Abstract

Drawing on examples from the past twenty years of British theatre performance, a conceptual approach to the analysis of scientific ideas and discourse in dramatic and post-dramatic theatre is outlined. The focus is on plays and theatre pieces inspired by the ideas, the discourse and the images of science, thereby considering it above all as a form of knowledge and enquiry (leaving aside plays that focus on the characters of great scientists, or laboratory life). Examples are all drawn from the last twenty years of British theatre, and are mostly text-based drama and performance. Three levels of analysis are proposed: discursive questions, drawing on theories of metaphor and intertextuality to examine the effects of scientific discourse on stage and the poetic uses of epistemological terminology; the relation between the embodied nature of performance and the detachment of scientific theory, including phenomenological descriptions of theatrical embodiment ; and the ways in which scientific images and shapes can inspire formal experimentation in the theatre. As interactions between science and theatre continue to develop, so too does our need for conceptual frameworks with which to analyse these trends. 'Science' in the theatre presents us with a methodological challenge, because the different meanings of this word (as a form of knowledge, an activity within a community of researchers, or a political actor in our society) and the different uses to which it can be put (as a source of plots, metaphors, characters and structure) allow a great variety of approaches, from narratology and linguistics to sociological and aesthetic questions. Faced with such a multifaceted relation, I have limited the breadth of this study in two ways: first, by focusing on plays and theatre pieces inspired by the ideas, the discourse and the images of science, thereby considering it above all as a form of knowledge and enquiry (leaving aside plays that focus on the characters of great scientists, or laboratory life). Secondly, my examples are all drawn from the last twenty years of British theatre, and are mostly text-based drama and performance. This double focus allows me to propose a conceptual approach to the study of scientific language and ideas in contemporary theatre.