This dissertation builds a comprehensive analysis of the affective and ideological worlds of former guerrillas and their transitions towards civilian identities in contemporary Colombia, through the lens of a theatre and performance studies scholar. It is an ethnographically grounded and historically informed examination of how secondary care practices and institutions contribute to contemporary conflict transformation. It looks beyond familiar representations and binaries of victims and perpetrators, and follows a practice-based approach to the design and implementation of public policy that regards an affective turn towards embodied practice as a core element of reintegration. At its focus are reintegration programmes tailored for former combatants held in line with Colombia’s multiple peace-building efforts. Built around these two pillars, this study presents the process of reintegration as a performative practice where human emotions and transactions illuminate how social processes produce new political subjects.

This thesis is about the environment on stage in production and reception, in several guises. Ecocritical theatre speaks for the environment. Theatre ecologies denote the system of feedback loops running through theatrical events. Theatre ecocriticism describes an ecoaware spectatorial lens. The main theoretical innovation is the conception of the theatrical event as a living ecosystem in a literal sense. The vibrant chemistry between production and reception, and the spiralling ideas and emotions this generates in some conditions, are unavoidably driven by flows of matter and energy, thus, by the natural environment, even when human perspectives seem to dominate. Acceptance of this perspective requires a mind-set I describe as ‘ecoanthropocentric’, and theatre that succeeds in inculcating this perspective is ‘ecoeffective’. Both terms contain the idea that nature is culture and culture is nature, running through the work of Gregory Bateson and others. Methodologies applied in the empirical work are shaped in the same spirit: circularity, ambiguity, oscillating feedback loops and runaway warming systems are necessarily characteristic of effective ecotheatre. My thesis question was prompted by suggestions that the environment is occluded on stage, an idea at odds with evidence of an active presence. Archival material suggests that coherent productions of Coriolanus put dearth (thus, the environment) on stage. Waiting for Godot is regularly staged as a response to environmental disasters. The campaigning group BP or Not BP speaks out for the environment through stage invasions. The bicycle reveals the environmental shapeshifter at the core of a cycling theatre company's productions. Critics reviewing a climate-change play in 2015 were more engaged in the play's ecological dimensions than their 1994 counterparts. Overall, the environment on stage is found to be at its most effective when consistently embedded, in the lived experience of production and reception, as an open secret.

The phenomenon of celebrity translation in the British theatrical system raises many hitherto unanswered questions about how we evaluate theatre translation using existing theories of translation. It also invites an exploration using a theoretical framework based on Relevance Theory, which examines the effects that a text potentially has on the receiver’s cognitive state in the light of the contextual background of the text, its author and its receivers. With the support of analysis of the source and target texts, audience data, reviews, blogs and social media posts, I explore the extent to which audiences are likely to infer the celebrity translator’s own voice from their translations because of the way in which the celebrity translator’s contextual background (i.e. their assumed style, values, agenda, personality, and so on) influences the reception of his or her text. I then question the implications of celebrity translation for the marketing of translated theatre in the UK, and argue that we should celebrate the way in which celebrity translators increase the visibility of the act of translation and showcase the genre of plays in translation. My assessment of the likely cognitive state of spectators attracted to a play because of the pull of a celebrity translator sheds new light on some of the existing ideas within translation studies regarding the role and responsibilities of the translator. It also adds to our growing understanding of the role played by the receiver’s cognitive context in his or her evaluation of translation and the relationships between source-text author and translator, and between source and target text. As well as adding to scholarly debate about the practice of theatre translation, my research is designed to encourage stakeholders in the UK’s theatrical system to further question the way in which translated play texts are commissioned, funded, marketed and critically evaluated.

This dissertation examines the shifts in the practice of political theatre in Pakistan through the study of two theatre groups, the Tehrik e Niswan (The Women's Movement) and Ajoka (Of Today), that emerged in the 80's under General Zia ul Haque's military regime, and through newer theatre groups (Raasti, Murk, Hayat e Nau) and NGO-based theatre training organisations (Interactive Resource Centre, IRC) that were created or were impacted by the advent of neoliberalisation in the country in the 90's. The impact of finances not only influenced the growth of many small theatre groups that prescribed to the needs and demands of the NGOs under the broader Development agenda, but also saw shifts in the work of Tehrik e Niswan and Ajoka, from the voluntary and ideology-based nature of their work to one that was ultimately incorporated into the dominant culture. Moreover, what was evident through the work done by theatre groups under the development agenda was that theatre as a tool for social critique was depoliticised and seen as a commodity, transforming its role from self-directed activism to donor-driven activism. One common aspect between the groups under discussion is their underlying adherence to western orientated approaches to political theatre through the theories of Brecht or Boal, which informs their work in many ways. While examining how Brecht's theories have influenced the practices of Tehrik e Niswan and Ajoka, or Boal's theories have been used and even extracted from their original context by the IRC, I also argue for a need to re examine notions about selfhood and agency that the groups advocate in their practice, through analysing or examining alternative concepts of agency in non liberal traditions and away from thedominant discourse.

This thesis responds to a tendency in contemporary theatre practice and scholarship to overlook play texts when exploring the media-‐theatre relation. It challenges recent shifts in critical discourse concerning the mediatisation of theatre: the growing artistic and academic emphasis on performance; and misconceptions about postdramatic theatre as a non-‐textual form and the text's presumed inability to accommodate the new reality of mediatised culture and consciousness. In light of this, the thesis examines the impact of media technologies and culture on a selection of British plays written since the 1990s, exploring how they negotiate a media-‐saturated culture in both form and content. I introduce the concept of ‘mediatised dramaturgy' to describe the shifts in the fabric of plays due to omnipresent mediatisation. I argue that mediatised dramaturgy is present not only in texts that overtly use media forms, but also in aesthetic subtleties that echo the phenomenon of mediatisation without direct reference to the mass media. The thesis also considers the reception of these plays in selected productions in order to gauge British theatre's ability to respond to their dramaturgical challenges. Chapter 1 examines Martin Crimp's No One Sees the Video (1990), Mark Ravenhill's Faust is Dead (1996) and Enda Walsh's Chatroom (2004) as ‘dramatic' plays, arguing that thematisation of mediatisation without formal engagement limits the plays' ambit. Chapter 2 explores the workings of mediatised language in Patrick Marber's Closer (1997), Crimp's Attempts on Her Life (1997) and Sarah Kane's Crave (1998) to suggest language use in ‘no-‐longer-‐dramatic' texts speaks to altered ontological and epistemological conditions of the media-‐saturated, globalised world. Chapter 3 assesses the impact changing modes of subjectivity and interpersonal relations have had on the presentation of character by analysing Tim Crouch's My Arm (2003) and An Oak Tree (2005), and Simon Stephens's Pornography (2007). This chapter argues that they destabilise the dramatic model of characterisation in order to engage with the heterogeneous and objectified nature of contemporary subjectivity. Lastly, Chapter 4 focuses on Douglas Maxwell's use of videogame in Helmet (2002) and the televisual aesthetics of Caryl Churchill's Heart's Desire (1997), exploring how different approaches to remediation in plot structure affect the plays' capacity to relate to mediatised socio-‐cognitive conditions. The thesis demonstrates that plays, on the page and in performance, have undergone significant change, proving that the old medium of text is capable of responding to the mediatised age.

This research project is aimed at investigating musicality and theatre, and seeks to develop “musicalised dramaturgies” as dramaturgies for performances that venture beyond representation. The musical dimension is approached as an ontological aspect of theatre manifested in the work of the performer and in the process of dramaturgy as developed kinaesthetically with respect to the audience. The somatic dimension of the theatre act is investigated in terms of rhythmic and melodic associations which are proposed as sources of action in musicalised dramaturgies. The study looks at the conditions of musicality as dramaturgy by exploring the possibilities of developing performance processes generated by rhythms, tempos, and melodies as elements of the musical condition. The study acknowledges important developments that took place in the wake of theatre reforms at the turn of the twentieth century that gave more space to the presence of the actor in the creation of performance. These led to a ‘turn-to-performance' in theatre which, since the 1960s, characterised practical research where practitioners challenged traditions and pushed boundaries in order to develop non-representational practices. Gradually the theatre event shifted from serving as a basic means of communication of messages to a process where experiences are shared by performers and audiences. Contemporary scholarship acknowledges these developments in terms of a postdramatic critical framework where hierarchies and subordinations in the organisation of the work give way to equality and simultaneity of means. The postdramatic context serves as a theoretical foundation around which this study is set. Investigations were conducted via practical and theoretical analysis. Practical research was done in collaboration with Italian professional theatre ensemble Laboratorio Permanente di Ricerca sull'Arte dell'Attore (Permanent Research Laboratory on the Art of the Actor), and followed two complementary strands, viz. preexpressive and performance work. The pre-expressive strand had two levels: i. daily work with the actors where the research issues were put into practice and developed with professional actors, and ii. workshops and stages for University students, amateur actors, and laypersons interested in the work. The performance strand developed as a theatre work entitled Welcoming the End of the World. The piece was premièred in Malta in July 2011, and served as context where musicalised dramaturgies were put into practice and used creatively as foundations for performance. Theoretical considerations are discussed in a written document accompanying video documentation of Welcoming the End of the World. The written part examines the work of Konstantin Stanislavsky on rhythm and tempo-rhythm, and contributions made by Jerzy Grotowski with respect to what I argue are ideas of “embodied musicality” in his theatre making. The work of Grotowski is discussed in light of the claim for an Apollonian-Dionysian bond proposed by Nietzsche in his The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music, published in 1872. The research also refers to recent developments in theatre practice including the work of Eugenio Barba, and critical discourses expounded by Henry Lefebvre, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-Luc Nancy. In various ways their ideas inform the investigations and provide this research project with a critical foundation with respect to which musicality is proposed as dramaturgy for theatre performance.

This thesis examines postmodern theatrical adaptations of Antigone, Medea and The Trojan Women to show how they re-define the central female figures of the source texts by creating a new work, or ‘hyperplay’, that gives the silenced and often silent female figures a voice, and assigns them a political presence in their own right. Using a collection of diverse plays and their performances which occurred in a variety of geographical locations in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, this thesis analyzes adaptive, ‘hypertheatrical’, strategies employed by the theatre, through which play texts from the past are ‘re-made’ in the here and now of theatrical performances. A close analysis of these performances demonstrates how the historical and cultural identity of contemporary audiences informs the process of re-interpretation of familiar material within new contexts. They evidence how these re-makings reflect the culture, the political moment or the socio-historical coincidence in which they are conceived and performed. Most importantly this thesis shows that without exception these appropriations become entirely new Antigones, Medeas and Trojan Women; they invoke re-configurations or re-inventions of femininity which detect and emphasise individual women’s strengths and female solidarity, thus placing the plays firmly within a contemporary feminist discourse.

This thesis explores through practice how the process of devising a theatrical performance might affect the constitution of dis/ability identity, centrally engaging with the theories of postmodern feminist, Judith Butler. Initially, the study concentrates on the current trends in disability theory and presents a rationale for the comparative analysis of feminism(s) with disability theory and the disability movement. It pays particular attention to postmodern feminism(s)’ critique of the exclusionary nature of oppositional identity politics. It assesses the opportunities for theorising identity formation opened up by the critical thinking of Butler and the contribution this might make to emerging disability theory. Two types of theatrical intervention are discussed as centrally informing the practical element of this thesis: the first, contemporary disability performance and its creative engagement with access and the second, previous attempts to apply Butler’s provocations to theatrical practice. This thesis investigates how the integration of disability theory and Butlerian theory was achieved through three practical devised performance projects with community groups of disabled participants. The first, BluYesBlu, was a pilot project undertaken with a group of learning disabled devisers/performers. Methodological and ethical issues arising from the practice are considered. The subsequent projects were This is My Life, again with learning disabled participants, and Natural Woman?, with a group of physically disabled collaborators. All three projects incorporated the collection of audience responses and their analysis. This thesis discusses how dis/ability identity was reformulated as an effect of production and reception. As the challenges, issues and the critical thinking that emerged from each project were very dissimilar, this thesis argues that utilising Butler provides a route through ‘difficulty’ to a more open, flexible and inclusive formulation of dis/ability identity than was previously available. Furthermore, the embodying of Butler’s theories in this critical practice validates her theories as politically and ethically effective.

This thesis discusses the interconnection of 'performance' and 'improvisation', which, despite its long and established history, has always proved difficult to definitively pin down. My research question presupposes that 'performance' and 'improvisation' are neither completely separate nor completely interchangeable. I focus on the area where 'performance' and 'improvisation' overlap each other, which I call 'performance improvisation'. The thesis seeks to answer the question, 'What can I induce from materials focussed around the individual "creativities" that might serve to construct a prototypical explanation to define "performance improvisation"? '. The main chapters interpret and analyse materials written and published between the beginning of the twentieth century and the 1990s with particular emphasis on the so-called 'theatre' and 'dance' in North America. The concluding chapter proposes oppositional features of 'performance' and 'improvisation', stating that 'performance improvisation' is a dynamic intertwinement of those features, which manifests in each individual 'creativity'. The conclusion offers a benchmark for future attempts at defining 'performance improvisation'. A brief overview of the commedia dell'arte in Chapter 1 introduces the main chapters. Chapter 2 looks at the correlation of human body and mind. In Chapter 3, I discuss body and mind negotiating with and deviating from traditions and conventions. The scope of the discussion expands in Chapter 4, which considers the idea, or the concept, of 'performance' and 'improvisation' as seen by individuals. Chapter 5 looks at the audience's point of view in relation to the performer's point of view. The argument in those chapters is tested in Chapter 6 against case study materials that discuss highly experimental practices. Chapter 7 concludes the thesis, in which I answer the research question by way of proposing eight pairs of oppositional features that characterise 'performance' and 'improvisation'.

This thesis charts the brief history of the theatre studios run in England between 1935 and 1965 by Michel Saint-Denis (1897-1971) and Michael Chekhov (1891- 1955). They were the London Theatre Studio (1936-1939), run by Saint-Denis; The Chekhov Theatre Studio at Dartington Hall (1936-1938); The Old Vic Theatre School (1947-1952), initially part of the proposed Old Vic Theatre Centre, whose directors were Michel Saint-Denis, George Devine and Glen Byam Shaw; and the RSC Studio (1962- 1965), run by Saint-Denis. All of these studios were dedicated to combining training and experimentation in the development of ensemble companies and were therefore liminal spaces combining elements of a theatre and a theatre school. An introductory section briefly situates the practice of theatre studios in the context of wider narratives of work, craftsmanship and artistry in the period and traces their development from the Moscow Art Theatre Studio of 1905, as well as sketching some significant parallels between Saint-Denis and Chekhov. The first two sections of the thesis then explore the period from 1936 until 1952, looking first at Chekhov’s and then at Saint-Denis’ studios, placing them in the context of the traditions of training and exploration from which they emerged, and examining their practice and their legacies. The final section of the thesis explores the direct impact of their practice on the Post War British Theatre, focusing particularly on the Royal Shakespeare Company whose Studio was run by Saint-Denis, and where Paul Rogers (one of Chekhov’s students) was a leading actor. A short concluding section applies the principles of Chekhov’s and Saint- Denis’ work to the practice of training and experimentation in 2012 and looks to the future, to ask whether the studios whose work is explored in the main body of the thesis have a role to play in the future development of the art of the theatre.