Dramaturgy of Sex on Stage in Contemporary Theatre explores the dramaturgy of sex in contemporary works for the stage in the social, cultural and historical context of the time and place during which they were written and performed.
Comprising chapters by writers from across North America and Europe, the book covers an expansive range of plays, musicals and dance performances, from Broadway to the Fringe, from post-AIDS epidemic to post-COVID-19 pandemic. Analysing these intimate momentsboth textually and as stagedthrough an intersectional and critical lens illuminates the way power structures are maintained and codified, and how they can be queered and dismantled onstage and off. This examination of depictions of sex on stage attempts to understand from a dramaturgical and sociological perspective how these depictions have developed over time, and how the rise of intimacy directors has responded to the changes within the contemporary theatrical landscape and in the world at large.
This is an essential companion for any scholar or practitioner looking to stage, discuss or understand intimacy in performance.
This book explores the dramaturgy of sex in contemporary works for the stage in the social, cultural and historical context of the time and place during which they were written and performed.
Recenzijas
"Through the lenses of many writers, the book covers a range of topics and genres from musicals to plays, verbatim theatre, fringe, and dance performances. The book magnifies power structures and exposes how they are maintained in theatre while providing a critical lens to queering and dismantling these structures onstage and off. [ ...] I would recommend this book to directors, intimacy coordinators, actors, artistic directors, educators and anyone in the development process and creation of theatre. I believe that this book is revolutionary and should be on the shelves of every university library. It provides an excellent scope of contemporary sexual theatre history and shares a lens for artists to transform the view of sex onstage in the future."
Charlotte W. Roberts, Loyola Marymount University, USA, in Theatre Research International, 49(3)
Introduction
Kate Mulley
Part I: Depicting Sexual Discovery and Identity
1. (Still) Shopping and (Still) Fucking: The Stylistics of Queer Desire on
Stage
George Sampatakakis
2. Respectable Queer Sex: Criteria for Permissible Representations in
Contemporary Mainstream Theatre
Joey Baseil Massa
3. Depicting Queer Sexual Discovery in Contemporary British Fringe Theatre
Alexander Millington
4. All Tomorrows Parties: Structures of Feeling in Verbatim Theatre
Shane Kinghorn
Part II: Depicting Stylized Sex
5. Disability and Desire: Multimodal Exploration in Deaf Wests Spring
Awakening
Lindsey R. Barr
6. Dancing on a Knifes Edge: Performing Violent Co-Dependency in Bryony
Lavery and Frantic Assemblys Stockholm
Karen Morash
7. A Dramaturgy of Precariousness: The Real, Realness, and Spectatorship of
Sex in Dead Centres Good Sex
Huayu Yang
8. Mette Ingvartsens The Red Pieces Series: Sex, Dance, Erasing Power
Structures and Ungendered Bodies
Anne Lempicki
Part III: Depicting Transactional Sex
9. Commodification of Womens Bodies: Staging the Consequences
Sophie Bastien
10. Masculinity and Commercial Sex from the Perspective of Giuliana Mussos
Sexmachine
Stefania Lodi Rizzini
Part IV: Depicting Female Desire
11. Context, Cliche, and Other Considerations for Staging Female Desire
Cristina (Cha) Ramos and Claire Warden
12. Monstrous Desires: Writings of Sexuality in Contemporary Feminist
Dramatic Writings in France
Leļla Cassar
Part V: Depicting Sexual Violence
13. Patriarchy Structures and Depictions of Patriarchal Sex in Contemporary
Theatre
Kate Mulley
14. Interrogating Racialized Sexual Violence in Slave Play
Jessica Ellison
15. Sexual Assault and the Criminal Justice System: The Naked Female Body in
Breach Theatres Its True, Its True, Its True
Hannah Simpson
16. Sex Between Macabre Lust and Clinical Dissection in Dea Lohers
Dramaturgy
Youn Le Guern-Herry
17. Applications of Dramaturgy in the Physical Creation of Sexual Violence on
Stage
Meron Langsner and Cristina (Cha) Ramos
Kate Mulley is an internationally acclaimed playwright, librettist, lyricist, producer and dramaturg whose work explores gender, power, place and desire through a feminist, and often historical, lens. Her plays and musicals have been performed in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and China.
