Performance and Professional Wrestling

Performance and Professional Wrestling is the first edited volume to consider professional wrestling explicitly from the vantage point of theatre and performance studies. Moving beyond simply noting its performative qualities or reading it via other performance genres, this collection of essays offers a complete critical reassessment of the popular sport.

Topics such as the suspension of disbelief, simulation, silence and speech, physical culture, and the performance of pain within the squared circle are explored in relation to professional wrestling, with work by both scholars and practitioners grouped into seven short sections:

• Audience
• Circulation
• Lucha
• Gender
• Queerness
• Bodies
• Race

A significant re-reading of wrestling as a performing art, Performance and Professional Wrestling makes essential reading for scholars and students intrigued by this uniquely theatrical sport.

Broderick Chow is a Lecturer in Theatre at Brunel University London, and an active performance practitioner.

Eero Laine is Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York.

Claire Warden is a Senior Lecturer in Drama at De Montfort University.