Designed for undergraduate performance, Carnival Texts comprises three related dramatic works, all of which have as their point of departure Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of carnival, a literary style designed to subvert dominant assumptions through chaos and humor. Making creative use of post-Brechtian performance theory, these texts blur the distinction between spectator and performer in a fascinating exploration of physical, moral, and cultural upheaval in a postmodern age. Performance theory is crucial to understanding how performance affects collective understanding, and this book will be of interest to a broad range of students of drama and theater.

James MacDonald is a playwright whose work is regularly staged in the United Kingdom. He is an honorary fellow of the drama department at the University of Exeter.

Preface

Part One: Texts
Strangers To Paradise
Brides, Bombs and Boardrooms
Fete
Part Two: Essays
Fear into Laughter
       James MacDonald
Bodies in Pain: Realism and the Subversion of Spectacle in Brides, Bombs and Boardrooms
       John Lutz
Blowing Up the Nation: Vulnerability and Violence in James MacDonald’s Post-national England
       Jessica O’Hara

Notes on Contributors