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Dramatising the Political in Contemporary Scottish Theatre & Performance

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Dramatising the Political in Contemporary Scottish Theatre & Performance Dramatising the Political in Contemporary Scottish Theatre & Performance with Dr Rania Karoula The session will start at 12:00 BST. Dramatising the Political in Contemporary Scottish Theatre and Performance Dr Rania Karoula Teaching Fellow in Literature and Theatre [email protected] Images: 1. Leaflet for the original production of Europe, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh 1994. 2. Poster for the play The Cheviot, the stag and the black black oil at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, 1973. 3. Black Watch, photo by Manuel Harlan (NTS). 4. Alison Peebles as Queen Elizabeth I. Photo by Sean Hudson. 5. Production photo of The Suppliant Women, Royal Lyceum, 2016. Defining the ‘political’ in theatre • ‘Political theatre is intellectual theatre. Political meaning is “read” by the spectator’. (Michael Kirby) • ‘The political realm rises directly out of acting together, the “sharing of words and deeds”. The theatre is the political art par excellence; only there is the political sphere transposed into art. By the same token, it is the only art whose sole subject is man in his relationship to others’. (Hannah Arendt) • ‘The theatre can never “cause” a social change. It can articulate pressure towards one, help people celebrate their strengths and maybe build self- confidence…Above all, it can be the way people find their voice, their solidarity and their collective determination’. (John McGrath) • ‘The history of political theatre is also a history of how to use spaces other than the proscenium arch’. (Olga Taxidou) What is contemporary drama? • Theatre written and produced from the 1960s onwards • Drama and the issues it represents/discusses becomes less literary in its prose • Language used is more direct, raw, explicit • More emphasis laid on theatricality: bringing the nature of theatre itself into focus • Theatre becomes a space, a topos, where realities are not simply represented to a passively absorbing audience • Emphasis on the non-textual elements of the theatrical play • The audience is asked to be vigilant, observant, querying and primarily willing to ‘act’ • ‘act’: mental and physical a process of looking and being looked at simultaneously • Theatricality, as a performative act, allows audience and actors to co-exist as equals within the same space and for issues and content that arise to be critically engaged with and considered Contemporary Scottish Theatre & Performance Some examples of contemporary Scottish plays (which are by no means exhaustive!) • ‘The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil’ (7:84 & John McGrath, 1973) • ‘Mary Queen of Scots Got her Head Chopped off’ (Liz Lochhead, 1987) • ‘Bondages’ (Sue Glover, 1991) • ‘Europe’ (David Greig, 1994) • ‘Knives in Hens’ (David Harrower, 1995) • ‘The Architect’ (David Greig, 1996) • ‘Caledonia Dreaming’ (David Greig, 1997) • ‘Puntila and Matti’ (Bertolt Brecht translated by Peter Arnott into Scots, 1999) • ‘Further than the Furthest Thing’ (Zinnie Harris, 2000) • ‘Heritage’ (Nicola McCartney, 2001) • ‘Gagarin’s Way’ (Gregory Burke, 2001) • ‘The Wonderful World of Dissocia’ (Anthony Neilson, 2004) • ‘Blackbird’ (David Harrower, 2005) Contemporary Scottish Theatre & Performance • ‘Home’ (launch event for NTS, 2006) • ‘Black Watch’ (Gregory Burke, 2006) • ‘The Bacchae’ (Euripides – NTS, 2007) • ‘The Artist Man and the Mother Woman’ (Morna Pearson, 2012) • ‘Roadkill’ (Cora Bissett, 2012) • ‘Glasgow Girls’ (Cora Bissett/David Greig, 2012) • ‘Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis’ (Sir David Lyndsay, 2013) • ‘Beats’ (Kieran Hurley, 2013) • ‘The Great Yes, No Don’t Know Five Minute Theatre Show’ (NTS, 2014) • ‘The James Plays’ (NTS – Rona Munro, 2014) • ‘The Suppliant Women’ (Aeschylus/David Greig, 2016) • ‘Glory on Earth’ (Linda McLean, 2017) • ‘Mouthpiece’ (Kieran Hurley, 2018) • ‘Lost at Sea’ (Morna Young, 2019) • ‘The Drift’ (Hannah Lavery, 2019) • ‘Scenes for Survival’ (NTS, 2020) The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, black oil Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off Europe – Further than the Furthest Thing – Heritage Black Watch – The Bacchae Roadkill & Glasgow Girls The James Plays – The Suppliant Women – The Drift 2020 – Covid and the story so far THANK YOU! We hope you enjoyed this Short Courses Online Winter Session. Term 3 Short Courses open for bookings the first week of March 2021. Please visit our website for more information. www.ed.ac.uk/short-courses.
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