Re-Place

What role does nature play in the cultural world of the theatre? Is the auditorium not a natural environment, and how can theatre and nature aesthetics co-exist in the productive expression of performance? Re-Place: Irish Theatre Environments proposes a new way of thinking about Irish theatre: one that challenges established boundaries between nature and culture and argues for theatre performances to be seen as conceptual ecological environments. Broadening the scope of theatre environments to encompass radiophonic and digital spaces, Re-Place is a timely interrogation of how we understand performance history. This book examines the work, both as text and in production, of three canonical Irish playwrights, J. M. Synge, Samuel Beckett and Brian Friel, and looks at how theatre documentation can further the idea of a natural performance environment. The questions under consideration extend Irish theatre history into the field of the environmental humanities and draw on new materialist discourse to offer exciting and innovative ways to approach performance.

Auteur

Lisa FitzGerald is an environmental historian and ecocritic whose research interests include the role of nature in theatre and performance, environmental art practice, eco-digital art, urban ecologies and the relationship between nature and technology. She holds a PhD from the National University of Ireland, Galway and is a fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich. Her forthcoming project, Eco-Digital Art: Nature and New Media Aesthetics, examines the ecological implications of artistic representations of the natural world in digital and new media art and the emergence of «new natures» from within the digital sphere.

Contenu

CONTENTS: Conceptual Ecological Environments - J. M. Synge and the Emergence of Irish Ecodrama - «Oh to be in Atoms»: Samuel Beckett's Material Exchanges - Ballybeg and the Conceptual Fifth Province - Digital Environments and Performance Documentation - Making a Space for Ecological Thinking.