Coda: Performing Conversion in an Early Modern Future

This chapter considers similarities between early modernity and the present era in terms of theatricality and practices of conversion. Examples of conversional practices from the past hundred years include the forced conversion of Aboriginal children in Canadian residential schools, the so-called ‘conversion therapies’ purporting to ‘cure’ LGBTQ people, and the conversions imposed on Jews by entrenched structures of anti-Semitism. In readings of three 21st Century plays that explore these issues, the author emphasizes the unique ability of drama to bring critical analysis and insight to the performative nature of conversional social practices. His study asserts the centrality of dramatic and social performance to the ongoing evolution of conversional phenomena, drawing lines of connection between the theatrical representations explored in the preceding chapters and similar offerings in our own age.