Overview

This volume brings together an international group of scholars to probe the intersections between history and memory, loss, trauma, nostalgia and commemoration of different kinds. They do so through analysing a selection of contemporary British plays and performances, which includes work by Caryl Churchill, Caryl Phillips, Edward Bond, Harold Pinter and Tanika Gupta, among many others. Through underlining the dimensions of historical and human memory in these works, the study illuminates what a close relationship memory and history have and how they create meaning in contemporary British theatre. While the first part of the book presents a collection of chapters on the memories of space and identities, the second part includes chapters within the context of political memories and trauma/crises; and the third part deals with the re/deconstruction of time and memory in the selected plays and new strategies for representing them in contemporary performances. This volume showcases contemporary drama and theatre researchers going beyond the psychological foundations of memory studies and considering how memories construct or deconstruct current cultural, social and political matters in contemporary performances.

Full Product Details

Author:   Dilek Inan
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Methuen Drama
ISBN:  

9781350468047

ISBN 10:   1350468045
Pages:   240
Publication Date:   27 November 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction: Revisiting the Past in Contemporary British Theatre: History, Memory and Performance Part 1: Memories of Space and Identities 1. Eroded Landscapes, Fragile Bodies: Intersecting Crises in the Plays of Caryl Churchill Professor Vicky Angelaki, Mid Sweden University, Sweden 2. Movement, Music and Protest: NW Trilogy, History, and Collaborative Play Cycles Professor Benjamin Poore, University of York, UK Part 2: Political Memories and Crises of the Past 1. Memorialising the murals: How do you remember The Troubles’ traumatic past? Professor Catherine Rees, Loughborough University, UK 2. Cannibalistic History in Victorian Memory: Edward Bond’s Early Morning Associate Professor Mesut Günenç, Adnan Menderes University, Turkey 3. Immigration Postmemory in Caryl Phillips’s Strange Fruit Hakan Gultekin, University of East Anglia, UK Part 3: Re/De-construction of Time and Memory in Contemporary British Drama 1. ‘Back to the Future’: The Contemporary British History Play Professor Steve Waters, University of East Anglia, UK 2. Out of Time: Old Age and the Contemporary in 21st-Century British Theatre Professor Sian Adiseshiah, Loughborough University, UK 3. “A Memory of Bucolic Life”: Harold Pinter’s Memory Plays Professor Dilek Inan, Izmir Democracy University, Turkey 4. The Aesthetics of Engaging the Past and Memory in Howard Barker’s ""Theatre of Catastrophe"" Assistant Professor Enes Kavak, Gaziantep University, Turkey 5. Communicating the Difficult Past: Lions and Tigers by Tanika Gupta Assistant Professor Pelin Dogan-Özger, Munzur University, Turkey Bibliography Index

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Author Information

Dilek Inan is Professor in the department of English Language and Literature at Izmir Democracy University, Turkey. She has published widely on dramatic and post-dramatic theatre, in particular on the works of Harold Pinter, David Hare, David Greig, Martin Crimp, Conor McPherson, Moira Buffini and the novelist Colm Toibin in national and international journals. She has published a monograph entitled The Sense of Place and Identity in David Greig’s Plays (2010) and British Drama 1995-2015: Plays and Playwrights (2017). She also has chapters in Literature, Narrative and Trauma (2019) and in Mapping and the Logic of Place (2019).

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