Transnational or bi-cultural? Challenges in reading post-1989 drama 'written outside the nation'

By comparing and contrasting two plays written ‘outside the nation: Głowacki’s 'Antigone in New York' (1992) and Grosvenor’s 'Cherry Blossom' (2008), the essay explores the possibility of creating a transnational drama that is supposed to facilitate mutual understanding and intercultural experience.<p></p> The questions that frame my discussion of both plays (and their bi-cultural perception) regard the phenomenon of transnational writing which escapes an easy definition in terms of nationality, linguistic belonging or a mono-cultural practice. What frame of cultural reference should we apply when reading a mobile/travelling wor(l)d? What/who shapes the set of assessment criteria for artistic products of transcultural idioms? How can such idioms be deciphered, if true ‘intercultural readers’ are – in most cases – still a dream only? I address these and other questions when discussing the plays’ reception, the critics’ voices and the experience of both texts in my pedagogical practice.<p></p&gt