains here that representations of children carry particular anxieties about family and serve as metaphors for general uncertainty in a world of economic instability, environmental devastation, and intercommunity violence. Her discussions of Mike Bartlett's My Child (2007), Philip Ridley's Mercury Fur (2005), and Mojisola Adebayo's Desert Boy (2010), among others, show how depictions of children can call into question ethics of responsibility, witnessing, and vulnerability. In chapter 3, Fragkou illustrates ways that theatre can intervene in environmental precarity, especially through "imagination and affective engagement" (80). She points to several examples, including Complicité's The Encounter (2015), Caryl Churchill's Far Away (2000), and Alistair McDowall's X (2016), which reinvent theatrical representational strategies to reveal the slow violence of climate change. Fragkou shows how the affective work of the theatre can capture the immensity of ecological destruction by emphasizing interconnectedness. Closely related to environmental precarity are human rights, which Fragkou treats in chapter 4. She is particularly concerned with performances...