Dramaturgy of Sex on Stage in Contemporary Theatre

This book explores the dramaturgy of sex in contemporary works for the stage in the social, cultural and historical context of the time and place during which they were written and performed.

Dramaturgy of Sex on Stage in Contemporary Theatre explores the dramaturgy of sex in contemporary works for the stage in the social, cultural and historical context of the time and place during which they were written and performed.

Comprising chapters by writers from across North America and Europe, the book covers an expansive range of plays, musicals and dance performances, from Broadway to the Fringe, from post-AIDS epidemic to post-COVID-19 pandemic. Analysing these intimate moments-both textually and as staged-through an intersectional and critical lens illuminates the way power structures are maintained and codified, and how they can be queered and dismantled onstage and off. This examination of depictions of sex on stage attempts to understand from a dramaturgical and sociological perspective how these depictions have developed over time, and how the rise of intimacy directors has responded to the changes within the contemporary theatrical landscape and in the world at large.

This is an essential companion for any scholar or practitioner looking to stage, discuss or understand intimacy in performance.

Autorentext

Kate Mulley is an internationally acclaimed playwright, librettist, lyricist, producer and dramaturg whose work explores gender, power, place and desire through a feminist, and often historical, lens. Her plays and musicals have been performed in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and China.

Inhalt

Introduction

Kate Mulley

Part I: Depicting Sexual Discovery and Identity

1. (Still) Shopping and (Still) Fucking: The Stylistics of Queer Desire on Stage

George Sampatakakis

2. Respectable Queer Sex: Criteria for Permissible Representations in Contemporary Mainstream Theatre

Joey Baseil Massa

3. Depicting Queer Sexual Discovery in Contemporary British Fringe Theatre

Alexander Millington

4. All Tomorrow's Parties: Structures of Feeling in Verbatim Theatre

Shane Kinghorn

Part II: Depicting Stylized Sex

5. Disability and Desire: Multimodal Exploration in Deaf West's Spring Awakening

Lindsey R. Barr

6. Dancing on a Knife's Edge: Performing Violent Co-Dependency in Bryony Lavery and Frantic Assembly's Stockholm

Karen Morash

7. A Dramaturgy of Precariousness: The Real, Realness, and Spectatorship of Sex in Dead Centre's Good Sex

Huayu Yang

8. Mette Ingvartsen's "The Red Pieces" Series: Sex, Dance, Erasing Power Structures and Ungendered Bodies

Anne Lempicki

Part III: Depicting Transactional Sex

9. Commodification of Women's Bodies: Staging the Consequences

Sophie Bastien

10. Masculinity and Commercial Sex from the Perspective of Giuliana Musso's Sexmachine

Stefania Lodi Rizzini

Part IV: Depicting Female Desire

11. Context, Cliche, and Other Considerations for Staging Female Desire

Cristina (Cha) Ramos and Claire Warden

12. Monstrous Desires: Writings of Sexuality in Contemporary Feminist Dramatic Writings in France

Leïla Cassar

Part V: Depicting Sexual Violence

13. Patriarchy Structures and Depictions of Patriarchal Sex in Contemporary Theatre

Kate Mulley

14. Interrogating Racialized Sexual Violence in Slave Play

Jessica Ellison

15. Sexual Assault and the Criminal Justice System: The Naked Female Body in Breach Theatre's It's True, It's True, It's True

Hannah Simpson

16. Sex Between Macabre Lust and Clinical Dissection in Dea Loher's Dramaturgy

Youn Le Guern-Herry

17. Applications of Dramaturgy in the Physical Creation of Sexual Violence on Stage

Meron Langsner and Cristina (Cha) Ramos