theatre Science in performance theory•practice •performance• This book explores how theatre and performance practices engage with emerging scientific themes from artificial intelligence to genetics and climate change. It looks at a wide range of performance forms from the spectacle of the Paralympics Opening Ceremony to Broadway musicals; from experimental contemporary performance to educational theatre; from Somali poetic drama to grime videos. It features work by pioneering companies Gob Squad, Headlong Theatre and Theatre of Debate as well as offering fresh analysis of global blockbusters like Wicked and Urinetown. The book offers detailed description and analysis of theatre and performance practices as well as broader commentary on the politics of theatre as public engagement with science. It documents important examples of collaborative practice with extended discussion of the Theatre of Debate process developed by Y Touring theatre company, exploration of bilingual theatre-making in East London and an Science in account of how grime MCs and dermatologists ended up making a film together in Birmingham. The interdisciplinary approach draws on contemporary research performance in theatre and performance studies in combination with key ideas from science studies. It shows how theatre can hold together different ways of knowing and offer an important perspective on what the philosopher of science Isabelle Stengers has called Theatre and ‘cosmopolitics’. Science in performance is essential reading for researchers, PARRY the politics of students and practitioners working between science and the arts within fields such as theatre and performance studies, science engagement communication, interdisciplinary arts and health humanities. Simon Parry is a Lecturer in Drama and Arts Management at the University of Manchester Cover image: Manfred Hild, Myon and the children’s choir of the Komische Oper in My Square Lady. The ISBN 978-0-7190-9920-5 Komische Oper, Berlin. Photograph by Iko Freese SIMON PARRY 9 780719 099205 Simon Parry - 9781526150905 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/30/2021 03:46:42PM www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk via free access Science in performance Simon Parry - 9781526150905 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/30/2021 03:46:42PM via free access series editors MARIA M. DELGADO MAGGIE B. GALE PETER LICHTENFELS advisory board Michael Billington, Sandra Hebron, Mark Ravenhill, Janelle Reinelt, Peter Sellars, Joanne Tompkins This series will offer a space for those people who practise theatre to have a dialogue with those who think and write about it. The series has a flexible format that refocuses the analysis and documentation of performance. It provides, presents and represents material which is written by those who make or create performance history, and offers access to theatre documents, different methodologies and approaches to the art of making theatre. The books in the series are aimed at students, scholars, practitioners and theatre-visiting readers. They encourage reassessments of periods, companies and figures in twentieth-century and twenty- first-century theatre history, and provoke and take up discussions of cultural strategies and legacies that recognise the heterogeneity of performance studies. also available Directing scenes and senses: The thinking of Regie PETER M. BOENISCH The Paris Jigsaw: Internationalism and the city’s stages DAVID BRADBY AND MARIA M. DELGADO (EDS) Street theatre and the production of postindustrial space: Working memories DAVID CALDER Death in modern theatre: Stages of mortality ADRIAN CURTIN Theatre in crisis? Performance manifestos for a new century MARIA M. DELGADO AND CARIDAD SVICH (EDS) World stages, local audiences: Essays on performance, place, and politics PETER DICKINSON Foucault’s theatres TONY FISHER AND KÉLINA GOTMAN Witness onstage: Documentary theatre in twenty-first century Russia MOLLY FLYNN Robert Lepage’s original stage productions: Making theatre global KAREN FRICKER Performing presence: Between the live and the simulated GABRIELLA GIANNACHI AND NICK KAYE Queer exceptions: Solo performance in neoliberal times STEPHEN GREER Performance in a time of terror: Critical mimesis and the age of uncertainty JENNY HUGHES South African performance and the archive of memory YVETTE HUTCHISON Unlimited action: The performance of extremity in the 1970s DOMINIC JOHNSON Jean Genet and the politics of theatre: Spaces of revolution CARL LAVERY After ‘89: Polish theatre and the political BRYCE LEASE Not magic but work: An ethnographic account of a rehearsal process GAY MCAULEY ‘Love me or kill me’: Sarah Kane and the theatre of extremes GRAHAM SAUNDERS Performing the testimonial: Rethinking verbatim dramaturgies AMANDA STUART FISHER Trans-global readings: Crossing theatrical boundaries CARIDAD SVICH Negotiating cultures: Eugenio Barba and the intercultural debate IAN WATSON (ED.) Simon Parry - 9781526150905 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/30/2021 03:46:42PM via free access Science in performance Theatre and the politics of engagement SIMON PARRY Manchester University Press Simon Parry - 9781526150905 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/30/2021 03:46:42PM via free access Copyright © Simon Parry 2020 The right of Simon Parry to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. An electronic version of this book is also available under a Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-ND) licence, which permits non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction provided the author(s) and Manchester University Press are fully cited and no modifications or adaptations are made. Details of the licence can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7190 9920 5 hardback ISBN 978 1 5261 5090 5 open access First published 2020 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Typeset by Sunrise Setting Ltd, Brixham Simon Parry - 9781526150905 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/30/2021 03:46:42PM via free access This book is dedicated to the memory of my sister Julie. Simon Parry - 9781526150905 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/30/2021 03:46:42PM via free access Simon Parry - 9781526150905 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/30/2021 03:46:42PM via free access CONTENTS List of figures page viii Acknowledgements ix Preface xi 1 Science in performance: convergence, emergence and divergence 1 2 Laughing at science in the theatre: Gob Squad, a funny robot and dancing scientists 30 3 Speculative theatricality: dystopian performatives and vertigo aesthetics in popular theatre 64 4 Theatre, education and the politics of life itself: Theatre of Debate 93 5 Commoning sense: translating globalised knowledge in performance 126 6 Performing cosmopolitics 159 References 173 Index 189 Simon Parry - 9781526150905 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/30/2021 03:46:42PM via free access LIST OF FIGURES 2.1 Myon conducting in My Square Lady (image: Iko Freese) page 44 3.1 Earthquakes in London, National Theatre: Cottesloe, London (image: Manuel Harlan) 84 4.1 Brainwaves graphic note (image: Theatre of Debate) 112 4.2 Brainwaves graphic note (image: Theatre of Debate) 113 4.3 Jeanette (Heather Bleasdale), Emerson (Petrice Jones) and Hayley (Sophie Gerrish) in Stunted Trees and Broken Bridges (image: Robert Workman) 115 4.4 Debate questions for Stunted Trees and Broken Bridges 116 4.5 Student self-assessment against learning outcomes 121 5.1 Rachel (Helen Bradbury) in Genesis (image: Chris Payne) 140 5.2 Screenshots from Struggles by Merky Movements (produced for Resource Base by Matthew Walters and directed by Justin Edgar) 154 6.1 Cynthia Hopkins standing in the doorway in This Clement World (image: Pavel Antonov) 169 Simon Parry - 9781526150905 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/30/2021 03:46:42PM via free access ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I did the research for this book over a long period of time and it has therefore benefitted from my relationships with a wide range of people, some of whom I mention here, but there are many more who have helped me practically, creatively and intellectually in a variety of ways, so thank you to you too. I have a very supportive institution and colleagues at University of Manchester. The School of Arts, Languages and Cultures granted me a period of research leave in 2018 which enabled me to do much of the writing of the book as well as a small travel grant that supported research for Chapter 2. Kate Dorney and Jenny Hughes have been extremely gen- erous in providing comments on drafts and being generally supportive and encouraging. Conversations with other colleagues have opened up new lines of thought at various points, through research seminars and a series of reading groups in theatre and performance organised by Steve Scott-Bottoms. Maggie Gale is always a source of wise advice. I have been encouraged and stimulated by meetings of the Theatre and Performance Research Association Science and Performance Working Group and would particularly like to thank Alex Mermikides, Gianna Bouchard and Paul Johnson