An Idea for a Theatre Ecology: Methods, Theories, Histories and Practices
By (Author) Carl Lavery
Manchester University Press
Manchester University Press
10th December 2025
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Applied ecology
Theatre direction and production
Hardback
296
Width 156mm, Height 234mm
An Idea for a Theatre Ecology is the first book in the discipline of Theatre and Performance Studies to provide a rigorous and coherent theory of the ecology that is immanent to the theatrical medium. Over six clearly written chapters, the book provides a genealogy, outlines a method, provides a lexicon and demonstrates an alternative practice of ecoperformance analysis grounded in the figure of the archipelago. Focusing on Antonin Artaud's theatre of cruelty, the book argues that theatre has no need to provide ecological messages nor to transform itself into a platform for the narration of ecological stories. Instead, more is to be gained, environmentally and politically, by concentrating on the power of images, gestures and voices to create corporeal affects and sensations that implicate the spectators in a terrestrial event.
Carl Lavery is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Glasgow