Metamodernism in Contemporary British Theatre: A Politics of Hope/lessness (Methuen Drama Engage)

Postmodern theatre is dead. A new theatre is rising - one that combines the well-worn postmodern aesthetics of irony, detachment, and deconstruction with a paradoxical interest in authenticity, engagement, and re-construction.Whilst recent scholarship has treated these evolving interests as unrelated shifts in performance aesthetics, this volume proposes a new understanding: that these are part of a wider emerging cultural paradigm - metamodernism. Metamodernism in Contemporary British Theatre is the first book to focus on metamodernism and performance, offering a pioneering framework by which to identify and understand metamodern theatre.By drawing critical links between the works of performance theorists such as Anne Bogart and Andy Lavender and the metamodern as defined by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, this book makes a clear, vital, and urgent case for the use of the term metamodernism within mainstream theatre scholarship. Focussing on small-scale theatre companies