On looking at the historical background of the British Theatre, it is possible to see that the playwrights wrote various plays that emerged within the social and political atmosphere of their times and reflecting the realities that were present then. Middle Age, Renaissance, Victorian, Edwardian periods are among the many phases of the British theatre. Recently, the period named New Writing dates back to the year 1956 when John Osborne’s play Look Back in Anger was staged. It brought a revolutionary perspective to the British Theatre and paved the way for the new plays of upcoming years in Britain. With this play, John Osborne sparked the fire of a new writing era that will continue to burn and be one of the foundations of contemporary British Theatre. In general, new writing was born in Britain and as it can be seen mainly, it was born in the works of British playwrights. Aleks Sierz describes that new writing is a “very British idea,” and adds “…British new writing is special. It differs from other work in the theatrical repertoire because it is new not only to audiences but also to its directors, designers, and actors” (Rewriting the Nation, 16). Within its newness, originality, and authenticity, it is possible to observe the reflections of the life-changing events and incidents on the British stage confirming Schechner’s statement about the relationship between the theatre and society.
Plays emerged after the Second World War, have evolved within the direction of New Writing and have kept reflecting the realities, problems of their times under the narration of their corresponding playwrights. As Sierz pointed out in his book Rewriting the Nation, the concept of new writing has acquired the features, worries, concerns, up-to-date topics of the contemporary era and most of these topics are accentuated under the influence of the culture of fear arose in a liquid modern world. Just as it was the existential crisis and existential philosophy threat was strengthened in the aftermath of
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the second world war, instigating the emergence of the theatre of the Absurd as coined by Martin Esslin; today, it is the liquid world and culture of fear that has reformed contemporary dynamics that shape people’s perspectives.
Theatre and the society are intertwined with one and another. Each of them influences the other one. In this regard it is important to take social dynamics into consideration when analysing theatrical plays. As highlighted above the relation between them is undoubted. Richard Schechner (1934 - ), professor of performative arts, states that “art whose subject, structure, and action is social process” (121), the corresponding relation between the two is undeniable. Playwrights reflect the society’s condition, perspective, values, and the critique of these values on the stage filtering them through their intellectual background. They also make a critique of the political structure, the fallacies, mistakes and the problematic mechanisms that are present in it, through reflecting them on the stage making the members of the society bear witness of these elements in the stage of the theatre.
The connection between the contemporary British theatre and the contemporary world is high as mentioned by Sierz and is highlighted anew in one of his lectures
"Blasted and After New Writing in British Theatre Today”. In this speech, he states the following to differentiate the theatre of the 90s and the Noughties and to summarise the nature of contemporary British Theatre briefly:
If the 1990s were, to use a scientific metaphor, a Newtonian decade, with every cause having an effect, and one thing happening after another, the Noughties were the Quantum decade, with everything happening at the same time and all over the place. British theatre resembled a nuclear reactor; inside, everything is bouncing off the walls;
common sense flies out the window; paradox rules okay. In the Noughties, the story is an absence of a story. Instead of a new sensibility coming into its own, what you had was a flowering of various sensibilities, a whole Variety of voices.
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Nevertheless, although it's clear that the Noughties did not have the equivalent of an in-yer-face brigade, nor did it need one, there are some tendencies that have attracted comment. (theatrevoice.com)
As it is evident from Sierz’s remarks about the contemporary new writing, having “a Variety of voices” seen in the 21st century British Theatre, is the manifestation of the reality of being at everywhere at the same time of current modernity. This indirectly hints at the condition of current atmosphere depicted by the phrase "liquid modernity"
coined by Zygmunt Bauman to describe the contemporary world. This is an environment where everything flows continuously, solid concepts are left behind or melted; a big pot of boiling uncertainty where ideas, systems, concepts are constantly changing, shapeshifting unprecedentedly in which uncertainty, insecurity, and ambivalence are born. In this very atmosphere, the culture of fear is one of the notions affecting humanity feeding upon the unwelcomed results of the liquidity.
Fearful atmosphere, the dangerous outside, a world filled with potential perils, an endless quest to find safe havens are among the many elements that feed upon the culture of fear today. Looking at Philip Ridley’s Pitchfork Disney (1991), there is a collection of these notions. The play can be seen as a relatively old example of a play that hosts elements reminiscent of the culture of fear in the modern-day western societies. Pitchfork Disney begins with Presley and Haley’s conversation. They are fraternal twins living in a messy apartment. They are squabbling about chocolates, biscuits and going to shopping. Although they are 28 years old, the topic of their conversation portrays them as naïve and infantile. When they are talking about who should do the shopping the next time, Haley sketches a story about her alleged going outside for shopping to claim that she passed his turn for leaving the home to buy something. In her story she reflects all kinds of fear she has; she is chased by rabid
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dogs, clings to the statute of crucified Jesus and a priest saves her from the ravenous dogs. They tell each other stories about their childhood, nightmares and their fears.
The way Presley describes the outside, creates an apocalyptic imagery about their world. Almost everything is destroyed, scorched and pulverised. The fear of apocalypse, a total destruction of the humanity is not a newly emerged fear for human beings. However, this representation highlights the modern-day societies’ concerns about their fate. Doomsday narratives due to the scientific findings about the warming of the planet provide a perfect realm for the fear of future. As Füredi argues in his book How Fear Works: Culture of Fear in 21st Century, “[t]he proliferation of prophecies about human extinction planetary destruction or a mass die-off is often interpreted in academic studies as the most important symptom of the power of the culture of fear over the human imagination” (loc. 1664). Consequently, basing on this fearful perspective, Ridley portrays these twins living in a claustrophobic home. They solely feed on chocolate and biscuits, there are no proper foods to be seen. Furthermore, in order to calm his twin Presley uses a drug left by their parents. All those things signify their avoidance behaviour they have acquired during their prolonged stay in this house.
They have nothing but their secluded house to protect themselves from the nightmares of the outside world. They have nobody but each other and lacking outside and social experience their naivety grows ever more. This can be construed as the avoidance behaviour that the contemporary individuals acquired in a liquid modern world dominated by the culture of fear. With the help of their childish stories they endeavour to keep the scary and fearful reality outside their lives and home.
Their home acting as a bastion in their perspective is threatened by an unexpected appearance of two strangers. Cosmo and his companion Pitchfork appears out of nowhere and approach to their house. The idea of being alone in this
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apocalyptic world proves to be wrong with this encounter. Other fear narratives regarding the presence of dangerous outside and the potentially dangerous strangers emerge in this part. When Presley sees the stranger outside their house, he mentions it to his sister. Out of curiosity Haley asks him to tell her if he is cute. However, her concern changes quickly when Presley reports on his companion’s appearance:
PRESLEY: No. The other one is not attractive. He looks
… foreign.
HALEY: Foreign! That’s even worse. You know what Mum and Dad said about foreigners. They’re dangerous and different. They beat up women and marry children.
They don’t do things the way we do. They hate us. They’d kill us all if they had the chance.
PRESLEY: Calm down, Haley.
HALEY: ‘Calm down’? There’s a pretty boy and a foreigner outside our house and you’re telling me to calm down? Have you lost your fucking mind? – Is the door bolted?
PRESLEY: Yes.
HALEY: All the bolts?
PRESLEY: Every one.
HALEY: And the chain?
PRESLEY: The chain’s on. We’re perfectly safe.
HALEY: No one’s perfectly safe! – What’s going on now? (loc. 2443)
She gets fearful upon hearing that the other guy is a foreigner. All kinds of fearful scenarios, morbid consequences are imagined in her mind in an instant; because he is a foreigner, a stranger likely to cause anything that could danger their lives. As she grows more and more terrified by this fact, Presley compels to sedate her with Dummy a medicine that dozes off the person. This represents the inability to cope with the stressful occurrences or the tendency to avoid any possible risky situation that can be
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observed in the contemporary era. On the other, it also reflects the fear of stranger that the people of contemporary western societies acquired in an ever-growing aspect as a result of the culture of fear. Regarding this topic, in Culture of Fear: Risk-Taking and the Morality of Low Expectation Füredi states:
[i]n a world of risky strangers, it is difficult to trust.
Indeed, the fear of strangers and of risks is proportional to the decline of trust. Increasingly, relationships between people, even those who live in the same neighbourhood or community, are characterized by a lack of clarity about the expected form of behaviour. Under these circumstances, the question that is invariably posed is ‘what can you do?’
(127).
Cosmo is a performer who shows his cockroach-eating-skill while his partner terrifies the audience with this deformed appearance. These two strangers with their most uncomfortable aspects enter the lives of the twins. They are inside their house that should supposedly be a secure place for them against such strangers. However, Presley talks with Cosmo and establishes a friendship with Cosmo and convincing him to go shopping together. Although Presley, out of his naivety, trusts this stranger, it is revealed towards the end that Cosmo’s real intentions match with the contemporary western people’s suspicions regarding the idea of stranger people. From the moment Cosmo has seen Presley’s twin sister sleeping, he has been trying everything to touch her. It is clear from his behaviour that he desires her physically and at last, in a way, he manages to do so. While Presley trying to calm her sister down again with the medicine, Cosmo dips his finger in the bottle and then places his finger on her lips.
Unconsciously, Haley sucks his finger giving Cosmo his desired sexual satisfaction.
However, when Presley sees what he is doing to her sister he snaps Cosmo’s fingers and cast them out of the house. While they are leaving the house Pitchfork performs his trick to scare Presley. In the end the twins are safe in their bastion though they are very frightened as a result of what they have experienced. In the light of these, it can be
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construed from the play that it represents the people in the contemporary era who have been highly immersed in the culture of fear. Their lifestyles, perspectives are in parallel with this notion. This creates avoidance behaviour evading anything that can be risky.
In this sense, the outside can be dangerous as it includes lots of unknowns; the encounter with the strangers should be avoided or be kept at minimum since they are of an unknown origin lest it could pose a threat to a person’s well-being.
Caryl Churchill’s Far Away (2000) presents an atmosphere that can be seen as a reflection of terror and the fear of war extant in the contemporary western societies. In the play, a young girl named Joan sees her uncle boarding refugees into a lorry, beating one of them, a group of injured people in a shed, blood on their faces and on the ground.
She tells her aunt what she has seen. Her aunt comforts her and tells her not to worry about them for her uncle is helping them to escape from ‘bad people’. What she has seen is the true image of contemporary war, leaving people homeless and in need of help at the mercy of selfish people. However, with a Machiavellian discourse just like the one used by warring states, her aunt manipulates the truth and sugar coats it. The way Rumsfeld justifies the sacking of Baghdad her aunt Harper justifies wrongdoing of Joan’s uncle. She states as thus:
HARPER: Of course. I’m not surprised you can’t sleep, what an upsetting thing to see. But now you understand, it’s not so bad. You’re part of a big movement now to make things better. You can be proud of that. You can look at the stars and think here we are in our little bit of space, and I’m on the side of the people who are 'putting things right, and your soul will expand right into the sky.”
(159)
Horrific nature of war and the condition of refugees, massacring of people thus coated via Harper’s speech. It is normalised, it is justified, and it is accepted. Regarding Churchill’s play, Sierz comments “Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the play is that everyone reacts to genocidal war as if it was an everyday fact of life. The nation is
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reimagined as unheroic, complacent, and finally paralysed by fear” (Rewriting the Nation, 76). This symbolises the banalisation of violence, it happens all around the world but as long as people remain out of its reach, they can turn a blind eye to them because in this modernity, they are exposed to such threats 24/7 and individuals live in the fear of being caught by them. Therefore, seeing that these incidents do not disturb us, not meddling with them and watching them afar provides relief of some sort, experiencing artificial invulnerability. This is related to the fact that the contemporary state with its institutions in a liquid world is no longer adequate to provide its citizens.
Work for instance is not guaranteed and according to Bordoni, the system leaves them in an uncertain condition to which the state is not able to provide any useful remedy (State of Fear in Liquid World). Therefore, this leads people to turn to themselves in order to tackle every problem individually increasing the individualisation. So, in this selfishness, people tend to care less about others and in the normalisation of every negative outcome in this fearful liquid environment, they feel relieved to be away from the problems, misfortunes of the others. Regarding this Bordoni comments that “[w]hat happens to others leaves us indifferent, indifference has taken the place of indignation;
and everyone tries to survive at the expense of others” (State of Fear in a Liquid World, 8). Churchill in her play reflects this condition of the British society, the condition of normalisation of fear and indifference to violence amid the uncertain condition of the liquid world. Fear is visible in Joan’s words. She reflects the fear of war, violence.
Nevertheless, her fears are normalised by her aunts’ comforting speech.
In Martin Crimp’s Cruel and Tender (2004), there is the modern representation of Sophocles’ Women of Trachis. Crimp in this play, reflects the modern condition of conflicts. In recent times, the conflicts have become the tools for the powerful to reach out other lands to spread their influence. This also coincides with the theory of liquid modernity in which power must flow through and is nonstationary. Confirming
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Bauman’s argument about modern-day war in which he states “what was really at stake in the new type of war in the era of liquid modernity: not the conquest of a new territory, but crushing the walls which stopped the flow of new, fluid global powers…”
(Liquid Modernity, 33). On looking at the remarks, stuttering and including caesuras, of the characters about what is going on in Gisenyi, it can be deduced that the state is in the aim of making its powers flow into these lands. In addition, fighting against ‘global terrorism’ is highlighted in the play. General/Heracles is assigned to ‘pulverise’ the terrorist city Gisenyi to crush the city full of terrorists. His actions, the on-going conflict in Gisenyi are talked about but little significance is given to them. It can be concluded as such because the comments about these incidents are articulated as if these were normal daily events. This again, emphasises the current condition of fear. Global terrorism is one of the many results of the negative globalisation. Furthermore, it is regarded as banal, normal, and casual, since the contemporary fear, as mentioned before, has permeated into people’s daily lives due to the demoralisation of fear and the banalisation of fear.
For instance, as a perfect example of verbatim theatre, David Hare’s play Stuff Happens (2004) getting its name from Donal Rumsfeld’s renowned ‘stuff happens’
speech, and influenced by the Iraqi War signifies both the influence of the global incidents in the shaping of the culture and the power of the state in trivialising serious incidents resulted from the misdeeds of the authority as mentioned by Füredi as the notion of ‘banalization of the fear'. In the play Hare presents how the US government during the presidency of George W. Bush compiled their agenda to fight against terrorism. Fear, here in the sense of fear of terrorism, is spread globally and internalised by the masses. The real speech delivered by a figure of authority confirms this fact for it trivialises the matter and regards it as something that is quite normal:
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RUMSFELD: I've seen the pictures. I've seen those pictures. I could take pictures in any city in America.
Think what's happened in our cities when we've had riots, and problems, and looting. Stuff happens! But in terms of what's going on in that country, it is a fundamental misunderstanding to see those images over and over and over again of some boy walking out with a vase and say,
"Oh, my goodness, you didn't have a plan." That's nonsense. They know what they're doing, and they're doing a terrific job. And it's untidy, and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things, and that's what's going to happen here. (3-4)
The people of Iraq are dying because of the government’s anti-terrorist agenda to fight against the supposedly evil forces. However, as long as the threat is outside of their borders their campaign against terrorism is working keeping their own people supposedly safe from the threat of terrorist attacks.
In this verbatim play, Hare mixes facts and fiction to present the way contemporary governments, specifically the ones that are powerful, function in the fear dominated liquid modern world. Therefore, alongside the banalisation of fear in the play, there is the policy fearmongering carried out by Bush administration so as to justify their deeds in Middle East. In the US’s quest to destroy the potentially dangerous figure in Iraq, the administration used the excuse that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. The critique of this justification is uttered by Colin Powell: “There's an element of hypocrisy, George. We were trading with the guy! Not long ago. People keep asking, how do we know he's got weapons of mass destruction?
How do we know? Because we've still got the receipts” (54). It can be understood from his remarks that Bush administration is planning to act on the fabricated facts that Iraq government have weapons of mass destruction feeding the fear of terrorism of its citizens. In this way, the state creates a fearful enemy to vanquish in order to ensure its existence and justify their politic agendas. In relation to that, George Kateb argues in his