Theatre Responds to Social Trauma

Chasing the Demons
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-032-05321-9
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 567 g

Reihe: Routledge Series in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Theatre and Performance

This book is a collection of chapters by playwrights, directors, devisers, scholars, and educators whose praxis involves representing, theorizing, and performing social trauma.

Chapters explore how psychic catastrophes and ruptures are often embedded in social systems of oppression and forged in zones of conflict within and across national borders. Through multiple lenses and diverse approaches, the authors examine the connections between collective trauma, social identity, and personal struggle. We look at the generational transmission of trauma, socially induced pathologies, and societal re-inscriptions of trauma, from mass incarceration to war-induced psychoses, from gendered violence through racist practices. Collective trauma may shape, protect, and preserve group identity, promoting a sense of cohesion and meaning, even as it shakes individuals through pain. Engaging with communities under significant stress through artistic practice offers a path towards reconstructing the meaning(s) of social trauma, making sense of the past, understanding the present, and re-visioning the future.

The chapters combine theoretical and practical work, exploring the conceptual foundations and the artists’ processes as they interrogate the intersections of personal grief and communal mourning, through drama, poetry, and embodied performance.

Zielgruppe

Academic and General

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kaplan, Ellen W.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Lyrik und Dichter
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Fernsehdrehbücher
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Allgemeine Psychologie Sozialpsychologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmdrehbücher
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Tanz Andere Darstellende Künste
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Minderheiten, Interkulturelle & Multikulturelle Fragen
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychotherapie / Klinische Psychologie Psychopathologie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Populärkultur
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gewalt und Diskriminierung: Soziale Aspekte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Freizeitsoziologie, Konsumsoziologie, Alltagssoziologie, Populärkultur
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft Theatergeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Tanz Geschichte des Tanzes

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Contributors

Acknowledgements



PART I

Introduction

1. Theatre and Social Trauma: Introduction and Overview

Ellen W. Kaplan

2. The Story Before the Script: Documenting and testifying to trauma histories of incarcerated persons

Julie Kriegler



PART II

Exiles: Loss of Language, Loss of Home

3. Weaving Personal Trauma in Video Opera “THE WArDROBE”: Transdisciplinarity and Womanhood

Nerina Cocchi

4. Lampedusa Beach: A Voice from the Depths of the Sea

Anna Botta

5. Interview with playwright Lina Prosa

Anna Botta and Nerina Cocchi

6. The Theater of Arístides Vargas: Antidote Against Death

María Estela Harretche

7. Bearing Witness to the “Unspeakable”? Poetry writing in the aftermath of the Êzîdî Genocide

Mairead Smith



PART III

Theatre Companies Wrestle with Social Trauma

8. A Serpent’s Tale: The Work of El Teatro Indigena de la Sierra Tarahumara

Gabriel Harrell

9. Witness Theater: The Power of Embodied Storytelling

Sally Grazi-Shatzkes

10. Resistance: Theatre as Protest and Reckoning

Jean-Remy Monnay

11. Life Suspended: Theatre as Social Practice in Afghanistan

Abdul-Hakim Hashemi Hamidi

12. Contemporary Kenyan Theatre as a Response to the Traumas of Colonialism

Aroji Otieno

13. Community as Theatre: Shakespeare Festival in St. Louis and Community Partnerships

Mariah L. Richardson

14. Interviews with Dominic Dupont and Marjolaine Goldsmith of Theater of War

Ellen W. Kaplan

15. Trauma and Morality in Classical Greek Drama: Trauma and Authentic Accountability Before the Christian Era

Len Berkman



PART IV

Processes of Embodiment

16. Interview with Carol Gilligan

Ellen W. Kaplan

17. Interview with Trenda Loftin

Ellen W. Kaplan

18. Pedagogies of Embodied Healing: Devised Theatre and Reciprocal Empathy

Zoe Rose Kriegler-Wenk



PART V

Closing the Gaps: Social Trauma and Text

19. Empathy, Imagination, and Embodiment: Turning Document into Fiction

Alex Poppe

20. Calls to Action: Collaboration across Difference

Catherine Filloux

21. AFTERWORD

Ellen W. Kaplan

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Ellen W. Kaplan is Professor of Acting and Directing at Smith College, a Fulbright Scholar, Fulbright Senior Specialist, an actress, director, and playwright.