Contemporary Drama Research Articles

Urban Materiality and Social Change: Mapping the Urban Reality in Mahesh Dattani’s the Big Fat City

Mahesh Dattani’s The Big Fat City (2014) is a representative work of contemporary Indian English Drama that explores the changing mindscape due to urban conditions. This paper is an attempt to evaluate the performance and performativity of the urban inhabitants and their consequential transformation. The paper explores the play at the cross-section of performance studies and urban theory to highlight the influence of ever evolving and fast paced life of city on its inmates with high aspirations, who gradually get stuck in the labyrinthine life with its compulsions. City as a social force works as an organic entity and presents an ambivalent vision of human relationship. Whenever characters fail in realising the pulse beat of time and the changing social system, they meet their predicament that ends in miseries and sufferings. Keywords: Urban Materiality, City Space, Performance Studies, Contemporary Indian English Drama, Mindscape

Speculative Metaphysics and the Culture of Ideas in Early Victorian Britain: The Case of Francis Foster Barham

Abstract This article focuses on the social and intellectual world of Francis Foster Barham (1808–1871) from the late 1830s to the mid-1850s. Barham was a prolific polymathic writer and lecturer whose oeuvre ranged from the classics to theology to esotericism, contemporary drama and literature. Based on wide reading and his interactions with fellow transcendentalists and idealists, he elaborated his own philosophy, ‘syncretism’, a universalising system of thought with applications to political, religious and social reform. This article uses the example of Barham, his philosophical speculations, and the small groups with which he was affiliated in London and the West Country, to illuminate the trajectory of a humanistic discourse—in this case speculative metaphysical philosophy—in the life of relatively obscure people who, outside of academic and scholarly circles, interpreted ‘high’ ideas in their own way. The article suggests that there is much more to be done to understand fully the cultural and intellectual history of the humanities in modern Britain, especially in the thought and experience of lesser-known people and associations. Recovering the history of ideas through such figures, their networks, and their own terminologies can point the way to fresh understandings of the history, nature and processes of intellectual development, including its ‘freaks’ and dead-ends, as well as its manifestation in and as culture.

The hero / protagonist and the recipient in the monodrama “The Death of Firs” by V. Levanov

In V. Levanovs monodrama The Death of Firs, there is an increase in performatization characteristic of the contemporary drama. The character deduced by V. Levanov is linked by an intertextual thread with the works of Chekhov and transforms into a complex personality, whose identity is revealed through a detailed monologue statement. In order to highlight the characteristic features of the recipient and the character in V. Levanovs monodrama, it is necessary to take into account the performative potential of the text and its influence on the transformation of these categories in the monodrama. Thus, the recipient of the monodrama becomes an accomplice of the communicative act according to the principle of total involvement, and the theatrical enactment of the monologue action is deliberately highlighted by the structure of the text. In this regard, it is necessary to reconsider the influence of the position of the such a subject on the receptive potential of the reader / viewer. Taking into account the monodramas orientation to the extremely personal, the loss / search of identity by the character significantly affects the reduction of the distance between the word and the action, the hero / protagonist and the recipient. The purpose of this article is to comprehend the key categories of the character and the recipient for the monodrama on the material of the play Death of Firs in the context of the peculiarities of the monodramatic compositional speech construction. For this purpose, the authors refer to the works of M. Lipovetsky, S. Lavlinsky, E. Davydova, A. Pavlov and others. Meanwhile, the researchers have repeatedly examined V. Levanovs monodrama from the point of view of the anthropological characteristics of the hero / protagonist and the specifics of the narrative organization of the text. In this study, we first attempted to analyze V. Levanovs play The Death of Firs from the point of view of theoretical poetics and a receptive-aesthetic approach.

The concept of style in the scenic interpretation of a musical score

In the aesthetics of opera theater at the beginning of the 21st century, the concept of "style" is applicable only to a musical score. The impact of auditory and visual perception in an opera show contradicts the canons of classical opera, which are always focused on the synthesis of the arts that formed this phenomenon. The article is devoted to the urgent problem of the reform of the work, based on the ideals of contemporary drama. The mechanisms and ways of using the experience of a certain type of theater at the beginning of this century are considered by the author in a general historical and cultural context. The article reviews the innovative trends in the art of the opera singer. The purpose of the research is to present a singer-actor who is part of the operatic text. Using the experience of theater and music sciences, the author identifies the patterns of interaction between theatrical and musical series in the art of a singer. The author concludes that it is important to create scientific methods to research the above issues.

Shakespeare’s Staged Trials

The trials in Shakespeare’s plays are strange. There are no lawyers or professional judges, there may be no witnesses, and the adjudicator often imposes unusual sanctions such as banishment. Most strikingly, almost all the trials are fakes, manipulated by a character toward a predestined result. Two obvious explanations—that trials in Shakespeare’s day were like that, and that trials in the contemporary drama were like that—turn out to be largely incorrect. It is more persuasive to trace the strange features of Shakespeare’s trials to the various dramatic functions they fulfill, yet even this approach does not explain everything.

An Interview with Austrian Bass-Baritone Rupert Bergmann

The editorial board of the journal ICONI is happy to present to our readers an interview with Austrian bass-baritone Rupert Bergmann, a talented, artistic musician, brilliant performer of the classical vocal repertoire, an ardent enthusiast of contemporary vocal music, and a participant of many contemporary music concerts and festivals. Rupert Bergmann was born in 1956 in Graz, studied at the Graz Music Academy, then moved to Vienna, where he has lived ever since. He has performed in many concert and opera venues in Austria and in other countries of the world, where he has sung premieres of works by composers from many countries. He has frequently instigated composers to write mini-monooperas for solo bass-baritone and small chamber ensemble on Biblical plots, or on comic librettos, from Aristophanes’ plays to those by contemporary playwrights. This interview was taken from the musician in July 2021 at the festival Two Days and Two Nights of New Music, where he sang premieres of two new mini-mono-operas.

“Women’s Voices in Contemporary Irish Theatre

The issue of re-establishing the contemporary Irish women playwrights to prominence has gained great attention. Women playwrights feel the need to combat systemic prejudice in the theatre industry, meaning that postfeminists in Ireland are very much present. Although often regarded as a synonym for third-wave feminism, postfeminism has its separate characteristics. One of them is that postfeminism defines equality differently than has been done previously. Equality should not look like androgyny, nor should it be strictly divided based on gender since such a division ignores the human elements of thought, intellect, emotion, and expression. Furthermore, ethical issues in literature have been identified and discussed worldwide for years, not excepting the contemporary Irish theatre. The aim of this paper is to show a notable step towards an increased emphasis on the issue of gender responsibility and solidarity, or lack thereof. The paper also deals with ethical implications and consequences of the ways in which these issues underpin social interactions as well as family and gender relations that Marina Carr and Nancy Harris dramatize in their plays.

L'aspect thématique de Djihad dans le théâtre de Ismael Saidi

The evolution of the theater is always articulated in competition with the development of its themes due to the fact that the playwright most often presents to his audience plays containing themes that are familiar to him, which are drawn from the time in which he lives and which evoke for him an obvious reality, which he could witness. In this context, it should be noted that Jihad represents one of the themes that have occupied a primordial place on the international scene in recent decades. This is why certain studies have been carried out in order to deal with this phenomenon and to determine its dimensions and main causes. Insofar as the theater was forever and still remains the most faithful and sensitive barometer of the social, sociological and ideological changes of the human race, it extends to play a major role in order to shed light on this paradoxical phenomenon and dealing with it. Certain courageous contemporary playwrights, of whom we stopped on Ismaël Saïdi, did not hesitate to take the step to treat this topic via their dramatic works. This author does not only seek to approach jihad from his dramatic art, but rather he gave the name to one of his plays, "Djihad" which appeared in 2014 and which represents the object of this study.

Стратегии коммуникации автора, текста и читателя в современной драматургии

The article discusses the communication strategies used by contemporary playwrights to include the reader in the action of the play. The author of the article notes that the latest Russian drama originates from the “new drama” (or “new new drama”) movement, whose representatives turned to the aesthetics of shock to influence the audience, showing marginal characters in an ugly, disgusting world. Today, the communication strategies between the author and the reader and the impact on the recipient have changed. The researcher aims to consider how the playwrights who came after the authors of the “new drama” build communication with the reader. The tasks that are solved in the work are to analyze the works of modern drama from the point of view of the structure of the action, the series of events, compositional construction and to find in the plays the possibilities for the strongest connection of the reader to the content of the work. As material, the plays by Anya Agapova (“Shop of unnecessary things”) and Daniil Gursky (“activity: fear and awe vol.1”), presented at the festival of young dramaturgy “Lubimovka” in recent years, are considered. The selected plays are interesting in that the authors use constructions that are atypical for dramaturgy, suggesting new ways of interacting with the reader for a contemporary play. As a result of the study, the author of the article comes to the conclusion that the dramatic action, inscribed in the game structures, allows you to activate the processes of perception, give the reader freedom in interpreting the meaning and make him a fullfledged co-author of the work.

Характер перших англійських газет очима сучасника драматурга Бена Джонсона в його п’єсі “Склад новин”

The nature of the first English newspapers through the eyes of a contemporary playwright Ben Jonson in his play “The Staple of News” is considered. These first-born publications inherited from their predecessops – actually the books, socalled “News books”, “Fair bulletins”, “News ballads”, “News”, “Newsletters”, hybrid publications (two pages of printed messages and two blank pages for handwritten information for the areas where there was still no printing press) – a book format and two-column layout, which restrained development of journalism. The things were not better in terms of filling the content of first periodicals. The journalistic profession was just getting back on its feet, and its criteria were developed through a long process of “trial and error”. In addition, the quality of news was strongly influenced by the political factor in the form of censorship bans directed to coverage of domestic political news and ethical behavior of journalists as well as by the economic factor which dictated the fastest possible profit and caused neglecting the reliability of information and other standards of journalistic profession, which were not completely comprehended at that time. On the other hand, the continuous lies or half-truths in the newspapers could also repel the regular and potential readers, and this factor played a restraining role in descent of these publications to the level of gossip and hearsay. The Dutch newspapers were dominated before the appearance of the first English newspapers in the information space of Misty Albion, which came to the attention of Robert Burton, the English clergyman, writer and scientist. Being a skeptic and pessimist, he called his book “Anatomy of Melancholy” (1621) for good reason. In the same year, the first English newspaper “Corante, or Weekely Newes from Italy, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Bogemia, France and the Law countreys” appeared under the Dutch influence. Four years later, the second newspaper “Mercurius Britannicus” was published. The first newspaper was depicted in detail and the second one was depicted briefly in the play of the English playwright Ben Jonson “The Staple of News” (1625). Оbviously this is the first English work dedicated to the newspaper and its journalists.

Детская игра в условиях цифровой трансформации: культурно-исторический контекст (Часть 1)

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of preschoolers’ play within the Information Society. It studies the types of technologies used by preschoolers in the process of play (video games, educational apps, smart and digital toys). It also provides an overview of the existing empirical research, proving that contemporary play represents a specific type of play activity, where physical and digital objects interact in real time. The article discusses different approaches to the analysis of digital play in the context of Cultural-Historical Theory (M. Fleer, N.N. Veresov, N.E. Veraksa). It also focuses on the key differences between technical behaviors and digital play activity. The authors stress the need of transition transition from contrasting traditional play and play, mediated by technologies, to the analysis of digital play as a complex system of child-child and child-adult communities that construct the socio-cultural context of the child’s everyday life.

Femi Osofisan and the process of adaptation

Femi Osofisan is one of the most prominent contemporary Nigerian dramatists, with over fifty plays to his name. This corpus includes numerous adaptations, mostly from classic Western theatre. This article begins by addressing plays by Osofisan that are not adaptations, but that represent critical engagements with fellow Nigerian dramatists. Using a theoretical underpinning drawn from translation theory, it then analyzes the adaptations, focusing especially on those works in which Osofisan’s dramaturgy is most audacious and challenging, especially in its bringing differing historical periods into contact and conflict.

Animal Studies in Contemporary British Drama: The Divide between Stef Smith’s Non-Human and Human Animals

Scottish playwright Stef Smith’s Human Animals (2016) recounts the fictional story of a government exterminating all animals in London with the pragmatic pursuit of building commercial construction sites on their natural habitats. In line with recent trends of thought, dramatic texts are getting more engaged with different natures of the relationship between human animals and non-human animals. In this context, animal studies posit a focal place in the analysis of Smith’s contemporary play, Human Animals. Animal studies take into account the interconnections between humans and animals, thereby making it possible to problematise the concepts of anthropocentrism and speciesism in works of literature. This study aims to analyse Stef Smith’s Human Animals as an example by using critical animal studies perspectives with an emphasis on the essentialist human-animal divide. In a more specific context, the article reveals the impact of anthropocentrism through a case study that exemplifies humanity’s vicious plans to eradicate all non-human beings for the sake of profit and personal interest. Stef Smith presents different characters which embody disparate viewpoints and exposes the anthropocentric nature of humanity. Smith’s portrayal of a dystopian setting not only aims at criticising anthropocentric line of thought but also exposes humanity’s tendencies towards speciesism.

Playing Upon Biographical Myths: William Shakespeare and Lesia Ukrainka as Characters in Contemporary Drama

The article sets out to explore two plays by contemporary playwrights, one American (Don Nigro, Loves Labours Wonne), the other Ukrainian (Neda Nezhdana, And Still I will Betray You), focusing on William Shakespeare and Lesia Ukrainka, respectively, within the framework of “the author as character” subgenre of fictional (imaginative) biography. Accordingly, the article considers the correlation between the factual and the fi ctional as one of its foci of attention. Drawing upon a variety of theoretical approaches (Paul Franssen, Ton Hoenselaars, Ira Nadel, Aleid Fokkema, Michael MacKeon, Ina Shabert and others), the article summarizes the principal characteristics of “the author as character” subgenre and proceeds to discuss how they operate in the dramas under scrutiny. The analysis makes it abundantly clear that in Nigro’s and Nezhdana’s plays the balance between fact and fi ction is defi nitively tipped in favor of the latter. By centering their (quasi) biographical plays on highly mythologized artists of national standing, both dramatists aimed at demythologizing these cult fi gures, inevitably placing them, however, within new mythical plots combining a Neo-Romantic vision of the artist as demiurge, with a Neo-Baroque as well as fin de siècle apology of death and a postmodern denial of one objective reality.

Dramaturgia muzyczna

In her paper, Ewa Wąchocka examines the phenomenon of recent dramatic works becoming increasingly more ‘musical’ and the terminological shift it brought about, i.e. the inclusion of the term ‘musical dramaturgy’ in writing for the stage. The author argues that far from being limited to the sounds of speech and language in general, musicality also encompasses a variety of non-musical sounds, the unravelling of the play’s narrative and the psychological makeup of its characters; it also penetrates deeply into the structure of the text. In the analysis of plays by W. Murek, A. Grzegorzewska, and S. Bogacz, the author demonstrates how essential the inspirations sourced from musical culture are for recent dramatic works: the 20th-century experiments with music, the discovery of how potent sound expression can be, or the most technologically advanced methods of sound reproduction. By presenting the many and varied dramatic strategies, the author shows that contemporary playwrights not only use musicality to represent the sound landscape of the world but, first and foremost, to create the ontology of an internally conflicted world.

Giving Mirrors to Female Prisoners in Alice Birch’s [BLANK

The paper at hand attempts to interpret a contemporary British playwright’s theatrical artistic attempt to present a disturbing social issue and to suggest possible modes of help. In [BLANK], Alice Birch confronts the audience with the ugly cycle of women’s criminal conducts, female criminals’ offending and reoffending. The playwright employs the theater of the absurd as a theatrical medium through which she portrays the absurd reality of these female criminals and their families. To confront and shock the audience with the ugliness of these charterers’ reality, Birch uses In-Yer-Face theater. Birch suggests that the female criminal characters are victims who need proper psychological and medical rehabilitation services to break the ugly cycle of reoffending. The playwright implies a very challenging question for the audience: is it possible to break some patterns of some biological genetic behaviors? That is, can female criminals, in [BLANK], break away from their criminal behaviors that are biologically innate through the help of medicine and psychology not just through some practices of traditional stigmatizing forms of discipline and punishment in the justice system that are often proven to be unreliable means of constraint? By shocking and confronting society with the ugly reality of many female prisoners, in [BLANK], Birch is trying to give these pathetic female characters’ voices, mirrors, selves, forcing society to acknowledge them as human beings who have an essential role in society.

Beasts from the East

This article interrogates the figure of the Eastern European itinerant in contemporary prestige BBC drama to highlight the figure’s role in mobilizing ideas of nationhood and foreignness in Brexit-era Britain. Our critical analyses of Dracula (BBC1, 2020), Killing Eve (BBC America, 2018–), and Call the Midwife (BBC1, 2012–) show that programming that putatively celebrates British multiculturalism and diversity configures the Eastern European foreigner as a threat to idea(l)s of Britishness, by deploying this figure in strikingly similar imaginaries of contagion, deviance, and savagery. Such treatment embeds these portrayals in discourses of white nationalism that seek to manage national belonging by articulating the limits and rules of the national community as implicitly racialized terms of culture and space.

The art of dialogueor „How the Bessarabian playwrights of the 1990s discussed with Plato

The inner mobility of the theater, doubled by the fast pace of life under the wave of postmodernity at the end of the twentieth century, conditioned not only the re-definition of a new theatrical language, but also the re-writing of dialogic forms specific to theatrical art. Or, in the texts of Constantin Cheianu, Val Butnaru, Nicolae Negru, Mircea V. Ciobanu, Dumitru Crudu, Irina Nechit, Maria Șleahtițchi and Nicolae Leahu, dialogue does not only have the classic role of triggering and motivating the action. The (sub)layers of conflict dialogues and „deaf dialogues”, parallel and echo dialogues, seemingly „absurd” association dialogues and „thesis-antithesis” dialogues, the dialogue monologues and the monologue dialogues evoke the alternation of linguistic registers and the play of languages. Completing and continuing the openness to multiple textual styles, the language of dialogues triggers and finalizes the communicative process between written and spoken, but also between text-show-audience. The „palpation” of the types of dialogues and the „immersion” in the mise en abysses of language give us the revelation of deciphering the symbols and meanings of contemporary national and universal drama and theater.

New York City on Stage: (De)Constructing Urban Space in John Guare’s Plays: 1

Abstract John Guare distinguishes himself as a playwright who has represented New York City’s various neighborhoods and has fought realist conventions throughout his work. By relying on considerations advanced by Robert Bennett in his study of the literature, art, jazz and architecture of New York City after World War II, the current analysis shows that Guare approaches the discourse of the global capital of the world deconstructively, just like the post-war avant-garde he is probably familiar with. Moreover, Guare’s own search for experimental strategies reflects that of his predecessors and of the shape-shifting city itself. Included in a volume which is part of the Contemporary Dramatists series published by Methuen Drama, the four plays under discussion are: “The House of Blue Leaves” (1971), “Landscape of the Body” (1977), “Bosoms and Neglect” (1979, 1986) and “Six Degrees of Separation” (1990). Exploring the main characters’ experiences in New York City and their encounters with recognizable (or easily legible) sites of this quintessentially American metropolis, such as Greenwich Village and Central Park, the essay examines how Guare deconstructs urban space, advancing a most original and coherent reading of the city.

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