Revisiting the Past in Contemporary British Theatre

This volume brings together an international group of scholars to probe the intersections between history and memory, loss, trauma, nostalgia and commemoration of different kinds.

They do so through analysing a selection of contemporary British plays and performances, which includes work by Caryl Churchill, Caryl Phillips, Edward Bond, Harold Pinter and Tanika Gupta, among many others. Through underlining the dimensions of historical and human memory in these works, the study illuminates what a close relationship memory and history have and how they create meaning in contemporary British theatre.

While the first part of the book presents a collection of chapters on the memories of space and identities, the second part includes chapters within the context of political memories and trauma/crises; and the third part deals with the re/deconstruction of time and memory in the selected plays and new strategies for representing them in contemporary performances.

This volume showcases contemporary drama and theatre researchers going beyond the psychological foundations of memory studies and considering how memories construct or deconstruct current cultural, social and political matters in contemporary performances.