Abstract
In her critical anthology on black and Asian British theatre Alternatives Within the Mainstream: British Black and Asian Theatres (2006), Dimple Godiwala makes a dynamic and impressive claim about the central position of black and Asian dramatists and theatre practitioners in contemporary British culture.1 Drawing on Bourdieu’s sociological theory, Godiwala creates a strong locus for diasporic/interstitial writers and artists as the best qualified to tackle the heterogeneity of contemporary British culture. In this upgrading process, she rejects the ‘postcolonial’ as a ‘now tired term’, which, being relational to colonialism, perpetuates a subordinate understanding of all other cultures by the Eurocentric ‘doxa’.2 In highly hierarchical countries, like Britain, this has led to the institutionalization of racism and a peculiar ‘tokenization’ of the black artist.3 It is precisely the role of the diasporic/interstitial subject to fill in what exist as lacunae in the indigenous British subject’s ‘doxic field’.4
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
D. Godiwala (ed.), Alternatives Within the Mainstream: British Black and Asian Theatres (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2006).
G. Griffin, ‘Constitutive Subjectivities: Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights in Britain’, European Journal of Women’s Studies, 10.4 (2003), 377–94.
S. Malik, Black and Asian Images on Television (London: Sage, 2002), p. ix.
M. Ponnuswami, ‘Small Island People: Black British Women Playwrights’, in E. Aston and J. Reinelt (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Modern British Playwrights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 217–34.
See M. K. Dahl, ‘Postcolonial British Theatre: Black Voices at the Center’, in J. Ellen Gainor (ed.), Imperialism and Theatre (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 38–55; E. Savory, ‘Strategies for Survival: Anti-Imperialist Theatrical Forms in the Anglophone Caribbean’, in Gainor (ed.), Imperialism and Theatre, pp. 243–56.
See E. Aston, ‘Feminist Connections to a Multicultural “Scene”’, in Feminist Views on the English Stage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 125–48; G. Griffin, Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Griffin, ‘Constitutive Subjectivities: Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights in Britain’; G. Griffin, ‘The Remains of the British Empire: The Plays of Winsome Pinnock’, in M. Luckhurst (ed.), A Companion to Modern British and Irish Drama: 1880–2005 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 198–209; G. Griffin, ‘Theatres of Difference: The Politics of “Redistribution” and “Recognition” in the Plays of Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights in Britain’, Feminist Review, 84.1 (2006), 10–28.
D. Marzette, ‘Coming to Voice: Navigating the Interstices in Plays by Winsome Pinnock’, in E. Brown-Guillory (ed.), Middle Passages and the Healing Place of History: Migration and Identity in Black Women’s Literature (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2006), pp. 32–51 (p. 33). For a concise but comprehensive critical reception of the work of Winsome Pinnock see also E. Sakellaridou, ‘Winsome Pinnock’, in M. Middeke, P. P. Schnierer and A. Sierz (eds.), The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary British Playwrights (London: Methuen Drama, 2011), pp. 383–402.
W. Pinnock, Talking in Tongues, in Y. Brewster (ed.), Black Plays: Three (London: Methuen Drama, 1991, 1995), pp. 171–227; W. Pinnock, Mules (London: Faber & Faber, 1996); W. Pinnock, Can You Keep a Secret?, in S. Graham-Adriani (ed.), New Connections 99: New Plays for Young People (London: Faber, 1999), pp. 93–137; W. Pinnock, Water (unpublished typescript, 2000, British Library); W. Pinnock, One Under (London: Faber & Faber, 2005). Regarding the comment on the number of plays Pinnock has written, this chapter was completed in the summer of 2012.
W. Pinnock, Leave Taking, in K. Harwood (ed.), First Run: New Plays by New Writers (London: Nick Hern Books, 1989), pp. 139–89; W. Pinnock, A Rock in Water, in Y. Brewster (ed.), Black Plays: Two (London: Methuen Drama, 1989), pp. 45–91; W. Pinnock, A Hero’s Welcome, in K. George (ed.), Black and Asian Women Writers (London: Aurora Metro Press, 1993), pp. 21–55.
Brewster (ed.), Black Plays: Two, p. 225.
H. Cixous, ‘Aller à la mer’, in R. Drain (ed.), Twentieth Century Theatre: A Sourcebook (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 133–5. (Originally published in Le Monde, 28 April 1977, p. 19.)
N. Shange, for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf (New York: Scribner Poetry, 1997).
D. Hingorani, British Asian Theatre: Dramaturgy, Process and Performance (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 12.
See W. Pinnock, ‘Breaking Down the Door’, in V. Gottlieb and C. Chambers (eds.), Theatre in a Cool Climate (Oxford: Amber Lane Press, 1999), pp. 27–38.
T. Gupta, Sugar Mummies (London: Oberon Books, 2006).
Griffin, Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights, p. 213. Griffin uses the more precise neologism ‘sexploitation’.
Quoted in H. Stephenson and N. Langridge, Rage and Reason: Women Playwrights on Playwriting (London: Methuen Drama, 1997), pp. 45–53 (p. 52).
Quoted in D. Edgar, State of Play: Playwrights on Playwriting (London: Faber & Faber, 1999), pp. 58–9 (p. 59).
B. Reitz, ‘“Discovering an Identity Which Has Been Squashed”: Intercultural and Intracultural Confrontations in the Plays of Winsome Pinnock and Ayub Khan-Din’, European Journal of English Studies, 7.1 (2003), 39–54 (p. 44).
C. Churchill, Top Girls (London and New York: Methuen, 1982); C. Churchill, Serious Money (London: Methuen, 1987); H. Brenton and D. Hare, Pravda (London: Methuen, 1985).
C. Churchill, The Skriker (London: Nick Hern Books, 1994).
R. Prichard, Yard Gal (London and Boston: Faber & Faber, 1998).
T. Gupta, White Boy (London: Oberon Books, 2008).
Another brief comparison here to Tanika Gupta’s White Boy, which shows on the surface a similar ambition to cut across race and gender and explore the difficulties of forging a new white personality in the changing and conflicting multicultural reality of today’s London society, can prove the much greater complexity and sophistication of Pinnock’s thought as much as her innovative and effective representational tactics. In contrast, Gupta does not seem to surpass the limitations of a descriptive realism.
A. Childress, Wine in the Wilderness (New York: Dramatists Play Service, n.d.).
Tricycle Theatre has so far staged three of Pinnock’s more recent plays: Water (2000), One Under (2005) and IDP (2006).
L. Goddard, Staging Black Feminisms: Identity, Politics, Performance (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 193.
T. Wertenbaker, Three Birds Alighting on a Field (London and Boston: Faber & Faber, 1992).
L. Booth quoted in Griffin, ‘The Remains of the British Empire: The Plays of Winsome Pinnock’, p. 46.
H. Pinter, Moonlight (London: Faber & Faber, 1993); H. Pinter, Ashes to Ashes (London: Faber & Faber, 1996).
H. S. Mirza, Black British Feminism: A Reader (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), p. 182.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2013 Contributors
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sakellaridou, E. (2013). Old Wine in a New Bottle or Vice Versa? Winsome Pinnock’s Interstitial Poetics. In: Angelaki, V. (eds) Contemporary British Theatre. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137010131_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137010131_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-43628-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-01013-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Theatre & Performance CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)