Feeling for Feminism: The Political Potential of Affective Encounters in the Audiences of Contemporary Feminist Performance

This thesis argues that audience feelings matter in feminist performance. Drawing on and contributing to feminist performance studies, affect theory, and audience studies, it focuses on performances which engage with and respond to the affective register of the outside world, arguing that audiences of feminist performance have emotional experiences in relation to shared social and political contexts in ways that have political power. Tracking audience feeling through three London-based performances which occurred in the early 2020s – an era punctuated by political shifts like the #MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter, a global pandemic, increased violence against women and trans people, and heightened border violence – this thesis demonstrates the crucial political role emotions play in feminist politics, specifically through theatre. Deploying a feminist methodology for audience research influenced by audience scholars like Kirsty Sedgman and Helen Freshwater, and feminist thinkers including Sara Ahmed, Xine Yao, Jennifer Doyle, and Audre Lorde, this thesis is guided by the feelings of audience members whose responses are gathered in post-performance interviews. Three main chapters each explore a particular set of feelings and focus on a single production. The first explores ‘big’ feelings like anger in relation to sexual violence and Breach Theatre’s It’s True, It’s True, It’s True (2018). The second, on ‘small’ feelings, repositions so-called negative and unproductive feelings as politically disruptive alongside the transfeminist politics of Travis Alabanza’s Overflow (2020). The third, on ‘messy’ feelings, focuses on discomfort and laughter in Sh!t Theatre’s Sh!t Theatre Drink Rum with Expats (2019), arguing that difficult, complex, and contradictory affective experiences can compel audiences to consider their positionality in relation to systemic border violence. This thesis values affective encounters in performance as having the political potential to produce embodied knowledge, imagine feminist futures, find modes of resistance in feeling otherwise, and form solidarities through collectives of feeling