This book considers the representation of madness in contemporary British
theatre, examining the rich relationship between performance and mental health,
and questioning how theatre can potentially challenge dominant understandings
of mental health. Carefully, it suggests what it means to represent madness in
theatre, and the avenues through which such representations can become
radical, whereby theatre can act as a site of resistance.
Engaging with the heterogeneity of madness, each chapter covers different
attributes and logics, including: the constitution and institutional structures of the contemporary asylum; the cultural idioms behind hallucination; the means by
which suicide is apprehended and approached; how testimony of the mad person
is interpreted and encountered.
As a study that interrogates a wide range of British theatre across the past 30
years, and includes a theoretical interrogation of the politics of madness, this is
a crucial work for any student or researcher, across disciplines, considering the
politics of madness and its relationship to performance.
About the Author: Dr. Jon Venn works as Teaching Fellow in Drama at the University of Birmingham, UK. His research interests include contemporary British theatre, the politics of madness, and critical suicide studies. His work has appeared in The Cambridge Companion to Theatre and Science and the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies.
