The Contemporary History Play: New Readings, New Audiences

Description

History plays make up a significant proportion of all the new work produced in UK theatres, and yet it has been unfashionable to discuss this fact since the 1990s. Instead, history plays are usually bracketed under the rubric of ‘new writing’ or ‘political theatre’.

In our work on historical drama on stage, we broaden the definition of ‘history play’ to include any play which makes a claim to being set in the past. We posit that history plays draw upon three sources of authority in order to legitimise their representation of the past; we call these modes heritage, the historical record, and creative licence.

In our new books, we argue that the history play has been changing during the twenty-first century to represent, and address, underrepresented groups and perspectives. We propose that collecting and naming these patterns and practices can empower theatre-makers and audiences to consider the relationship between product and process more reflexively, leading to a more developed understanding of how theatre performs the past. In his work, Poore considers plays from England and the United States to explore how a new generation of playwrights has overturned the established conventions of historical realism. With a focus on feminist discourse, Benzie interrogates the gender politics of contemporary representations of the past and explores the role of historiography in the playwriting process.

Period	9 Dec 2024
Held at	Inst - Public Understanding of the Past