Contemporary (Debates on) Political Theatre: An Introduction

Political theatre today is in a curious position vis-à-vis theatre scholarship. On the one hand, there are strong signs of a renewed interest in this kind of practice, after the many post-Cold War dismissals proved too hasty. On the other, habitual expectations about what a political play or performance is and what it can do have been relentlessly questioned, with revised parameters emerging. All six chapters in this section put forward valuable contributions to the current dialogue using novel frameworks and fresh case studies that – even if the temptation to generalise is duly resisted – offer numerous pixels in a composite picture of political theatre for the twenty-first century. This introduction aims at gathering some of these ideas and placing them alongside other recent interventions in an academic exchange that is still far from reaching settled conclusions.