Adam Alston

Staging Decadence Adam Alston

Runners stumbling atop treadmills, cyclists spinning on exercise bikes, torsos flailing wildly while feet remain rooted to the spot. Why are so many theatre makers staging their experiences of going nowhere fast? Frenetic standstill identifies the strange paradox of racing to keep up with an accelerating pace of life in stagnating economies. Some recent commentators have described this paradox as being suggestive of a decadent society , one that gives rise to a profound set of issues including burn-out and anxiety.

Others hone in on the supposedly unproductive arts as being themselves decadent in times of crisis, especially theatre as one of the most resource-intensive art forms. What happens if we take seriously the claim that theatre is both unproductive and decadent? What might this do to how we value theatre, and theatre makers? What can performances of excess tell us about the apparent need for workers and consumers to be constantly productive? What might they lend to our understanding of frenetic standstill as one of the most pressing issues of recent times an issue that is only set to be worsened by the pandemic? Decadence, Capitalism and Excess in Contemporary Theatre offers the first scholarly consideration of decadence in theatre, focusing on an international range of practitioners who embody, enact or subvert the excesses of twenty-first century capitalism. It does so by introducing and ultimately embracing decadence as a valuable take on radical theatre in beleaguered economies, this having been considered the very antithesis of productivity and progress by many artists and writers across the world for over 150 years.

Theatre enables artists to stage and explore the spectacular undoing of capitalism by going too far in what s being asked of them, stretching its demands to be ever more productive and fast to points of messy excess. What emerges is an opportunity to consider decadence as a stage upon which cultural values are forged, appropriated, contested or undermined. This book presents a diverse range of examples including work by Wunderbaum (Netherlands), Marcel l Ant nez (Spain), Julia Bardsley (UK), Toco Nikaido (Japan), Martin O Brien (UK), and Jaamil Olawale Kosoko (USA).

It is the primary output attached to the AHRC-funded Staging Decadence project, and will be a landmark text in the field and the discipline at large.