Staging Interspaces in Contemporary British Theatre

This open access book considers how relationships to place and spatial ecologies more broadly are becoming redefined in light of intersecting climate, health, identity and care crises. Through an interdisciplinary, intersectional discourse it investigates how spaces of liminality frame contemporary human conditions in their interactional modes with both human and non-human ecologies. The interspace grounds the discussion, indicating states of flux and transience, where the in-between is the defining characteristic. This open access monograph, then, takes up the new complexity in one’s relationship(s) to their surrounding spaces through a rigorous discussion of texts and performance contexts in cutting-edge contemporary British theatre on a national and international scale. It seeks to address how in-betweenness spatially, temporally, environmentally, geographically and socially conceived has been emerging as the primary state for the unmoored individual of our time – and how it might serve as catalyst for performing one's agency in modes more empathetic not only to other humans, but, also, and equally, to the non-human world.

“This is a compelling, passionately argued, and critically incisive study of the environments and dynamic ‘interspaces’ of contemporary British theatre and performance. Focusing on the work of key playwrights, Angelaki identifies the kinds of space that feature on stage - domestic, transient, liminal, ‘deviant’, and/or virtual - and, in so doing, explores theatrical responses to a range of urgent socio-political issues, including human trafficking, migration, the climate emergency, and ubiquitous digital culture. This is an ambitious and thought-provoking book; it is also a testament to the politics, possibilities, and profound significance of spatial world-building in contemporary theatre.”(Chris Megson, Reader in Drama and Theatre, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK)

"Vicky Angelaki's eloquent and scholarly study of theatre's spatial ecologies is timely, arriving as it does at a moment when the theatre and the world it reflects are in a state of constant transition. Ranging in focus from the political, social, environmental and economic, her carefully theorized case studies repeatedly draw our attention to the spaces in between, to contingency, and to the things that connect us, to each other and the planet."(Trish Reid, Professor of Theatre and Performance, University of Reading, UK)

Vicky Angelaki is Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Mid Sweden University / Mittuniversitetet, Sundsvall, Sweden. She is the recipient  of a sabbatical grant for the project “Performing Interspaces: Social Fluidities in Contemporary Theatre”, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (2022). Vicky's previous publications include The Plays of Martin Crimp: Making Theatre Strange (2012), Social and Political Theatre in 21st-Century Britain: Staging Crisis (2017), Theatre and Environment  (2019), Martin Crimp’s Power Plays: Intertextuality, Sexuality, Desire (2022). Vicky is also the co-editor of the series 'Adaptation in Theatre and Performance' (Palgrave Macmillan).