Staging Decadence: Contemporary Theatre and the End of Capitalism

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Why are so many theatre makers staging their experiences of going nowhere fast? Runners stumbling atop treadmills, cyclists spinning on exercise bikes, torsos flailing wildly while feet remain rooted to the spot. ‘Frenetic standstill’ identifies the strange paradox of racing to keep up with an accelerating pace of life in stagnating economies. What happens if we take seriously the claim that theatre is both unproductive and decadent? What can performances of excess tell us about the apparent need for workers and consumers to be constantly productive? What might they lend to our understanding of ‘frenetic standstill’ as one of the most pressing issues of recent times – an issue that is only set to be worsened by the pandemic?

Staging Decadence: Contemporary Theatre and the End of Capitalism offers the first scholarly consideration of decadence in theatre, focusing on an international range of practitioners who embody, enact or subvert the excesses of 21st-century capitalism. It does so by introducing and ultimately embracing decadence as a valuable take on radical theatre in beleaguered economies, this having been considered the very antithesis of ‘productivity’ and ‘progress’ by many artists and writers across the world for over 150 years.

What emerges is an opportunity to consider decadence as a stage upon which cultural values are forged, appropriated, contested or undermined. This book presents a diverse range of examples including work by Wunderbaum (Netherlands), Marcel·lí Antúnez (Spain), Julia Bardsley (UK), Toco Nikaido (Japan), Martin O’Brien (UK), and Jaamil Olawale Kosoko (USA). It is the primary output attached to the AHRC-funded Staging Decadence project, and will be a landmark text in the field and the discipline at large.

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