Landscapes as graveyards: Spectral return and performativity in the contested landscape

Authors/Creators

Jonathan W. Marshall, West Australian Academy of Performing Arts @ Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Emily Duncan

Abstract

Building on playwright Emily Duncan's heterotopic methodology for the reading and dramatisation of a site and its histories (2016) and Jonathan W. Marshall's work on the emergence of patterns of haunted absence and presence solicited by British prehistoric monuments (2017), we explore issues of spectrality, heterogeneity and performance at historical 'dead places' and theatre which represents them. By reference to Michel Foucault's model of heterotopia, Duncan's playscript Waipiata (2017), the danse macabre, and the Uncanny colonial landscape, we argue that theatres and theatrical sites act as graveyards, or as sites for a shimmering spectral presence. Death theatricalises; it dances, and its subjects return to address us.

RAS ID

26941

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

2018

School

Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA)

Copyright

subscription content

Publisher

Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies

Comments

Marshall, J. W. (2018). Landscapes as graveyards: Spectral return and performativity in the contested landscape. Australasian Drama Studies, (72), 66. Available here

Recommended Citation

Marshall, J. W., & Duncan, E. (2018). Landscapes as graveyards: Spectral return and performativity in the contested landscape. Retrieved from https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworkspost2013/4516