Anti-War Theatre After Brecht
Dialectical Aesthetics in the Twenty-First Century
Authors: Stevens, Lara
Free PreviewBuy this book
- About this book
-
Examining the ways in which contemporary Western theatre protests against the ‘War on Terror’, this book analyses six twenty-first century plays that respond to the post-9/11 military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. The plays are written by some of the most significant writers of this century and the last including Elfriede Jelinek, Caryl Churchill, Hélène Cixous and Tony Kushner.
Anti-war Theatre After Brecht grapples with the problem of how to make theatre that protests the policies of democratically elected Western governments in a post-Marxist era. It shows how the Internet has become a key tool for disseminating anti-war play texts and how online social media forums are changing traditional dramatic aesthetics and broadening opportunities for spectator access, engagement and interaction with a work and the political alternatives it puts forward.
- About the authors
-
Dr Lara Stevens was the 2014 Hugh Williamson Postdoctoral Fellow in the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She is the editor and translator of a collection of essays on performance by feminist philosopher and playwright Hélène Cixous, Politics, Ethics and Performance: Hélène Cixous and the Théâtre du Soleil.
- Reviews
-
“Anti-War Theatre After Brecht provides a lucid, highly persuasive argument for the relevance of Brecht’s dialectical thinking about theatre to our post-9/11 moment. Placing Brecht’s theories in dialogue with an illuminating international constellation of anti-war plays, Stevens brings Brecht into the twenty-first century, with dazzling results. I look forward to sharing this book with my students.” (Sean Carney, Associate Professor of Drama and Theatre, McGill University, Canada
- Table of contents (8 chapters)
-
-
Introduction
Pages 1-8
-
Performing the ‘War on Terror’
Pages 9-17
-
From Epic to Dialectical Theatre
Pages 19-50
-
Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul and Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall be Unhappy
Pages 51-89
-
The Théâtre du Soleil’s Le Dernier Caravansérail
Pages 91-124
-
Table of contents (8 chapters)
Buy this book
Services for this book
Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
-
- Book Title
- Anti-War Theatre After Brecht
- Book Subtitle
- Dialectical Aesthetics in the Twenty-First Century
- Authors
-
- Lara Stevens
- Copyright
- 2016
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Copyright Holder
- The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
- eBook ISBN
- 978-1-137-53888-8
- DOI
- 10.1057/978-1-137-53888-8
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-1-137-53887-1
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- X, 224
- Topics
