Rethinking Character in Contemporary British Theatre: Aesthetics, Politics, Subjectivity

Cristina Delgado-García

Published by De Gruyter 2015

Rethinking Character in Contemporary British Theatre

Aesthetics, Politics, Subjectivity

Cristina Delgado-García

Volume 26 in the series Contemporary Drama in English Studies

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110333916

Overview
Contents

About this book

The category of theatrical character has been swiftly dismissed in the academic reception of no-longer-dramatic texts and performances. However, claims on the dissolution of character narrowly demarcate what a subject is and how it may appear. This volume unmoors theatre scholarship from the regulatory ideals of liberal humanism, stretching the notion of character to encompass and illuminate otherwise unaccounted-for subjects, aesthetic strategies and political gestures in recent theatre works. To this aim, contemporary philosophical theories of subjectivation, European theatre studies, and experimental, script-led work produced in Britain since the late 1990s are mobilised as discussants on the question of subjectivity. Four contemporary playtexts and their performances are examined in depth: Sarah Kane’s Crave and 4.48 Psychosis, Ed Thomas’s Stone City Blue and Tim Crouch’s ENGLAND. Through these case studies, Delgado-García demonstrates alternative ways of engaging theoretically with character, and elucidating a range of subjective figures beyond identity and individuality. Alongside these analyses, the book traces a large body of work that has experimented with speech attribution since the early twentieth-century. This is a timely contribution to contemporary theatre scholarship, which demonstrates that character remains a malleable and politically-salient notion in which understandings of subjectivity are still being negotiated.

Author / Editor information

Cristina Delgado-García, University of Birmingham, UK.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Acknowledgements Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	VII
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	IX
Preface: Character Remains Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	XI
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. The Life, Death and Second Coming of Character Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
2. Figuring the Subject beyond Individuality Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	48
3. Singular Subjectivities Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	86
4. Collective Subjectivities Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
Appendix: Brief Survey of Character-less Plays, 1900 – Present Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	200
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	208
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	225

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Academics (English Literature and Theatre Studies), Libraries, Institutes
Pages
- Front matter: 12
- Main content: 228
Keywords: Character; Subjectivity; Postdramatic Theatre; Politics of Aesthetics

eBook

Published: November 13, 2015
ISBN: 9783110333916

Hardcover

Published: October 29, 2015
ISBN: 9783110403909