In the lurch : verbatim theater and the crisis of democratic deliberation / Ryan Claycomb.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Claycomb, Ryan, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Claycomb, Ryan M., 1974---Criticism, Textual.

Claycomb, Ryan M.

Historical drama--21st century--History and criticism.

Historical drama.

Historical drama--20th century--History and criticism.

Historical drama--21st century--Political aspects.

Historical drama--20th century--Political aspects.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 154 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor, Michigan : University of Michigan Press, 2023.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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?

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Acknowledgments

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

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Title from eBook information screen..

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

ISBN:

9780472903337

0472903330

OCLC:

1346080688