Dialectical Aesthetics: War Theatre in the Twenty-first Century

This thesis analyzes twenty-first century plays that respond to the post-9/11 Western military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. It examines six recent anti-war plays by renowned Western playwrights and theatremakers Tony Kushner (America), the Théâtre du Soleil (France), Elfriede Jelinek (Austria) and Caryl Churchill (Britain). The study employs a methodology based on the theoretical writings of seminal playwright, director and thinker Bertolt Brecht and his application of Marxist dialectics to the theatre. It reviews the historical relation between Marxist dialectics and dramatic aesthetics for Brecht and develops a definition of the ‘Brechtian dialectical aesthetic’. It argues that the critiques of war and its effects in the chosen contemporary plays can usefully be understood in relation to the Brechtian devices of Verfremdungseffekt, gestus, historicization and the refunctioning of the passive spectator. Employing these Brechtian tools, the thesis shows how the chosen case studies are critical of the rhetorical and visual depictions of contemporary conflicts in the Middle East, as represented in the mainstream media and public discourse. This research proffers a vocabulary for better understanding and articulating the relationship between the politics of war and dramatic aesthetics in the twenty-first century.