Forms of Conflict

This full-length study of the representation of contemporary warfare on the British stage investigates the strategies deployed by theatre practitioners in Britain as they meet the representational challenges posed by the 'new wars' of the global era. To say that drama is intimately bound up with conflict - and conflict resolution - is almost a platitude. Even the quintessentially theatrical nature of the vocabulary that we commonly use to describe war would seem to point to the stage as a suitable space to interrogate the mechanics of conflict. The representation of war in the theatre has systematically raised the issue of representability, testing both the limits and the potential of the medium. The book questions how dramatists have responded aesthetically to the changing nature of conflict, focusing mainly on plays written and performed around or after the September 11 terrorist attacks. By establishing a connection between models of conflict and modes of representation, the book aims to assess the impact on dramatic form and theatrical representation of a consequential paradigm shift in the way wars are waged and perceived.