How is decadence being staged today – as a practice, issue, pejorative, and as a site of pleasure? Where might we find it, why might we look for it, and who is decadence for? This book is the first monographic study of decadence in theatre and performance. Adam Alston makes a passionate case for the contemporary relevance of decadence in the thick of a resurgent culture war by focusing on its antithetical relationship to capitalist-led growth, progress, and intensified productivity. He argues that the qualities used to disparage the study and practice of theatre and performance are the very things we should embrace in celebrating their value – namely, their spectacular uselessness, wastefulness, outmodedness, and abundant potential for producing forms of creativity that flow away from the ends and excesses of capitalism. Alston covers an eclectic range of examples by Julia Bardsley (UK), Hasard Le Sin (Finland), jaamil olawale kosoko (USA), Toco Nikaido (Japan), Martin O’Brien (UK), Toshiki Okada (Japan), Marcel·lí Antúnez Roca (Spain), Normandy Sherwood (USA), The Uhuruverse (USA), Nia O. Witherspoon (USA), and Wunderbaum (Netherlands). Expect ruminations on monstrous scenographies, catatonic choreographies, turbo-charged freneticism, visions of the apocalypse – and what might lie in its wake.

Witty satire, political drama, transgressive social commentary, mystical meditation; for years, these topics were banned from the stage. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries decadent writers turned to decadence as a means of responding to urban modernity, and dramatists were no exception. Decadence offered these writers a framework for exploring nonconformist identities and beliefs that challenged narrow ideas about taste, decency, and progress, and recurring motifs included queer sexualities and genders, elitism, social class, degeneracy and decay. International in scope and eclectic in content, this edited anthology is an authoritative and accessible introduction to this fast-expanding field of decadent literature . The first publication of its kind to deal specifically with decadent dramatic works in the pre-modernist and modernist periods, Decadent Plays breaks new ground by exploring how the concept of decadence cuts across genre, styles, and culture, and by including little-known works that are currently out-of-print. Featuring work Oscar Wilde, Michael Field, Lesya Ukrainka, Rachilde, Remy de Gourmont, Jean Lorrain, Leonid Andreyev, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Maurice Maeterlinck, Izumi Kyoka, and Djuna Barnes, this anthology includes a selection of mainstream and marginal plays, some of which have been translated into English for the first time. An essential and influential introduction to the fast-expanding field of decadent literature, this edited anthology is suitable for undergraduate and graduate students, and specialists and non-specialists alike.

Immersive theatre currently enjoys ubiquity, popularity and recognition in theatre journalism and scholarship. However, the politics of immersive theatre aesthetics still lacks a substantial critique. Does immersive theatre model a particular kind of politics, or a particular kind of audience? What's involved in the production and consumption of immersive theatre aesthetics? Is a productive audience always an empowered audience? And do the terms of an audience's empowerment stand up to political scrutiny? Beyond Immersive Theatre contextualises these questions by tracing the evolution of neoliberal politics and the experience economy over the past four decades. Through detailed critical analyses of work by Ray Lee, Lundahl & Seitl, Punchdrunk, shunt, Theatre Delicatessen and Half Cut, Adam Alston argues that there is a tacit politics to immersive theatre aesthetics - a tacit politics that is illuminated by neoliberalism, and that is ripe to be challenged by the evolution and diversification of immersive theatre.

Witty satire, political drama, transgressive social commentary, mystical meditation; for years, these topics were banned from the stage. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries decadent writers turned to decadence as a means of responding to urban modernity, and dramatists were no exception. Decadence offered these writers a framework for exploring nonconformist identities and beliefs that challenged narrow ideas about taste, decency, and progress, and recurring motifs included queer sexualities and genders, elitism, social class, degeneracy and decay. International in scope and eclectic in content, this edited anthology is an authoritative and accessible introduction to this fast-expanding field of decadent literature . The first publication of its kind to deal specifically with decadent dramatic works in the pre-modernist and modernist periods, Decadent Plays breaks new ground by exploring how the concept of decadence cuts across genre, styles, and culture, and by including little-known works that are currently out-of-print. Featuring work Oscar Wilde, Michael Field, Lesya Ukrainka, Rachilde, Remy de Gourmont, Jean Lorrain, Leonid Andreyev, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Maurice Maeterlinck, Izumi Kyoka, and Djuna Barnes, this anthology includes a selection of mainstream and marginal plays, some of which have been translated into English for the first time. An essential and influential introduction to the fast-expanding field of decadent literature, this edited anthology is suitable for undergraduate and graduate students, and specialists and non-specialists alike.

Theatre in the Dark: Shadow, Gloom and Blackout in Contemporary Theatre responds to a rising tide of experimentation in theatre practice that eliminates or obscures light. It brings together leading and emerging practitioners and researchers in a volume dedicated to exploring the phenomenon and showcasing a range of possible critical and theoretical approaches. This book considers the aesthetics and phenomenology of dark, gloomy and shadow-strewn theatre performances, as well as the historical and cultural significances of darkness, shadow and the night in theatre and performance contexts. It is concerned as much with the experiences elicited by darkness and obscured or diminished lighting as it is with the conditions that define, frame and at times re-shape what each might 'mean' and 'do'. Contributors provide surveys of relevant practice, interviews with practitioners, theoretical reflections and close critical analyses of work by key innovators in the aesthetics of light, shadow and darkness. The book has a particular focus on the work of contemporary theatre makers - including Sound&Fury, David Rosenberg and Glen Neath, Lundahl & Seitl, Extant, and Analogue - and seeks to deepen the engagement of theatre and performance studies with what might be called 'the sensory turn'. Theatre in the Dark explores ground-breaking areas that will appeal to researchers, practitioners and audiences alike.