Postcolonial Plays: An Anthology - Hardcover

"It invites readers to engage seriously with the plays but also to approach them creatively and personally-an ideal balance for a teaching text, and one that undergraduates especially, will respond to enthusiastically. Along with a growing list of critical studies of the field, this anthology promises to advance the installation of postcoloniality as a powerful framework for theatre studies, supplementing the already established frames of feminism and race studies with a much-needed global perspective.." -Una Chaudhuri, New York University

This collection of contemporary postcolonial plays demonstrates the extraordinary vitality of a body of work that is currently influencing the shape of contemporary world theatre.
This anthology encompasses both internationally admired 'classics' and previously unpublished texts, all dealing with imperialism and its aftermath. It includes work from Canada, the Carribean, South and West Africa, Southeast Asia, India, New Zealand and Australia. A general introduction outlines major themes in postcolonial plays. Introductions to individual plays include information on authors as well as overviews of cultural contexts, major ideas and performance history.
Dramaturgical techniques in the plays draw on Western theatre as well as local performance traditions and include agit-prop dialogue, musical routines, storytelling, ritual incantation, epic narration, dance, multimedia presentation and puppetry. The plays dramatize diverse issues, such as:
*globalization
* political corruption
* race and class relations
*slavery
*gender and sexuality
*media representation
*nationalism