Staging Polyqueerness: Portraying Non-Monogamous Queer Relationships on the Stage

This thesis consists of two components: (1) the original play Pup Play: A Queer Pseudo-Lecture (of sorts) with three accompanying early developmental drafts and (2) a critical commentary on its development. The play aims to stage the strategies and concepts of polyqueerness, encompassing its kink/fetish and queer utopian elements. The commentary is divided into six main topics. First, the commentary puts forward a definition of polyqueerness and explains the thesis’s simultaneous broadening and specifying of its goals to encompass a larger understanding of queerness. Second, it looks at how linear plot structure often entraps and limits queer stories. Thirdly, it analyzes a patriarchal canon of theatre practitioners who utilized theatrical techniques to encourage politically active audiences and explores how these practitioners both succeeded and failed in their goal of empowering audiences. It then contrasts these approaches to queer performance art exploring participation, audience care, and immersion. This is followed by an in-depth analysis of my creative output, focusing on its respective development, the creative difficulties and production issues, and how these were resolved. Finally, I consider some of the further critical and creative implications of my work and indicate several avenues of future potential research into the utopian potential of queer theatre and the staging of polyqueerness.