The Cambridge Companion to Theatre and Science

The first ever companion to theatre and science brings together research on key topics, performances, and new areas of interest.

Kirsten E. Shepherd-Barr (Edited by)

9781108476522, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 December 2020

300 pages, 8 b/w illus.
15 x 23 x 2 cm, 0.5 kg

'This Companion is a powerful contribution to the field. From experiments to the Anthropocene, bestiaries to bodies, pathogens to meteors to back-stage technologies, it demonstrates the enormous range of contemporary thinking on the connections running between theatre and science - and delivers this in a way that manages to be both invigorating and deeply enjoyable.' Tiffany Watt-Smith, Queen Mary University of London

Theatre has engaged with science since its beginnings in Ancient Greece. The intersection of the two disciplines has been the focus of increasing interest to scholars and students. The Cambridge Companion to Theatre and Science gives readers a sense of this dynamic field, using detailed analyses of plays and performances covering a wide range of areas including climate change and the environment, technology, animal studies, disease and contagion, mental health, and performance and cognition. Identifying historical tendencies that have dominated theatre's relationship with science, the volume traces many periods of theatre history across a wide geographical range. It follows a simple and clear structure of pairs and triads of chapters that cluster around a given theme so that readers get a clear sense of the current debates and perspectives.

Introduction Kirsten E. Shepherd-Barr
1. Objectivity & observation Dan Rebellato
2. Staging consciousness: Metaphor as thought-experiment in McBurney's staging of beware of pity Jane Goodall
3. The experimental/experiential stage: extreme states of being of and knowing in the theatre Carina Bartleet
4. A cave, a skull, and a little piece of grit: theatre in the anthropocene Carl Lavery
5. The play at the end of the world: deke weaver's unreliable bestiary and the theatre of extinction Una Chaudhuri and Joshua Williams
6. Bodies of knowledge: theatre and medical science Stanton B. Garner, Jr
7. Pathogenic performativity: urban contagion and fascist affect Fintan Walsh
8. Theatres of mental health Jonathan Venn
9. Devised theatre and the performance of science Mike Vanden Heuvel
10. Theatre and science as social intervention Michael Carklin
11. Acting and science Rhonda Blair
12. Staging cognition: how performance shows us how we think Amy Cook
13. Clouds and meteors: recreating wonder on the early modern stage Frédérique Aït-Touati
14. The stage hand's lament”: scenography, technology, and off-stage Labour Kirsten E. Shepherd-Barr.

Subject Areas: Educational: drama studies [YQD], Environmental science, engineering & technology [TQ], History of science [PDX], Impact of science & technology on society [PDR], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Theatre direction & production [ANF], Performance art [AFKP]