Translating Austerity: Theatrical Responses to the Financial Crisis. In: Adisesheah, S; Lepage, L, Ed

O'Thomas M. Translating Austerity: Theatrical Responses to the Financial Crisis. In: Adisesheah, S; Lepage, L, ed. Twenty-First Century Drama. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp.129-148. Copyright: This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an chapter published in Twenty-First Century Drama. The definitive publisher-authenticated version O'Thomas M. Translating Austerity: Theatrical Responses to the Financial Crisis. In: Adisesheah, S; Lepage, L, ed. Twenty-First Century Drama. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp.129-148. is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-48403-1_7 Date deposited: 20/10/2016 Embargo release date: 18 June 2019 Newcastle University ePrints - eprint.ncl.ac.uk 4JÉO"EJTFTIJBI t -PVJTF-F1BHF 2 &EJUPST 3 Twenty-First Century 4 Drama 5 8IBU)BQQFOT/PX 6 Editors Siân Adiseshiah -PVJTF-F1BHF [AU1] -JODPMO4DIPPMPG)VNBOJUJFTBOE 6OJWFSTJUZPG3FBEJOH 1FSGPSN 3FBEJOH 6OJUFE,JOHEPN 6OJWFSTJUZPG-JODPMO -JODPMO 6OJUFE,JOHEPN *4#/*4#/ F#PPL DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-48403-1 -JCSBSZPG$POHSFTT$POUSPM/VNCFS ª5IF&EJUPS T JGBQQMJDBCMF BOE5IF"VUIPS T 5IFBVUIPS T IBTIBWFBTTFSUFEUIFJSSJHIU T UPCFJEFOUJåFEBTUIFBVUIPS T PGUIJTXPSL JOBDDPSEBODFXJUIUIF$PQZSJHIU %FTJHOTBOE1BUFOUT"DU 5IJT XPSL JT TVCKFDU UP DPQZSJHIU "MM SJHIUT BSF TPMFMZ BOE FYDMVTJWFMZ MJDFOTFE CZ UIF 1VCMJTIFS XIFUIFSUIFXIPMFPSQBSUPGUIFNBUFSJBMJTDPODFSOFE TQFDJåDBMMZUIFSJHIUTPG USBOTMBUJPO SFQSJOUJOH SFVTF PG JMMVTUSBUJPOT SFDJUBUJPO CSPBEDBTUJOH SFQSPEVDUJPO PO NJDSPåMNTPSJOBOZPUIFSQIZTJDBMXBZ BOEUSBOTNJTTJPOPSJOGPSNBUJPOTUPSBHFBOESFUSJFWBM FMFDUSPOJD BEBQUBUJPO DPNQVUFS TPGUXBSF PS CZ TJNJMBS PS EJTTJNJMBS NFUIPEPMPHZ OPX LOPXOPSIFSFBGUFSEFWFMPQFE 5IFVTFPGHFOFSBMEFTDSJQUJWFOBNFT SFHJTUFSFEOBNFT USBEFNBSLT TFSWJDFNBSLT FUDJOUIJT QVCMJDBUJPOEPFTOPUJNQMZ FWFOJOUIFBCTFODFPGBTQFDJåDTUBUFNFOU UIBUTVDIOBNFTBSF FYFNQU GSPN UIF SFMFWBOU QSPUFDUJWF MBXT BOE SFHVMBUJPOT BOE UIFSFGPSF GSFF GPS HFOFSBM use. 5IFQVCMJTIFS UIFBVUIPSTBOEUIFFEJUPSTBSFTBGFUPBTTVNFUIBUUIFBEWJDFBOEJOGPSNBUJPO JOUIJTCPPLBSFCFMJFWFEUPCFUSVFBOEBDDVSBUFBUUIFEBUFPGQVCMJDBUJPO/FJUIFSUIFQVC- MJTIFSOPSUIFBVUIPSTPSUIFFEJUPSTHJWFBXBSSBOUZ FYQSFTTPSJNQMJFE XJUISFTQFDUUPUIF NBUFSJBMDPOUBJOFEIFSFJOPSGPSBOZFSSPSTPSPNJTTJPOTUIBUNBZIBWFCFFONBEF $PWFSJMMVTUSBUJPOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY 1SJOUFEPOBDJEGSFFQBQFS 5IJT1BMHSBWF.BDNJMMBOJNQSJOUJTQVCMJTIFECZ4QSJOHFS/BUVSF 5IFSFHJTUFSFEDPNQBOZJT.BDNJMMBO1VCMJTIFST-UE-POEPO For Lucien and Xanthe CONTENTS 1 Introduction: What Happens Now 1 4JÉOù"EJTFTIJBIBOEù-PVJTFù-F1BHF Part 1 Beyond Postmodernism: Changing Perspectives on Drama 15 2 Room for Realism? 17 &MBJOFù"TUPO 3 Beyond Belief: British Theatre and the ‘re-enchantment of the world’ 37 $ISJTù.FHTPO 4 The Emancipated Shakespeare: or, What You Will 59 4UFQIFOù#PUUPNT 5 The Twenty-First-Century History Play 81 1BPMBù#PUIBN WJJ WJJJ CONTENTS Part 2 Austerity and Class Returns 105 6 Back to the Future: Gendering the Economy in Twenty-First-Century Drama 107 -PVJTFù0XFO 7 Translating Austerity: Theatrical Responses to the Financial Crisis 129 .BSLù05IPNBT 8 ‘Chavs’, ‘Gyppos’ and ‘Scum’? Class in Twenty-First-Century Drama 149 Siân Adiseshiah Part 3 Borders, Race, Nation 173 9 These Green and Pleasant Lands: Travellers, Gypsies and the Lament for England in Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem 175 /BEJOFù)PMETXPSUI 10 ‘Sexy Kilts with Attitude’: Scottish Theatre in the Twenty-First Century 191 5SJTIù3FJE 11 The Politics of Innocence in Contemporary Theatre about Refugees 213 &NNBù$PY Part 4 New Humans, New Dramaturgies, New Worlds 237 12 The New Genetics, Genocide and Caryl Churchill 239 .BSZù-VDLIVSTU CONTENTS JY 13 Twenty-First-Century Casting: Katie Mitchell, Cognitive Science and ‘painting with people’ 257 .BSJFù,FMMZ 14 ‘Thinking Something Makes It So’: Performing Robots, the Workings of Mimesis and the Importance of Character 279 -PVJTFù-F1BHF 15 Anthropo-Scenes: Staging Climate Chaos in the Drama of Bad Ideas 303 Una Chaudhuri Select Bibliography 323 Index 339 CHAPTER 7 1 Translating Austerity: Theatrical Responses 2 to the Financial Crisis 3 [AU1] Mark O’Thomas 4 A NEW DRAMA UNFOLDS 5 On 9 October 2014, a Greek tragedy of national proportions was enacted 6 as Loukanikos, the stray dog who came to fame in the anti-austerity pro- 7 tests, rolled over and died.1 If, for a moment, it might have seemed that 8 the campaign against the externally imposed cuts had stalled, within four 9 months it rose to new giddy heights as the Greek people brought rank out- 10 sider Syriza to power in an election result that rocked the European estab- 11 lishment causing Germany to entertain the possibility of a future European 12 Union without Greece. Meanwhile, in the rest of Europe the protests 13 against austerity measures have certainly not stopped as the fnancial crisis 14 rolls on into what is now its eighth year. Public-sector workers in Portugal 15 went on strike in November 2014 in protest against the government’s 16 decision to extend cuts even further, while days after Syriza’s January 2015 17 election victory, Madrid was brought to a standstill in a popular struggle 18 against a set of measures that has seen one in four of the young workforce 19 unemployed. While the UK may be seemingly on the cusp of a tentative, 20 post-election recovery, much of the rest of Europe continues to ride an 21 economic maelstrom which has seen no tangible improvement in people’s 22 M. O’Thomas (*) School of Fine and Performing Arts, University of Lincoln, Brayford Pool, LN67TS Lincoln, UK © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 129 S. Adiseshiah, L. LePage (eds.), Twenty-First Century Drama, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-48403-1_7 130 M. O’THOMAS 23 lives since the 2007 fnancial crisis. This is the story of early twenty-frst- 24 century Europe – an epic drama whose narrative continues to affect all of 25 our lives and whose consequences will impact on generations to come. 26 In this chapter, I look at the development of theatre’s engagement with 27 twenty-frst-century European austerity as a way of understanding how 28 new plays produced in the UK relate to the social and economic conditions 29 apparent elsewhere in Europe. In doing so, I am particularly interested in 30 how recent examples of that engagement use translation to eclipse borders 31 and challenge theatrical forms, offering us new ways of understanding 32 both theatre and translation itself. Translation is a process that inherently 33 engages in transformations of some kind. As translation scholar Laurence 34 Raw has noted, both (literary) translation and adaptation involve complex 35 processes of transformation that engage with social and political issues as 36 they mediate them towards a new aesthetic end (2012, p. 6). The media- 37 tion of austerity lies at the centre of this chapter as I investigate its various 38 theatrical renderings. At a moment of history when macro economics and 39 local fscal policy have become powerful ideological tools with profound 40 social consequences, cultural production affords the possibility for gener- 41 ating new communities of artists and audiences who can reinvent modes 42 of theatrical discourse through and beyond linguistic exchange. 43 As recent events such as the Scottish referendum have shown, Britain 44 remains far from being a kingdom united around common cultural val- 45 ues and ideals. However, it nevertheless shares playwriting as its national 46 dominant theatrical form which continues to shine as an important cultural 47 marker of international reputational signifcance for the country as a whole. 48 To talk of twenty-frst-century UK drama in any meaningful way appears 49 almost inevitably to demand a discussion of twenty-frst-century British 50 plays written by playwrights who seek to maintain the voice of an alterna- 51 tive. Within this perennial paradox for art forms that always err towards 52 the oppositional – the anti- and the counter – it is playwrights, who are so 53 often middle class, who write about the social consequences of austerity in 54 ways that suggest a growing chasm between the articulators of the issue and 55 those living at the sharp end of its consequences in ways that mirror the- 56 atre’s ongoing meditation and deconstruction of what it means to be mid- 57 dle class.2 If Margaret Thatcher’s infamous rejection of the term ‘society’3 58 has any resonance for today, it might be found in the disjuncture between 59 communities of artists and communities of what in popular political par- 60 lance has become formulated as the ubiquitous touchstone for meaningful 61 discourse: ‘working people’. The word ‘community’ in this regard is neces- TRANSLATING AUSTERITY: THEATRICAL RESPONSES TO THE FINANCIAL CRISIS 131 sarily complex, evoking a sense of shared interest, shared values and mutual 62 support. Within the apparent fractured state of these two groupings that so 63 clearly should share a common interest (an end to austerity) through the 64 mutual support offered (by the sharing of ideas and empathetic understand- 65 ing), translation offers up a mode in which a coming together of these com- 66 munities might be initiated and facilitated. This ‘coming community’, to 67 borrow Giorgio Agamben’s bold reappraisal of the notion of ‘community’ 68 itself (1993), is one in which translation for the stage becomes an engine 69 that drives a process of transformation that extends far beyond the bound- 70 aries of theatrical discourse. Within this regard, Vicky Featherstone’s open- 71 ing season as new Artistic

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