THEATRE JOURNAL最新文献

{"title":"The Theatre of Christopher Durang by Miriam M. Chirico (review)","authors":"Amy S. Osatinski","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a943417","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a943417","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>The Theatre of Christopher Durang</em> by Miriam M. Chirico <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Amy S. Osatinski </li> </ul> <em>THE THEATRE OF CHRISTOPHER DURANG</em>. By Miriam M. Chirico. Methuen Drama Critical Companions. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2020; pp. 234. <p>Christopher Durang's works have opened on Broadway, and he's won the Tony Award for Best Play and been nominated for the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical. Additionally, he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Yet, as Miriam Chirico points out, \"very little scholarship exists about Durang's theatrical oeuvre, considering the vast amount of plays he's contributed to the American theatre repertory\" (214). In <em>The Theatre of Christopher Durang</em>, she begins to remedy this omission by attempting to provide comprehensive coverage of the playwright's work in a single volume.</p> <p>In the introduction, Chirico weaves together biographical facts and anecdotes with examples from Durang's plays, illustrating instances where his life visibly influenced his work. This setup promises further exploration into the connection between the playwright's life and his plays. This is an exciting prospect, given Durang's background as a queer former Catholic––two identities that notably shape his plays. Following the introduction, however, the book shifts its focus and prioritizes the themes of the plays above their connection to the author's identities, diverting from the initial promise of a deeper exploration into how Durang's personal background influences his work.</p> <p>The introduction also serves as a primer on the genre of Dark Comedy, offering a framework for understanding Durang's plays through their comedic structure. This exploration proves fruitful and necessary for contextualizing the plays, as most of Durang's work is characterized by its wild humor along with elements of the grotesque, darkness, and offense. Comedic theory is a welcome framework for further exploration when Durang's œuvre is examined collectively, and its consistent inclusion throughout the rest of the text would have strengthened the volume even more.</p> <p>The body of the text is organized thematically, grouping plays into five categories across five chapters. Chapter 1, \"Perverting the Classics,\" examines Durang's plays that parody classic works of literature and drama. Chirico observes that Durang often deliberately \"misreads\" his source material, resulting in \"an all-out war, a barbaric yawp in the stoic face the classics\" (21). Rather than approaching his parodies with reverence or homage, Durang tears them apart and the results are \"riotously funny\" (21). The chapter analyzes several of Durang's parodies, uncovering his penchant for \"joyful bloodletting\" of the classic works he targets (22).</p> <p>Chapters 2, 4, and 5 continue to analyze Durang's works ","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"57 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142637149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Grammar of Abolition: Black Theatrical Geographies","authors":"Leticia L. Ridley","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a943404","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a943404","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>Black theatremakers have utilized performance to imagine and stage an alternative place where policing is abolished. They usurp the normative theatrical apparatuses to enact countergeographies that become meaningful ways to resist social control. In so doing, they inhabit (and push other artists and audiences to inhabit) theatre differently through transforming the geography of the theatre itself. Dominique Morisseau, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Aleshea Harris, and Jordan Cooper urge us to see how their spatial construction is central to nourishing and emphasizing Black ways of knowing and being in the theatre. Through their dramaturgical structures within and beyond the plays themselves, I argue that these artists also consider how theatrical space can be manipulated to create alternative rules of engagement whereby blackness can be negotiated, produced, and known on different terms that the carceral system may dictate. In the broadest sense, I advocate for critical attention to the intersections of abolition, space, and Black theatre. This essay is about how space functions as a theatrical apparatus of anti-Black exclusion while also serving as the canvas for Black artists to revolt within, against, and in the face of anti-Black terror.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142637146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Decarcerating the University: A Roundtable Discussion","authors":"Courtney Erin Colligan, Aaron Moore Ellis, Nicholas Fesette, Donatella Galella, Megan E. Geigner, Lindsay Livingston, Ariel Nereson, Leticia L. Ridley, Misty Saribal","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a943394","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a943394","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; Decarcerating the University:&lt;span&gt;A Roundtable Discussion&lt;/span&gt; &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Courtney Erin Colligan (bio), Aaron Moore Ellis (bio), Nicholas Fesette (bio), Donatella Galella (bio), Megan E. Geigner (bio), Lindsay Livingston (bio), Ariel Nereson, Leticia L. Ridley (bio), and Misty Saribal (bio) &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;p&gt;This roundtable discussion took place on Zoom on June 6, 2024, and grew out of the learning that I have experienced through the collective work of the voices assembled here: through various gatherings and actions, often at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) conference, this group of scholar-artist-activists has pushed our field to directly engage with the concerns of abolition and decarceration. Their &lt;u&gt;Zine&lt;/u&gt;, included in this issue's Online Section, offers theatre, dance, and performance studies direct actions as well as philosophical inspiration for decarcerating our campuses, classrooms, and studios, and relations with one another and our own minds. I encourage readers to consult the &lt;u&gt;Zine&lt;/u&gt; in their research, teaching, and community engagement efforts toward abolition. This roundtable is a way for those conversations to continue and to respond to ongoing crises and current world affairs. —Ariel Nereson, &lt;em&gt;Theatre Journal&lt;/em&gt; coeditor&lt;/p&gt; Misty Saribal (MS): &lt;p&gt;Our first question is, how can performance studies contribute to what contemporary abolition elders are calling for, which is the abolition of campus police and any ties to the prison industrial complex? I'm thinking about Davarian Baldwin when he talks about how higher ed campuses should be ground zero for police abolition, in part, he argues, because some campuses have the newest police departments, and some of them still do not [have police departments].&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; However, we're presently seeing, with the campus Palestinian BDS solidarity demonstrations and encampments, the unfinished but necessary Cops Off Campus movement, which is a great group that I have been involved with. And when I see [list(s) like] Eight Actions to Grow Abolition,&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; I always want to add to the list—make friends with people in the arts and theatre departments! We have great props, we know how to stage protests, direct chants, perform and communicate in live, spectacular, and impactful ways.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;I want to start with an example of how performance and theatre contribute meaningfully to these abolition movements in material ways, to ponder how our skills might help with campus abolition movements. To get to my example, we did a disorientation &lt;strong&gt;[End Page E-1]&lt;/strong&gt; tour on Louisiana State University's campus before the pandemic, and we happened to just randomly find in the prop closet a giant black wooden coffin that said, \"RIP Education.\" And I decided everyone on the tour should carry this giant coffin around whi","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"160 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142637137","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Performing Copyright: Law, Theatre and Authorship by Luke McDonagh, and: Owning Performance | Performing Ownership: Literary Property and The Eighteenth-Century British Stage by Jane Wessel, and: Copyright and the Value of Performance, 1770–1911 by Derek Miller, and: Negotiating Copyright in the American Theatre: 1856–1951 by Brent Salter (review)","authors":"Elena Cooper","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a943420","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a943420","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Performing Copyright: Law, Theatre and Authorship&lt;/em&gt; by Luke McDonagh, and: &lt;em&gt;Owning Performance | Performing Ownership: Literary Property and The Eighteenth-Century British Stage&lt;/em&gt; by Jane Wessel, and: &lt;em&gt;Copyright and the Value of Performance, 1770–1911&lt;/em&gt; by Derek Miller, and: &lt;em&gt;Negotiating Copyright in the American Theatre: 1856–1951&lt;/em&gt; by Brent Salter &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Elena Cooper &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;em&gt;PERFORMING COPYRIGHT: LAW, THEATRE AND AUTHORSHIP&lt;/em&gt;. By Luke McDonagh. Oxford, UK: Hart Publishing/Bloomsbury, 2021; pp. 256. &lt;em&gt;OWNING PERFORMANCE | PERFORMING OWNERSHIP: LITERARY PROPERTY AND THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH STAGE&lt;/em&gt;. By Jane Wessel. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2022; pp. 228. &lt;em&gt;COPYRIGHT AND THE VALUE OF PERFORMANCE, 1770–1911&lt;/em&gt;. By Derek Miller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018; pp. 289. &lt;em&gt;NEGOTIATING COPYRIGHT IN THE AMERICAN THEATRE: 1856–1951&lt;/em&gt;. By Brent Salter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022; pp. 280. &lt;p&gt;What is the relationship between copyright law and the theatre, both today and historically? How does law influence the theatre and how does the theatre shape the law? Until recently, there was relatively little in-depth and longitudinal literature addressing these questions (an exception being Anthea Kraut's &lt;em&gt;Choreographing Copyright&lt;/em&gt; [2015], about nineteenth-century dance and US copyright). Copyright scholarship saw a historical turn in the late 1990s, following the publication of the now seminal &lt;em&gt;The Making of Modern Intellectual Property Law&lt;/em&gt; by Brad Sherman and Lionel Bently (1999). Copyright history soon became a burgeoning interdisciplinary field drawing together scholars from law and the humanities, primarily literature and book history; the focus was long on the history of laws protecting books and literary works as the first subject matter protected by copyright. It was only in 2018 that the first monograph-length studies of copyright protecting the visual arts were published (Elena Cooper's &lt;em&gt;Art and Modern Copyright&lt;/em&gt; and Katie Scott's &lt;em&gt;Becoming Property&lt;/em&gt;), which illustrated that a shift in focus to new subject matter—the visual arts—could provide new and distinct perspectives on copyright history. Such scholarship also implicitly highlighted the continued absence of scholarship in theatre. What new perspectives might be gleaned from a history of dramatic copyright and theatre centered on the value of ephemeral performance?&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;In view of these long-standing gaps in the scholarship on theatre and copyright, the significance of four recently published monographs cannot be stressed enough. These studies by legal scholar Luke McDonagh, humanities scholars Derek Miller and Jane Wessel, and Brent Salter, a scholar with both legal and humanities training, offer sp","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"76 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142637150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"8 to abolition to infinity (8 => abolition => ∞)","authors":"Aaron Moore Ellis","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a943396","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a943396","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; 8 to abolition to infinity (8 =&gt; abolition =&gt; ∞) &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Aaron Moore Ellis (bio) &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;How do I hold a systemic analysis and approach when each system I am critical of is peopled, in part, by the same flawed and complex individuals that I love?&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;This question always leads me to self-reflection. If I can see the ways I am perpetuating systemic oppressions, if I can see where I learned the behavior and how hard it is to unlearn it, I start to have more humility as I see the messiness of the communities I am a part of, the world I live in.&lt;/p&gt; —adrienne maree brown&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt; &lt;h2&gt;(a) identiteas(er)&lt;/h2&gt; &lt;p&gt;Situating oneself at the forefront of an academic offering can sometimes serve to simply check a box; a basic requirement for \"good, balanced\" scholarship. Perhaps at its best, situating oneself evinces humility and reflective acknowledgment of identities and lived experiences, which critically inform the scholar's goals, methods, subjects, and sensitivities in their work. So who am I? aaron moore ellis. I take the lead from trailblazers who refuse capitalization. Who am I to do so? A wyte, nonbinary, ashkenazi jewish, irish, AMAB, m@sc-presenting person born into relative privilege, a sett!er on stolen land. … Who am I *not* to do so? What's at stake? What's at promise? And as to spelling: why write \"wyte\" instead of spelling out the color? Some may be familiar with the practice of intentionally respelling words associated with pain, trauma, and oppression, so that the experiences of those impacted by those words' referent is acknowledged and their reading experience softened. For those with privilege enough not to feel the resonant impact of these words, I invite you to consider my respelling as a reminder that privilege comes with built-in blinders to others' experiences, others for whom words matter in specific ways and whose lived experiences are deeply impacted by violence and oppression; that those people with those experiences matter; and that we—all of us—can seek ways to make life more breathable, more livable, more joyful. Who am I *not* to respell these words? What's at stake in respelling, or not?&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;These are recurring questions—questions that don't stop me in my tracks or silence me, but rather stay on the move with me. I keep these questions with me as an &lt;strong&gt;[End Page E-19]&lt;/strong&gt; invitation to others to see consonance—or dissonance—between how they witness me identify, what they hear me proclaim, and what they see me embody. That is to say, these questions invite myself into accountability—to my decisions, actions, identities, privileges, responsibilities, and abilities to respond to those most impacted by structural and interpersonal oppression, close by and across the world.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;As I write and edit this reflection between u","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142637139","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Confessional Performance: Remorse and the Affective Economy of Parole","authors":"Jisha Menon","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a943400","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a943400","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>Taking the popular podcast series <i>Violation</i> as its point of departure, this article examines the dramaturgy within the parole system, its affective politics, and its performative speech acts to consider its role in the perpetuation of mass incarceration in the United States. By training an eye on the affective economy of parole hearings, this article explores the retributive turn in the criminal legal process in the wake of neoliberal economic reforms. It focuses on the anxious performance of remorse within parole hearings as a key form of affective currency that could potentially secure release from incarceration. In the process, the article examines the significant role that remorse plays in parole hearings in entrenching a dispositional conception of personal responsibility in the criminal legal system.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142637145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Editorial Comment: Abolition and Performance","authors":"Ariel Nereson","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a943395","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a943395","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; Editorial Comment:&lt;span&gt;Abolition and Performance&lt;/span&gt; &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Ariel Nereson &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;[A]bolition has to be the way to relate to one another. So, not a tool to implement, but a posture and a way of life.&lt;/p&gt; —Ashon Crawley&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Theatre, dance, and performance studies offer many methodological tools for understanding practice and interpreting theories embedded in and arising from practice. Attending to time, space, embodiment, affect, energy, and lived experience is a foundational commitment of our fields. In bringing abolition and performance together as paired keywords, this special issue seeks to understand how interventions in theatre, dance, and performance studies can be tools that help us reorient our individual and collective postures toward abolition. Abolition is a set of relations, a doing, a way of life, as Ashon Crawley writes, that seeks the undoing of the forms of relation we currently live under in the racial capitalocene that presume the necessity of carcerality in order to recompense harm.&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; In other words, rejecting modes of social organization oriented around punishment (and hegemonic assertions of whom can be punished, and how) requires practicing the postures of \"restorative justice, abolition, hospitality, [and] joy,\" both as individual alignments and in community.&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;This special issue explicitly connects theatre, dance, and performance studies with the carceral turn in the humanities and social sciences, where, as Robert Fanuzzi writes, \"abolition\" refers to a \"horizon of change\" that encompasses \"an end to traditions, or epistemologies, that normalize centuries of racial oppression and gender inequality as inevitable, if regrettable, features of modernity and which center or overrepresent Western European male concepts of humanity as their default.\"&lt;sup&gt;4&lt;/sup&gt; Taking up \"carcerality\" &lt;strong&gt;[End Page xi]&lt;/strong&gt; as a keyword, Beth E. Richie defines the term as \"a condition or set of social arrangements that advances a reliance on punishment or incapacitation.\"&lt;sup&gt;5&lt;/sup&gt; Across disciplines, performance is a flexible analytic for understanding the circulation of power. In an address to members upon becoming president of the American Studies Association, abolitionist geographer Ruth Wilson Gilmore recounted the many intersections between her study in drama and her work in abolitionist thinking and organizing, encouraging listeners to think of public policy as a \"script\" for the future.&lt;sup&gt;6&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;As a focus of theatre, dance, and performance studies, abolition has a short but powerful bibliography. Abolition and performance intersect memorably in a foundational contribution to Black performance studies from Daphne Brooks in her chapter \"The Escape Artist: Henry Box Brown, Black Abolitionist Performa","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"160 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142637235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"\"It Feels Like Being in Jail All Over Again\": Staging the Criminalized Liminality of Sex Offenders","authors":"Ryan Donovan","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a943403","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a943403","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>Two plays focusing on the postincarceration experiences of sex offenders opened in 2018: Life Jacket Theatre Company's <i>America Is Hard to See</i> and Bruce Norris's <i>Downstate</i>. Both plays ask spectators to recognize the humanity of sex offenders while also keeping in mind the harm they caused. The questions at the heart of these plays are ultimately about ethics and space: how close do we as a society want to allow sex offenders? These plays stage the movement, space, and time—the spatiotemporality—of postincarceration carceral geographies and the embodied state of what I term \"criminalized liminality.\" In this article, I pursue a two-pronged approach to examine how these plays explore the spatiotemporality of criminalized liminality: primarily, I employ critical spatial perspectives to address how the focus on the ethics of space in <i>America</i> and <i>Downstate</i> emphasizes theatre itself as a space of ethical engagement for artists and audiences; and, secondarily, that as a result of their content and form, each play invites spectators to consider what it means to act on and offstage. I ultimately conclude that although these plays invite consideration of alternatives to the criminal punishment system like abolition, their real power lies in their ultimate ambivalence. Each unsettles spectators without providing clear answers. The spatiotemporality of criminalized liminality and the slippage created by acting produce a certain generative uncertainty.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"112 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142645955","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Jungle Book Reimagined by Tariq Jordan (review)","authors":"Alexandra A. Rego","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a943414","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a943414","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;The Jungle Book Reimagined&lt;/em&gt;by Tariq Jordan &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt; &lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Alexandra A. Rego &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;em&gt;THE JUNGLE BOOK REIMAGINED&lt;/em&gt;. By Tariq Jordan. Directed and choreographed by Akram Khan. Music by Jocelyn Pook. Animation by YeastCulture ( Adam Smith and Nick Hillel). Akram Khan Company, Rose Theater, Lincoln Center. 11 &lt;day&gt;18&lt;/day&gt;, 2023. &lt;p&gt; &lt;em&gt;The Jungle Book Reimagined&lt;/em&gt;premiered at the Curve (Leicester, UK) in 2022 and has since toured internationally, with further performances booked through January 2025 (Alhambra Theatre, Bradford, UK) at the time of writing. In a 2021 conversation with writer Amitav Ghosh (on \"Art, Storytelling, and the Environment\") and in numerous journalistic interviews since, director and choreographer Akram Khan relayed his daughter's insistence both on a genderswapped Mowgli and on a production that in effect practiced the ecocritical concerns it preached. Khan and his company went to great lengths to limit the production's carbon footprint, from their sets and props to their rehearsal spaces. The production thus traveled relatively light—the set was composed of various cardboard boxes arranged into specific towers and architectural configurations. Each performance venue involved a new set of boxes taken from local recycling bins and sometimes from storage from the theatre. The linear animations, voiceovers, and Jocelyn Pook's atmospheric, earthy score were transferred and stored digitally.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;\"There was a jungle,\" one of the wolves recalled in passing, \"but nobody knows when the jungle was, anymore.\" Indeed, the production opened in water and skyscraper ruins (animated by YeastCulture's Adam Smith and Nick Hillel), in a world where global catastrophic flooding drove inland migration from every coast. Views of animal and human migration, heavy rains, and rising sea levels provided glimpses of various cities before they vanished under the water: the Kremlin, the Oriental Pearl Tower, Big Ben, and the Empire State Building appeared only briefly. This ambiguity elided, or perhaps erased, both temporal and geographic specificity. The scenes of global flooding barely offered enough time to positively identify and locate particular landmarks, let alone time enough to consider where it was that Mowgli washed ashore. These landmarks rose and fell, etched in white light upon a dark green, nearly black backdrop.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Amid this catastrophic milieu, pseudojournalistic reports detailed rising sea levels and corporate profiteering, interspersed with audio clips of climate activist Greta Thunberg. The fact that the production is in the process of an international tour complicated this temporal and geographic ambiguity somewhat: the sight, however brief, of the Empire State Building stirred fellow New Yorkers in the audience. &lt;em&gt;The Jungle Book Reimagine","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142637147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Looking at/for Disappearing John Brown","authors":"Ben Spatz, SAJ, Eero Laine, Michelle Liu Carriger, Henry Bial","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a943399","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a943399","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; Looking at/for Disappearing John Brown &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Ben Spatz (bio), SAJ (bio), Eero Laine (bio), Michelle Liu Carriger (bio), and Henry Bial (bio) &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;br/&gt; Click for larger view&lt;br/&gt; View full resolution Figure 1. &lt;p&gt;John Brown BBQ in Queens, New York City, https://www.johnbrownbbq.net.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;(Photo: Eero Laine.)&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;In the mid-nineteenth century, John Brown (1800-59) riveted the United States and earned himself an execution with his radical abolitionist tactics encompassing murder and armed insurrection against the United States at Harpers Ferry (present-day West Virginia). Today, his extreme measures ensure his continued circulation across a variety of images and through various investments in his legacy and history. We began thinking together about John Brown precisely because of the promise of collaboration for considering the multifaceted figure that is performed and reperformed on murals and buttons, in sports arenas and bars, on television and in film. The work of abolition is collective and shared, and the political possibilities of the university add up to very little if they remain solitary endeavors. John Brown impels us to gather, to think and work together. Perhaps any one of us alone could have written our article, \"The Unbearable Whiteness of John Brown: Theatrical Legacies and Performing Abolition,\" &lt;strong&gt;[End Page E-37]&lt;/strong&gt; in &lt;em&gt;Theatre Journal&lt;/em&gt;'s special issue on \"Abolition and Performance.\" But maybe we would not have done so without the others. This is a coalitional approach to political and abolitionist work in the academy. The reading group as a form has a long political history, and in some ways, our collaboration is not so different. From the beginning, however, our work was oriented toward research inquiries and the potential to then share that research with a yet larger circle. It was an opportunity not just to have a few conversations about John Brown, but to make something (an article) about John Brown.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The project began with a semi-open call posted to Facebook. The post was visible only to some, but it encouraged viewers to forward the call to friends and colleagues who might be interested in working toward an article-length piece of writing on John Brown. Many commented on the post, and the current authors were those who indicated their interest in working together. Once the five of us were all on the same email thread (albeit spaced as far east to west on the planet as northern England to California), we met via Zoom and began by discussing our interest in John Brown as a political, historical, and theatrical figure. Our initial interests were varied, and the wide-ranging examples we found of Brown were key to thinking through the article in terms of the multitude of possible John Browns and his persistent performance—of abolition, of w","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"62 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142637142","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}