The Grotesque in Contemporary Anglophone Drama

Grotesque features have been among the chief characteristics of drama in English since the 1990s. This new book examines the varieties of the grotesque in the work of some of the most original playwrights of the last three decades (including Enda Walsh, Philip Ridley, Tim Crouch and Suzan-Lori Parks), focusing in particular on ethical and political issues that arise from the use of the grotesque.

Pilný's book delivers an always perspicacious and often eloquent set of readings of plays that speak to a cultural moment of distress and crisis by summoning elements and strategies of the grotesque. In so doing, he enriches our understanding of the role of contemporary theatre to hold a distorted mirror, as' twere, up to our distorted nature, and perhaps the clairvoyance that paradoxically emerges from that double warping is the true purpose of the grotesque. (Ralf Remshardt, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, Vol 6 (02), November, 2018)

Autorentext
Ondej Pilný is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Irish Studies at Charles University, Prague. He is the author of Irony and Identity in Modern Irish Drama and has edited collections of essays and journal issues on subjects ranging from Anglophone drama and Irish literature to cultural memory and structuralist theory. His translations include plays by J.M. Synge, Brian Friel, Martin McDonagh and Enda Walsh.

Klappentext

Following on from the work of art historians and literary and cultural theorists, this book examines the ways in which varieties of the grotesque function in the plays of Philip Ridley, Mark O'Rowe, Enda Walsh, Suzan-Lori Parks and Tim Crouch.

The term 'grotesque' has been frequently applied in commentaries on some of the most exciting contemporary drama, without much further elucidation. By producing visions of an alienated world, engendering simultaneous attraction and repulsion, and often triggering laughter that comes with a chill in the spine, the grotesque attacks both aesthetic and social conventions and requires a creative use of the imagination on the part of the spectators. The book argues that as such, the grotesque in the works of the selected playwrights solicits profound audience engagement with urgent ethical, social and political issues. The inevitable openness caused by the grotesque demonstrates the authors' faith in the deliberative powers of their audience, which stands in contrast to the ready-made choices offered by overtly committed political theatre.

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- 2. Engaging Monsters.- 3. Wild Justice.- 4. Life in a Box.- 5. Mutabilities.- 6. Imagine This.- 7. Afterword.