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Overview"Some of theater’s most powerful works in the past thirty years fall into the category of ""verbatim theater,"" socially engaged performances whose texts rely on word-for-word testimony. Performances such as Fires in the Mirror, The Laramie Project, and The Vagina Monologues have at their best demonstrated how to hold hard conversations about explosive subjects in a liberal democracy. But in this moment of what author Ryan Claycomb terms the “rightward lurch” of western democracies, does this idealized space of democratic deliberation remain effective? In the Lurch asks that question in a pointed and self-reflexive way, tracing the history of this branch of documentary theater with particular attention to the political outcomes and stances these performances seem to seek. But this is not just a disinterested history—Claycomb reflects on his own participation in that political fantasy, including earlier scholarly writing that articulated with breathless hopefulness the potential of verbatim theater, and on his own theatrical attendance, imbued with a belief that witnessing this idealized public sphere was a substitute for actual public participation. In the Lurch also recounts the bumpy path towards its completion, two years marked by presidential impeachments, an insurrection, a national reckoning with racism, and a global pandemic. At the heart of the book is a central question: is verbatim theater any longer an effective cultural response to what can look like the possible end of democracy?" Full Product DetailsAuthor: Ryan ClaycombPublisher: The University of Michigan Press Imprint: The University of Michigan Press Weight: 0.363kg ISBN: 9780472075744ISBN 10: 0472075748 Pages: 172 Publication Date: 30 January 2023 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In stock We have confirmation that this item is in stock with the supplier. It will be ordered in for you and dispatched immediately. Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: In the Lurch One: Democratic Deliberation and the Theatricalized Public Sphere Two: Debating in Utopia Three: Feeling Together Four: The Opposite of Empathy is Suspicion Coda: Nostalgia; or, the Pastness of the Present BibliographyReviews"""Poignant, self-interrogative, deeply informed yet engagingly written, Claycomb's In the Lurch might be my book of the year. Perhaps all the best books are written out of exactly the combination of love and frustration, hope and despair.""--The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory, Hannah Simpson" Author InformationRyan Claycomb is Professor of English and Theater and Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts at Colorado State University. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |