Muir, Hamish DR; (2024) The Theatre of Waste: Circular Playwriting as a Methodology for Sustainable Theatre and Spaces for Performance. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis outlines a circular economy methodology for theatre and the performing arts. I start from the provocation that theatre productions that explore ethical stances through a fictional performance but manufacture such a fiction by unethical means, producing material waste that is harmful to the environmental context in which the theatre is situated, have a disparity between what is communicated and the way in which they are communicated. This stance is taken not as a means to simply criticise or simplify but to consider the environmental ethic-aesthetic-thematic gestalt of the theatre. The role of the play-script in theatre practice is the central focus. It is examined for its impact on material waste caused by its staging. Waste is treated as simultaneously a conceptual, aesthetic object and as an ecological, functionalist concern. I ask how waste can constructively transform the relationship between the page and the stage towards developing a sustainable circular economy in theatre. Three conceptualisations of the position of the play-script are presented which form a new theoretical term ‘The Theatre of Waste’. The Pre-script considers authorial power, genre, and the design of the play-script in order for it to give ecological agency to stakeholders across the theatre production process. The Intra-script asks how the play- script can chart a new concept of the stage as it becomes a reality. Central to this is a chronotopic definition of waste, which is explored using literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin’s term, the chronotope. The waste chronotope is defined as a means to imbue stronger spatial and material considerations in to the play-script, seeking to induce less waste in theatre in front of and behind the curtain by elevating the role of waste as a key non-human agent in the making of theatre. The Post-script considers how the play-script can speak to the afterlife of performance through discussion of the performativity of disposal and the integration of a way of viewing waste in which characters can be written and environmental data presented in the play-script. Key spatial configurations and roles on the stage are also established in the Post-script. My research methods include a critical review of the history and theory of sustainable theatre, and my own playwriting experiments that form the practice-led research, which act as test cases for the methodology. I collaborated with the National Theatre, London, and undertook fieldwork there following a production from beginning to end. This was to observe how waste is thought about and managed in context. Waste data collected on site and study of the architecture and organisation were used to develop the experimental play-scripts. The National Theatre situates my research in a specific example of an urban mainstream theatre in the London industry though the circular economy method presented aims to be applicable beyond the National Theatre and further the fields of ecocritical drama, spatially-driven theatre and sustainable design.

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