Performance Research Volume 24 Issue 5

Staging the Wreckage

Issue editors: Gianna Bouchard & Patrick Duggan

ISSN: (2019) 24:5

From the destruction of the Twin Towers in 2001, to the devastation of the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, to the images of the current refugee crisis and recent terrorist atrocities, the early twenty-first century has witnessed increased media interest in showing all kinds of wreckage to a global audience. While these particular examples are captured in images of the debris and detritus of a catastrophe, there has also been a significant turn, particularly in the UK, to the descriptions and linguistic performances of emotional and psychological wreckage, from the victims of various high-profile sexual grooming and abuse cases, to survivors and witnesses of other events. Wreckage is also increasingly made available through the rise of television dramas that deal with violence and representations of its aftermath.

Staging the Wreckage considers how theatre can call on ‘stagings of wreckage’ to show the labour of performance, the inevitable failure of representation and the disasters immanent in human relations. Beyond explorations of theatrical wrecks and wreckage, this issue brings together international scholars and artists who explore the performativity of wreckage, its sites, politics and ‘practices’, in essays, provocations and artists pages.

Staging the Wreckage : Editorial

Gianna Bouchard, Patrick Duggan

pp. 7 - 10

A Piece of Metal : Parts of Third Angel’s Parts for Machines that do Things

Alexander Kelly, Chris Thorpe

pp. 1 - 6

Bodily Wreckage, Economic Salvage and the Middle Passage : In Sondra Perry’s Typhoon coming on

Arabella Stanger

pp. 11 - 20

Staging the Wreck of the Unbelievable : Performing ideology: Imaginary surplus, alienation and anxiety

Gabriella Calchi-Novati

pp. 21 - 26

Salvaging a Sense of the Future : Towards a political aesthetics of wreckage

William Platt

pp. 27 - 32

Beyond the Sewol : Performing acts of activism in South Korea

Areum Jeong

pp. 33 - 43

Rethinking Tourism : On the politics and practices of ‘staging’ New Orleans

Patrick Duggan

pp. 44 - 56

Re: Staging the Trauma [artist’s pages]

Laurie Beth Clark

pp. 57 - 60

A Visitor Centre for the Next Nuclear Disaster

Sean Simon

pp. 61 - 64

Crisis Acting in The Destroyed Room

Joseph Dunne-Howrie

pp. 65 - 73

THEATRE : POST : A photo essay

Ashley Marinaccio

pp. 74 - 77

Anthropocentric Wreckages : Diffracting bodies that haunt across time

Annouchka C. Bayley

pp. 78 - 85

Dismantling, Disappearing, Reconstituting? Reflections on the Mackintosh fire 2018

Viviana Checchia, Anika Marschall

pp. 86 - 92

Murder in Miniature

Gianna Bouchard

pp. 93 - 100

Treasuring Detritus : Reflections on the wreckage left behind by artistic research

Rhiannon Jones, Michael Pinchbeck

pp. 101 - 104

Postmodern wreckage in Kate McIntosh’s Worktable and Peter McMaster’s Gold Piece

Zelda Hannay

pp. 105 - 113

Body in Ruin : Outside the matter of representation

E. A. Stinson

pp. 114 - 117

Touch the Heart – Feel the Crash : Hands bridging bodies that beat the rhythm of loss

Sylvia Solakidi

pp. 118 - 122

Wreaking Havoc : The feeling of what happens in Katie Mitchell’s Cleansed

Nicola Shaughnessy

pp. 123 - 131

Wrecks Emotional and Unemotional : Mental Distress in Contemporary Performance Edinburgh 2018

Bridget Escolme

pp. 132 - 141

Theatre Mitu : Remnant [artist’s pages]

Theater Mitu

pp. 142 - 143

Notes on Contributors

pp. 144