Political dramaturgies of affect: Anthony Neilson’s God in Ruins and The Wonderful World of Dissocia

Tomlin, L. (2021) Political dramaturgies of affect: Anthony Neilson’s God in Ruins and The Wonderful World of Dissocia. In: Aragay, M., Delgado-García, C. and Middeke, M. (eds.) Affects in 21st-Century British Theatre: Exploring Feeling on Page and Stage. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, pp. 85-104. ISBN 9783030584856 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-58486-3_5)

Abstract

This chapter examines the affective dramaturgies of Anthony Neilson in order to counter claims by Hans-Thies Lehmann that the politics of affect are only operable when the aesthetic framework of theatre is ruptured by the intervention of the real. Tomlin rather argues that God in Ruins (2007) and The Wonderful World of Dissocia (2004) hold affective and political currency despite their aesthetic, and broadly dramatic, frameworks remaining ultimately intact. Focusing predominantly on the expressionist dramaturgy of Dissocia, Tomlin argues that this operates by containing and immersing the spectator, not only inside the play’s fictional framework but also inside the mind of its protagonist, through affective design that broadens a spectator’s capacity to access emotional cognition to feel, rather than necessarily understand, the experience of neurological otherness.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Tomlin, Professor Elizabeth
• Authors: Tomlin, L.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Culture and Creative Arts > Theatre Film and TV Studies
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• ISBN: 9783030584856
• Published Online: 10 April 2021
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2021 The Author
• First Published: First published in Affects in 21st-Century British Theatre: Exploring Feeling on Page and Stage: 85-104
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy