Forms of Conflict: Contemporary Wars on the British Stage

This book investigates a range of formal strategies deployed by theatre-makers in Britain in response to the new wars of the global age. By almost general consensus, the final years of the 20th century mark a watershed between ‘old’ and ‘new’ wars, that is to say between traditional, Clausewitzean patterns of conflict and the hybrid forms of belligerence that have come to characterize the new world order. Establishing a connection between modes of warfare and modes of representation, this study tries to assess the impact of this full-fledged paradigm shift on contemporary dramaturgy. While mainly focusing on work produced around or after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, a time when the inadequacy of traditional strategic and cultural models became all too palpable, it also examines plays that have prefigured these developments by providing aesthetic answers to dilemmas of representation that were only just beginning to come into focus. In many respects, the sense of urgency with which the British stage has committed to the task of providing new interpretive tools for understanding this changed landscape has acted as a powerful motor for formal innovation. Faced with the challenge of registering the novelty and the complexity of the current model of warfare, dramatists and theatre-makers have directed their inquisitive gaze inwards as well as outwards, reflecting critically and creatively on the limits and the possibilities of the medium they work with and in this way contributing to its continued cultural and political relevance