Rethinking the Theatre of the Absurd is an innovative collection of essays, written by leading scholars in the fields of theatre, performance and eco-criticism, which reconfigures absurdist theatre through the optics of ecology and environment. As well as offering strikingly new interpretations of the work of canonical playwrights such as Beckett, Genet, Ionesco, Adamov, Albee, Kafka, Pinter, Shephard and Churchill, the book playfully mimics the structure of Martin Esslin's classic text The Theatre of the Absurd, which is commonly recognised as one of the most important scholarly publications of the 20th century. By reading absurdist drama, for the first time, as an emergent form of ecological theatre, Rethinking the Theatre of the Absurd interrogates afresh the very meaning of absurdism for 21st-century audiences, while at the same time making a significant contribution to the development of theatre and performance studies as a whole.
The collection's interdisciplinary approach, accessibility, and ecological focus will appeal to students and academics in a number of different fields, including theatre, performance, English, French, geography and philosophy. It will also have a major impact on the new cross disciplinary paradigm of eco-criticism.
Carl Lavery is professor of theatre at the University of Glasgow, UK. His publications include
Jean Genet Politics and Performance, with Clare Finburgh (2006),
Sacred Theatre (2007),
Walking, Writing and Performance: Autobiographical Texts by Dee Heddon, Carl Lavery and Phil Smith (2009),
The Politics of Jean Genet's Late Theatre: Spaces of Revolution (2010),
Contemporary French Theatre and Performance, with Clare Finburgh (2011),
Good Luck Everybody. Lone Twin: Journeys, Performances and Conversations, with David Williams(2011), and the is he editor with Nick Whybrow of a special issue of
Performance Research 'On Foot' (2012).
Mark Taylor-Batty is Associate Professor of Theatre Studies and Deputy Head of School in the School of English at the University of Leeds, UK. His previous publications include
The Theatre of Harold Pinter (Bloomsbury, 2014),
About Pinter: The Playwright and the Work (Faber and Faber, 2005),
Roger Blin: Collaborations and Methodologies (Peter Lang, 2007) and, he co-authored with his wife, Juliette Taylor-Batty,
Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (Continuum, 2009).
Clare Finburgh is an academic in the department of Theatre and Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. Her research focuses on French, Francophone and UK contemporary performance, notably innovations in French modern and contemporary playwriting anddirecting; and representations of conflict in UK theatre. She has co-written
Jean Genet (with David Bradby, 2011), and co-edited
Genet:
Performance and Politics (2006) and
Contemporary French Theatre and Performance (2011).
Enoch Brater is the Kenneth T. Rowe Collegiate Professor of Dramatic Literature, Professor of English and Theater at the University of Michigan and the series editor of Methuen Drama's Miller scholarly editions. He has written extensively on the work of Samuel Beckett and Arthur Miller.
Enoch Brater is the Kenneth T. Rowe Collegiate Professor of Dramatic Literature, Professor of English and Theater at the University of Michigan. He is series editor of Methuen Drama's Arthur Miller scholarly editions, and with Mark Taylor-Batty of Methuen Drama's Engage series. He has written extensively on the work of Samuel Beckett and Arthur Miller.
