The Politics of Experimental Drama: Unexpected Conformity and Weird Resistance in Alistair McDowall’s Pomona

David Julian Barnett

doi:10.1515/jcde-2022-0026

The Politics of Experimental Drama: Unexpected Conformity and Weird Resistance in Alistair McDowall’s Pomona

David Julian Barnett

Theatre, Film, TV and Interactive Media

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between form, content and politics. It challenges some significant positions by no lesser figures than Bertolt Brecht and Heiner Müller on the need for radical forms to function as a prerequisite for imagining alternatives to the prevailing socio-political order. The main focus for analysis is Alistair McDowall's Pomona, a much-produced and much-lauded play, that certainly has an experimental dramaturgy, but one which serves more conservative political ends. The article goes on, however, to identify an instance of 'the weird' in the play and argues that an element of content rather than an experimental form can call the world of the play into question.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	358-374
Number of pages	17
Journal	Journal of Contemporary Drama in English
Volume	10
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2022-0026
Publication status	Published - 8 Nov 2022

Bibliographical note

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details

Access to Document

10.1515/jcde-2022-0026

Pomona3
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details
Accepted author manuscript, 45.4 KB

Cite this

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