Watching war on the twenty-first century stage : spectacles of conflict

\"What do we watch when we watch war? At a time when spectacle and conflict have joined forces via audio-visual technologies in ways that are more powerful than ever, who now manages public perceptions of war and how? Watching War on the Twenty-First Century Stage: Spectacles of Conflict examines how theatre in the UK has staged, debated and challenged the ways in which spectacle is habitually weaponized in times of war. In this original and interdisciplinary interrogation Clare Finburgh provides a richly provocative account of the structuring role that spectacle plays in warfare, engaging with the works of philosopher Guy Debord, cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard, visual studies specialist Marie-José Mondzain, and performance scholar Hans-Thies Lehmann. Throughout her study, Finburgh offers coherence to a large and expanding field of theatrical war representations by analysing a wide spectrum of works, including expressionist drama, documentary theatre, comedy, musical satire and dance theatre: among the productions considered are Nigel Jamieson's Honour Bound, Lola Arias's MINEFIELD, Mark Ravenhill's Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat, Hayley Squires's Vera Vera Vera, Lone Twin's Alice Bell, Richard Norton-Taylor's verbatim tribunal play Tactical Questioning, and Dennis Kelly's Osama the Hero. Through her analysis, Finburgh demonstrates how features unique to the theatrical art--the construction of a fiction in the presence of the audience--can present possibilities for a more informed engagement with how spectacles of war are produced and circulated.\"-- Provided by publisher.