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Zusatztext A thought-provoking and timely analysis of theatre’s preoccupation with the end of the world and eco-catastrophe from antiquity to the present. Informationen zum Autor Brian Kulick is the Chair of Columbia University’s School of the Arts Theatre Program, where he also teaches directing with Anne Bogart. In addition to staging the works of Shakespeare, Brecht, and Tony Kushner, he has been the Artistic Director of Classic Stage Company and an Artistic Associate for The Public Theatre. He is the author of Staging Shakespeare (Methuen Drama, 2021) , How Greek Tragedy Works (2020) , The Elements of Theatrical Expression (2019) and The Secret Life of Theatre (2019) . Vorwort In light of the climate crisis, this study explores theatre’s portrayal of the end of the world, from the ancient Greeks to Caryl Churchill. Zusammenfassung This book is a brief history of the end of the world as seen through the eyes of theatre. Since its inception, theatre has staged the fall of empires, floods, doomsdays, shipwrecks, earthquakes, plagues, environmental degradations, warfare, nuclear annihilation, and the catastrophic effects of climate change. Using a wide range of plays alongside contemporary thinkers, this study helps guide and galvanize the reader in grappling with the climate crisis. Kulick divides this litany of theatrical cataclysms into four distinct historical phases: the Ancients, including Euripides and Bhasa, the legendary Sanskrit dramatist; the Age of Belief, with the anonymous authors of the medieval mystery cycles, Shakespeare, and Pushkin; the Moderns, with Ibsen, Chekhov, Brecht, Beckett, and Bond; and, finally, the way the world might end now, encompassing Caryl Churchill, Tony Kushner, and Anne Washburn . In tandem with the insights gleaned from these playwrights, the book draws upon the work of contemporary scientists, ecologists, and ethicists to further tease out the philosophical implications of such plays and their relevance to our own troubled times. In the end, Kulick shows how each of these ages and their respective authors have something essential to say, not only about humanity’s potential end, but, more importantly, about the possibility for our collective continuance. Inhaltsverzeichnis Acknowledgements Introduction: On Transforming Our Social Imaginary PART ONE: THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS IN ANCIENT TIMES 1. Lessons Amongst the Ruins; Or, What Survives and Why: How the Cultural Detritus of the Ancients Can Become a Kind of First Philosophy2. Slouching Toward Kurukshetra: A Brief Look at the Mahabharatas of Bhasa, Bharati, and Brook3. Diasporas Old and New: What Euripides' Children of Herakles Can Tell Us About the Coming Climate Wars and Resulting Refugee Crisis PART TWO: THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS IN THE AGE OF FAITH 4. Noahs, Arks, and Floods: Why Medieval Mystery Plays Still Have Something to Say About Our Modern Day “End of Days”5. Shipwrecks, Recursion, and the Necessity of Deep Ecology: Surviving Shakespeare’s The Tempest and the Breaking of Our Anthropocene Ways6. On Earthquakes and Metaphors: Bouilly’s Disaster of Lisbon and the Fukushima Variation PART THREE: THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS IN MODERN TIMES 7. Plague’s Threat to Our Immune and Belief Systems: A Look at Pushkin’s A Feast in the Time of Plague 8. A Canary in the Bourgeois Coal Mine, Part One: Pollution and Direct Critique in Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People 9. A Canary in the Bourgeois Coal Mine, Part Two: Denial and Indirect Critique in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard PART FOUR: THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS NOW 10. Ethics During Dark Times: Brecht’s He Who Says Yes and He Who Says No 11. On the Other Side of the Apocalypse: The Broken Worlds of Beckett and Bond12. Nostalgia for the Future: The Fraught ...
