According to Jacqueline Lo and Helen Gilbert, cross-cultural theatre as an umbrella term encompasses multicultural, intercultural, and postcolonial practices (32), indicating that it can take many shapes and forms on stage. It is “characterized by the conjunction of specific cultural resources at the level of narrative content, performance aesthetics, production processes, and/or reception by an interpretive community” (Lo and Gilbert 31).
This seminar will take a closer look at four contemporary plays that engage in such cross-cultural practices, including works by Tanika Gupta, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, David Greig, and Joe Murphy & Joe Robertson. We will examine the different approaches that these playwrights take to tell their stories – such as Gupta “transadapting” Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectations, to a different cultural and historical context, or Murphy and Robertson using a documentary approach in The Jungle –, as well as the strategies employed to bring them on stage. While analyzing the texts, students will simultaneously encounter key developments in British history – from the British Raj to (post)colonial Britain, to Britain’s involvement in the Iraq War, and the European migrant crisis of 2015.
Students are kindly asked to get a copy of the following plays:
- Tanika Gupta, Great Expectations
- Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, Behzti
- David Greig, Dunsinane
- Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, The Jungle
Assessments/requirements: Übung: active participation and project work to be presented in class; Seminar: active participation, project work to be presented in class, and a seminar paper.
Work Cited:
Lo, Jacqueline, and Helen Gilbert. "Toward a Topography of Cross-Cultural Theatre Praxis." The Drama Review: TDR, vol. 46, no. 3, 2002, pp. 31-53.
- Kursleiter/in: Christina Parigoridou