There is no such thing as a happy colonised people. Never has been and never will be. That is our basic delusion. December 2011. Watching video footage from a drone, Pentagon officials see a huddle of people – unarmed smugglers, with mules – treading their familiar path across the Turkish-Iraqi border. Hours later, Turkish Armed Forces drop bombs on the group. 34 civilians are killed. The Roboski massacre is one of the most controversial episodes in the 'war on terror'. Piecing together the fragments of the tragedy, Anders Lustgarten's startling new play dares to ask what a massacre is made of. Shrapnel is a story of malicious commands and mournful commemorations; an urgent, powerful insight into the state of modern warfare. This edition was published to coincide with the UK premiere at the Arcola Theatre, London, on 11 March 2015.
The first play collection from Anders Lustgarten, "perhaps Britain's most visible and visibly engaged political playwright" (Time Out London), containing plays from the start of his career up to 2015 with the most recent play in the collection, Shrapnel, and one previously unpublished play. The volume includes an introduction by the playwright. A Day at the Racists (2010, Finborough Theatre) is a devastatingly timely examination of the rise of the BNP in London, which attempts to understand why people might be drawn to the BNP and diagnoses the deeper cause of that attraction: the political abandonment and betrayal of the working class by New Labour. If You Don't Let Us Dream, We Won't Let You Sleep (Royal Court Theatre, 2013) offers an exploration of our current government's politics of austerity and a look at possible alternatives. Black Jesus (Finborough Theatre, 2013) unpicks the political complexities of Zimbabwe through the devastating personal journeys of two very different people, both scarred by one of Africa's most notorious dictatorships. Shrapnel (Arcola Theatre, 2015) takes as its subject The Roboski massacre is one of the most controversial episodes in the 'war on terror'. Piecing together the fragments of the tragedy, Anders Lustgarten's startling new play dares to ask what a massacre is made of. Kingmakers (Salisbury Playhouse, 2015) imagines ten years after the signing of Magna Carta when the barons' takeover isn't quite going to plan. With the peasants grumbling about enormous castles and broken promises, the threat of rebellion hangs in the air. This play has not previously been published. The Insurgents (Finborough Theatre, 2007) is Anders Lustgarten's look at contemporary London and its class divide. Private equity has turned the city into a high-fenced playground for a tax-exempt, big business elite. This play has not previously been published.
A driver picks up a young man crossing Europe. Two police officers work a surveillance case. A passenger directs her taxi to the edge of a bridge. Three conversations grow increasingly uneasy. From award-winning writer Gabriel Gbadamosi comes a visceral and poetic new play, exploring a time of distrust where the lines blur between conversation and interrogation. Stop and Search explores our deep ambivalence about the ways we police each other.
This study offers a historicization of the 2010s in British theatre with a focus on the representation of systemic violence, exploring productions that engage with concerns of protest, climate crisis, neoliberalism, racism and gender-based violence. It offers a range of case studies from established and emergent playwrights such as Caryl Churchill, Martin McDonagh, Anders Lustgarten, Lucy Kirkwood, Ella Hickson, Jasmine Lee-Jones, debbie tucker green, Zinnie Harris, and Travis Alabanza. Productions of their work in the 2010s are analysed through a framework of cultural theory, philosophy, and theatre and performance studies that offer insightful conceptions of violence and performativity. Central to this book is the belief that theatre has the ability to depict issues of systemic violence in thoughtful and valuable ways, drawing on the medium's specific relations between creatives, texts, spectatorship and audiences to mindfully engage participants in the most pressing societal and cultural concerns of their time.
“From now on, it’s drones, baby, drones” - Robert Gates, former U.S. Defense Secretary Three writers. Two plays. One vital tale of power, sex and infighting at the top of the Washington establishment, and its far-reaching repercussions. As Barack Obama prepares to leave office, this world premiere double bill probes behind the scenes of America’s controversial drone wars, and asks what they will mean for our future. This Tuesday It’s 5a.m. A CIA director learns her daughter has been injured in a car crash, a White House security adviser is sleeping with an intern, a Pentagon General is working out in the gym. This Tuesday, in an hour, they have a vital decision to make. The Kid Wednesday. A missile hits a wedding in Pakistan. 7000 miles away, two drone operators begin their celebration. Pushing the button was the start. If only it were the end...
There is no such thing as a happy colonised people. Never has been and never will be. That is our basic delusion. December 2011. Watching video footage from a drone, Pentagon officials see a huddle of people – unarmed smugglers, with mules – treading their familiar path across the Turkish-Iraqi border. Hours later, Turkish Armed Forces drop bombs on the group. 34 civilians are killed. The Roboski massacre is one of the most controversial episodes in the 'war on terror'. Piecing together the fragments of the tragedy, Anders Lustgarten's startling new play dares to ask what a massacre is made of. Shrapnel is a story of malicious commands and mournful commemorations; an urgent, powerful insight into the state of modern warfare. This edition was published to coincide with the UK premiere at the Arcola Theatre, London, on 11 March 2015.
What do we watch when we watch war? Who manages public perceptions of war and how? Watching War on the Twenty-First-Century Stage: Spectacles of Conflict is the first publication to examine how theatre in the UK has staged, debated and challenged the ways in which spectacle is habitually weaponized in times of war. The 'battle for hearts and minds' and the 'war of images' are fields of combat that can be as powerful as armed conflict. And today, spectacle and conflict – the two concepts that frame the book – have joined forces via audio-visual technologies in ways that are more powerful than ever. Clare Finburgh's original and interdisciplinary interrogation provides a richly provocative account of the structuring role that spectacle plays in warfare, engaging with the works of philosopher Guy Debord, cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard, visual studies specialist Marie-José Mondzain, and performance scholar Hans-Thies Lehmann. She offers coherence to a large and expanding field of theatrical war representation by analysing in careful detail a spectrum of works as diverse as expressionist drama, documentary theatre, comedy, musical satire and dance theatre. She demonstrates how features unique to the theatrical art, namely the construction of a fiction in the presence of the audience, can present possibilities for a more informed engagement with how spectacles of war are produced and circulated. If we watch with more resistance, we may contribute in significant ways to the demilitarization of images. And what if this were the first step towards a literal demilitarization?
But I do have a job. I'm a professional viscount. Things aren't looking good for Theodore 'Tug' Bungay. His mother, Lady Agrippina, has a plan to cut off his funds. His fed-up fiancée wants to drag him up the aisle. An oligarch is eyeing up his beloved Northumberland castle. Is Tug's dissolute life about to change completely? Or will he get to carry on doing exactly as he pleases without ever facing any consequences? Rory Mullarkey's riotous new play takes inspiration from Wilde and Wodehouse to create a contemporary comedy of manners set among the dwellers of south-west London who – somehow – remain our country's ruling class. This edition is published to coincide with the world premiere at London's Royal Court Theatre, in November 2023.
A love song, an elegy, a celebration: Eventide tells the story of three people whose worlds are disappearing. John is a landlord forced to sell up; Liz is a church organist who can't get a gig; Mark takes what work he can just to pay the rent. Their tales unfold round the back of a pub hidden deep in the heart of the Hampshire countryside - a heart that doesn't seem to be beating any more. Eventide is the latest collaboration between playwright Barney Norris and director Alice Hamilton following the sell-out success of Visitors in 2014. Greeted as 'extraordinary' (Guardian) and 'heartbreaking' (New York Times), Visitors won the Critics' Circle and Off West End Most Promising Playwright Awards.
No, Alice, I don't want to become a man, I just want to stop trying to be a woman. It's New Year in Rotterdam, and Alice has finally plucked up the courage to email her parents and tell them she's gay. But before she can hit send, her girlfriend reveals that he has always identified as a man and now wants to start living as one. Now Alice must face a question she never thought she'd ask . . . does this mean she's straight? A bittersweet comedy about gender, sexuality and being a long way from home. A programme text edition which was published to coincide with the world premiere at Theatre503, London, on 27 October 2015
