Acts and apparitions

Discourses on the real in performance practice and theory, 19902010

By (author) Elizabeth Tomlin

Paperback - £19.99

Publication date:

18 April 2016

Length of book:

240 pages

Publisher

Manchester University Press

Dimensions:

216x138mm

ISBN-13: 9781784993764

Acts and apparitions examines how new performance practices from the 1990s to the present day have been driven by questions of the real and the ensuing political implications of the concept's rapidly disintegrating authority.

This book departs significantly from existing scholarship on contemporary performance in its rejection of the dramatic/postdramatic binary and its interrogation of previous applications of Derridean poststructuralism to theatrical representation and notions of the real.

It offers new perspectives on the political analysis of contemporary theatre and performance across a wide range of models from Forced Entertainment and the Wooster Group, to Roland Schimmelpfennig and Howard Barker; from verbatim theatre to audio tours and the interactive performances of Ontroerend Goed.

'Liz Tomlin’s book offers a major contribution to the field of theatre and performance studies, arguing that contemporary performance has inherited a legacy from the avant-garde in positioning its practices as radical in opposition to the dramatic real.', Kara Reilly, University of Exeter|This insightful and important text is a real gift to anyone studying contemporary performance., James Frieze, New Theatre Quarterly, Book Reviews, February 2014