1st Edition

Historically Responsive Storytelling How Contemporary Western Theatre is Rediscovering its Roots

By Eleanor Chadwick Copyright 2023
320 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

320 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

320 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book explores the notion that the emergent language of contemporary theatre, and more generally of modern culture, has links to much earlier forms of storytelling and an ancient worldview. This volume looks at our diverse and amalgamative theatrical inheritance and discusses various practitioners and companies whose work reflects and recapitulates ideas, approaches, and structures original... Read more

 

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

Introduction

PART ONE: Looking Back: Tracing Theatre’s Roots

Chapter 1. Reaching for the Unknowable: the Human need for Ritual

Chapter 2. A Flexible Superstructure: Macrocosm/Microcosm and the Medieval Worldview

Chapter 3. The Power of Archetype: Universal-General and Historical-Specific

Chapter 4. Time and Space: Hierophany and Imaginative Flexibility

PART TWO: Moving Forward: New Historically-Responsive Methods

Chapter 5. The Sacred Body-as-Text: from Medieval to Avant-Garde

Chapter 6. Seeking Immersion, Finding Connection: the Contemporary Theatre

Chapter 7. Theatre in Times of Crisis: the Power of Ancient Forms in Collective Processing

Bibliography

Index

Biography

Eleanor Chadwick is a researcher and theatre maker currently working with Watershed Pervasive Media Studio and University of Bristol on a MyWorld Fellowship. She is also Artistic Director of Sleight of Hand theatre company, and a postdoctoral associate in Theatre and Performance Studies at University of Warwick, UK.