Performing Interspaces: Social Fluidities in Contemporary Theatre

Drawing on theatre studies, sociology and geography, the book delivers the transdisciplinary perspective needed to evidence the significance of performance for society and community at a time when, due to COVID-19, the arts have never been more precarious. The monograph addresses liminal spaces as depicted in Anglophone theatre since 2000, capturing the social, political, cultural and geographical possibilities of in-betweenness and investigating its complexities. As global crises, from military conflict to financial collapse and from the climate emergency to the pandemic, have marked the past 20 years, the book investigates how theatremakers have used formal experimentation and the concept of in-between space, defined as interspace, in its different iterations, to capture fluid mental, emotional and physical states. Benefiting from an internationalist approach and extensive previous research while being an entirely original project, the book draws on a Swedish perspective of landscape, tracing the term 'mellan-' [in-between] within Anglophone theatre. It examines fixed and mobile spaces, concentrating on both natural environments and human-made structures. Ultimately, the book offers a re-evaluation of the spatial non-binary and its socio-political implications: it reveals the interventionist role of theatre in the 21st century, accounts for our definitive contemporary conditions -- exposure and transition -- and creates a new model for future transdisciplinary studies.

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