Theatre Research International

28/03/2024

"Heeg argues that, in contrast to intercultural theatre from the 1990s, transcultural theatre is characterized by a dynamic exchange and integration of theoretical insights and practical application in the realm of theatre, rather than relying on rigid cultural stereotypes or concepts."

Transcultural Theater. By Günther Heeg. London: Routledge, 2023.
Reviewed by Zilong Zhong

Transcultural Theater. By Günther Heeg. London: Routledge, 2023. Pp. 178 + 16 illus. £120/$160 Hb. - Volume 49 Issue 1

27/03/2024

"Bulman engages multiple genealogies here to think critically about the relationship between images and affect in Argentine and Chilean performance."

Feeling the Gaze: Image and Affect in Contemporary Argentine and Chilean Performance . By Gail A. Bulman. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2022.
Reviewed by Brenda Werth

Feeling the Gaze: Image and Affect in Contemporary Argentine and Chilean Performance . By Gail A. Bulman. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2022. Pp. 354 + 13 illus. 29.99 E-book. - Volume 49 Issue 1

26/03/2024

"...this enlightening volume makes a strong attempt by examining the ways past and present performances of the Ramayana story have in turn contributed to and re-written this kāvya (elaborate narrative poem)."

Performing the Ramayana Tradition: Enactments, Interpretations, and Arguments. Edited by Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021.
Reviewed by Marcus Tan

Performing the Ramayana Tradition: Enactments, Interpretations, and Arguments. Edited by Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. xviii + 357 + 16 illus. £74/48.99 Pb. - Volume 49 Issue 1

25/03/2024

The heart of the essay collection may be the chapters probing divas, launched by Michelle Dvoskin's examination of diva roles, the ‘larger-than-life female characters who drive a musical's action and encourage a virtuosic, outsized performance style’, in contrast to diva characters, who may be performers but may not embrace the excess of a diva role (p. 177).

Gender, S*x, and S*xuality in Musical Theatre: He/She/They Could Have Danced All Night. Edited by Kelly Kessler. Bristol: Intellect, 2023. Reviewed by Laura MacDonald.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0307883323000445

25/03/2024

The heart of the essay collection may be the chapters probing divas, launched by Michelle Dvoskin's examination of diva roles, the ‘larger-than-life female characters who drive a musical's action and encourage a virtuosic, outsized performance style’, in contrast to diva characters, who may be performers but may not embrace the excess of a diva role (p. 177).

Gender, S*x, and S*xuality in Musical Theatre: He/She/They Could Have Danced All Night. Edited by Kelly Kessler. Bristol: Intellect, 2023. Reviewed by Laura MacDonald.

Gender, S*x, and S*xuality in Musical Theatre: He/She/They Could Have Danced All Night. Edited by Kelly Kessler. Bristol: Intellect, 2023. Pp. xxvii + 323. £99.95/$134.95 Hb. - Volume 49 Issue 1

22/03/2024

"[Mngoma's] sit-in forged a social movement that achieved something more profound than holding a corrupt State to account: it expanded both the politics and possibilities of live acts in a time when these were cast as antithetical to building communities of care."

‘We Will Teach Them How to Use This Building’: Acts of Accountability from South African Artists by CARLA LEVER

‘We Will Teach Them How to Use This Building’: Acts of Accountability from South African Artists - Volume 49 Issue 1

21/03/2024

"A collective environment could be conjured once again, which allowed for discussing issues of the marginalized, empathizing with them, and reclaiming spaces that were once hubs of activism and politics."

Reclaiming Public Spaces in Post-pandemic India (Kolkata): Activist Theatre, Gender and a Resurgence of the Marginal by AHVANA PAUL, TAMALIKA ROY, SUMIT MONDAL and SHRINJITA BISWAS
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0307883323000421

21/03/2024

"A collective environment could be conjured once again, which allowed for discussing issues of the marginalized, empathizing with them, and reclaiming spaces that were once hubs of activism and politics."

Reclaiming Public Spaces in Post-pandemic India (Kolkata): Activist Theatre, Gender and a Resurgence of the Marginal by AHVANA PAUL, TAMALIKA ROY, SUMIT MONDAL and SHRINJITA BISWAS

Reclaiming Public Spaces in Post-pandemic India (Kolkata): Activist Theatre, Gender and a Resurgence of the Marginal - Volume 49 Issue 1

19/03/2024

"The density of the ever-crowded subway car is seemingly in direct opposition to the freedom of mobility, bound versus unbound."

Subway Crush by KELLEY HOLLEY

Subway Crush - Volume 49 Issue 1

18/03/2024

"I will demonstrate how, in the case of Melek, the intersections between actual and fictive viral contagion – what I define as viral interstitiality – constitute inclusive economies amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. In somatics, the interstitial is theorized and enacted as suspensions of static schisms that shape relational empowerment."

Viral Interstitiality and Unlikely Resources: Gender and Labour in Turkish Public Theatre During the Covid-19 Pandemic by CHRISTINA BANALOPOULOU
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0307883323000408

14/03/2024

"Focusing on invisible female work, the performers question the real outcome of carefare policies regarding unpaid work, the physical and mental toll of care work, and the propaganda's influence on the body."

Performing Womanhood and Carefare in Hungary by KORNÉLIA DERES
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0307883323000391

13/03/2024

This dossier explores the ways in which theatre and performance practitioners across the globe have addressed the deeply gendered modes of differential access to public spaces, institutional support, and resources through their creative as well as activist work, during the pandemic and its aftermath.

Dossier—Negotiating Urban Spaces: Access, Care and Confinement in Contemporary Gendered Performance by INDU JAIN and TRINA NILEENA BANERJEE

Dossier—Negotiating Urban Spaces: Access, Care and Confinement in Contemporary Gendered Performance - Volume 49 Issue 1

11/03/2024

"... using a scenographic framework I approach and analyse 872 days. Voices of the besieged city as an effort to find a pathway to empathize with the past trauma of millions of people, to humble oneself, and thus get a chance to work through the echo of this trauma."

Scenography of the Unimaginable: Exploring Trauma of Others in 872 days. Voices of the besieged city by OLGA NIKOLAEVA
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0307883323000317

06/03/2024

"Following the rise of identity politics and multiculturalism that have recently become dominant in the public and theatrical discourse in Israel, Mizrahi artists are re-performing Zionist history through the lens of institutional injustices."

Read ‘Why Were Our Yemenite Brothers Insulted?’: Love as Strong as Death as a Prequel to Mizrahi Presence in Israeli Theatre by YAIR LI****TZ and NAPHTALY SHEM-TOV

05/03/2024

"Theatre-makers need to open up difficult and contentious conversations and wrestle with pressing issues that affect the entire planet. For Australia, this means breaking free from parochial orthodoxy and transcending national concerns, sharing our perspective with the broader international community."

Read ‘Looking at the Wider World’: Global Engagement, Political Activism and Polemical Storytelling in Watchlist, Prima Facie and Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in N**i Germany and Contemporary America' by ALEX VICKERY-HOWE and LISA HARPER CAMPBELL.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0307883323000354

01/03/2024

"Thinking queerly about performance in public space and its politics, therefore, involves thinking about the norms that govern public space and the paths, both social and spatial, that deviate from them."

Read Q***r Street Scenes: Interruption, Exception, Orientation by DAVID CALDER.

Q***r Street Scenes: Interruption, Exception, Orientation - Volume 49 Issue 1

29/02/2024

"Collaborations open spaces, the busy intersections of hope and dissensus, where one can find the common humanity in the other – ‘a counterpart that can take us further’."

Senior Editor Silvija Jestrovic reflects on space and collaboration, a common theme that is evident in this issue of TRI.

Editorial: On Collaboration - Volume 49 Issue 1

27/02/2024

Here's what's in the new issue of TRI 49.1.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/theatre-research-international/latest-issue

Editorial: On Collaboration
SILVIJA JESTROVIC

ARTICLE
Q***r Street Scenes: Interruption, Exception, Orientation
DAVID CALDER

‘Looking at the Wider World’: Global Engagement, Political Activism and Polemical Storytelling in Watchlist, Prima Facie and Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in N**i Germany and Contemporary America
ALEX VICKERY-HOWE, LISA HARPER CAMPBELL

‘Why Were Our Yemenite Brothers Insulted?’: Love as Strong as Death as a Prequel to Mizrahi Presence in Israeli Theatre
YAIR LI****TZ, NAPHTALY SHEM-TOV

Scenography of the Unimaginable: Exploring Trauma of Others in 872 days. Voices of the besieged city
OLGA NIKOLAEVA

DOSSIER
Dossier—Negotiating Urban Spaces: Access, Care and Confinement in Contemporary Gendered Performance
INDU JAIN, TRINA NILEENA BANERJEE

Performing Womanhood and Carefare in Hungary
KORNÉLIA DERES

Viral Interstitiality and Unlikely Resources: Gender and Labour in Turkish Public Theatre During the Covid-19 Pandemic
CHRISTINA BANALOPOULOU

Subway Crush
KELLEY HOLLEY
Reclaiming Public Spaces in Post-pandemic India (Kolkata): Activist Theatre, Gender and a Resurgence of the Marginal
AHVANA PAUL, TAMALIKA ROY, SUMIT MONDAL, SHRINJITA BISWAS

‘We Will Teach Them How to Use This Building’: Acts of Accountability from South African Artists
CARLA LEVER

BOOK REVIEW
Gender, S*x, and S*xuality in Musical Theatre: He/She/They Could Have Danced All Night. Edited by Kelly Kessler. Bristol: Intellect, 2023. Pp. xxvii + 323. £99.95/$134.95 Hb.
Laura MacDonald

Performing the Ramayana Tradition: Enactments, Interpretations, and Arguments. Edited by Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. xviii + 357 + 16 illus. £74/$110 Hb; £34.49/$48.99 Pb.
Marcus Tan

Feeling the Gaze: Image and Affect in Contemporary Argentine and Chilean Performance . By Gail A. Bulman. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2022. Pp. 354 + 13 illus. $47.86 Pb; $29.99 E-book.

Brenda Werth
Transcultural Theater. By Günther Heeg. London: Routledge, 2023. Pp. 178 + 16 illus. £120/$160 Hb.
Zilong Zhong

27/02/2024

The new issue of Theatre Research International is now available on Cambridge Core!
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/theatre-research-international/latest-issue

24/12/2023

The Editorial Board of TRI wishes all readers a very merry Christmas and a happy 2024!

04/12/2023

"Bulman engages multiple genealogies here to think critically about the relationship between images and affect in Argentine and Chilean performance."

Feeling the Gaze: Image and Affect in Contemporary Argentine and Chilean Performance. By Gail Bulman. University of North Carolina Press, 2022.

Reviewed by Brenda Werth

Feeling the Gaze: Image and Affect in Contemporary Argentine and Chilean Performance. By Gail Bulman. University of North Carolina Press, 2022. Pp. 354 + 13 figs. 29.99 Ebook. - Volume 48 Issue 3

03/12/2023

"Smith develops this argument through deeply clarifying interpretations of plays whose racialized content is well known but often shallowly understood and sometimes outright denied."

Black Shakespeare: Reading and Misreading Race. By Ian Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.

Reviewed by Tom Six

Black Shakespeare: Reading and Misreading Race. By Ian Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. Pp. 218. £29.99 Hb. - Volume 48 Issue 3

02/12/2023

"In lingering in the moments of leaking, seepage, infection, proximity, dirtying and general out-of-placeness, Theatres of Contagion illuminates the prevailing discourses and structures that organize people's lives and keeps them ‘tidy’."

Theatres of Contagion: Transmitting Early Modern to Contemporary Performance. Edited by Fintan Walsh. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.

Reviewed by anna six

Theatres of Contagion: Transmitting Early Modern to Contemporary Performance. Edited by Fintan Walsh. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020. Pp. xii + 216 + 7 illus. £26.99 Pb. - Volume 48 Issue 3

01/12/2023

"Hannah Simpson's incisive critique of the representation and simulated presentation of wartime suffering onstage in the postwar francophone plays of Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus, Eugène Ionesco, Pablo Picasso and Marguerite Duras invites the reader to reflect on the role and the responsibility of audiences as the witnesses of the performance of pain. "

Samuel Beckett and the Theatre of the Witness: Pain in Postwar Francophone Drama. By Hannah Simpson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.

Reviewed by Swati Joshi

Samuel Beckett and the Theatre of the Witness: Pain in Postwar Francophone Drama. By Hannah Simpson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. Pp. xi + 188. $80 Hb. - Volume 48 Issue 3

29/11/2023

"Like circus, which demands intersectional discussions, emerging circus scholarship is necessarily multi-pronged and this book brilliantly collates the many voices beyond the Eurocentric perception of popular entertainment forms".

The Cambridge Companion to the Circus. By Gillian Arrighi and Jim Davis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Reviewed by Aastha Gandhi

The Cambridge Companion to the Circus. By Gillian Arrighi and Jim Davis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. ###v + 292. £75/29.99/₹2312 Pb. - Volume 48 Issue 3

28/11/2023

"Weaving rich historical materials together, Lee elucidates many intricacies in yellowface's convoluted history and offers a much-needed addition to the current scholarship on yellowface and racial performances."

Made-Up Asians: Yellowface during the Exclusion Era. By Esther Kim Lee. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2022.
Reviewed by Ruijiao D**g

Made-Up Asians: Yellowface during the Exclusion Era. By Esther Kim Lee. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2022. Pp. 262 + 23 figs. 34.95 Pb. - Volume 48 Issue 3

27/11/2023

"O'Brien effectively traces the production of masculine characters and narratives across a broad spectrum of historical time periods and theatrical genres."

Masculinities and Manhood in Contemporary Irish Drama: Acting the Man. By Cormac O'Brien 2021.
Reviewed by David Cregan

Masculinities and Manhood in Contemporary Irish Drama: Acting the Man. By Cormac O'Brien. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. Pp. vii + 292. 84.99 Ebook. - Volume 48 Issue 3

26/11/2023

"Bannerjee's appraisal of the histories of leading actresses, artiste couples and women cultural workers of the time develops from the feminist understanding that women's personal and professional lives and the economic and social struggles that governed their participation, success and sustenance in political–cultural arenas require a different valuation and a reconceptualization of (feminine) labour."

Performing Silence: Women in the Group Theatre Movement in Bengal. By Trina Nileena Bannerjee. 2021.
Reviewed by Gargi Bharadwaj

Performing Silence: Women in the Group Theatre Movement in Bengal. By Trina Nileena Bannerjee. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. xxv + 354. ₹1795 Hb. - Volume 48 Issue 3

24/11/2023

"This anthology is a major contribution to the field in that it showcases the diversity and richness of works by early twentieth-century Irish women playwrights in an informed manner."

Read Alinne Balduino P. Fernandes's review of Plays by Women in Ireland (1926–33): Feminist Theatres of Freedom and Resistance. Edited by Lisa Fitzpatrick and Shonagh Hill. London: Methuen Drama, 2022.

Plays by Women in Ireland (1926–33): Feminist Theatres of Freedom and Resistance. Edited by Lisa Fitzpatrick and Shonagh Hill. London: Methuen Drama, 2022. Pp. vii + 254 + 6 illus. £75 Hb; £24.99 Pb. - Volume 48 Issue 3