Eco-Naturalism: re-evaluating the role of naturalism in contemporary eco-theatre

My thesis critically re-evaluates the role and potential of naturalism in contemporary eco-theatre. Challenging prevailing orthodoxies which dismiss naturalism as an eco-dramaturgical form on account of its perceived anthropocentrism, phallocentrism and conservatism, I argue that naturalism performs a vital—albeit frequently misunderstood—function within a range of contemporary plays and performances which foreground ecological issues. By introducing this fresh perspective on naturalism's eco-dramaturgical potential, I aim to stimulate a more nuanced critical debate than currently exists. My original contribution to knowledge centres around my formulation of the naturalistic spectrum, a new conceptual framework designed to help scholars, playwrights and theatre-makers square the spatiotemporal complexities of the ‘hyperobjects’ (Morton 2013) of global warming and ecological collapse with human scale theatrical representation. My case studies—plays and performances written and produced between 2011 and 2022—interrogate: overt eco-naturalism (Kirkwood’s The Children); symbolist eco-naturalism (Waters’ On the Beach); hyper eco-naturalism (Steiner’s You Stupid Darkness! and Baker’s The Antipodes); disrupted eco-naturalism (Macmillan’s Lungs and Churchill’s Escaped Alone) and covert eco-naturalism (Emmott and Mitchell’s Ten Billion and Hickson’s Oil). Using a methodology which combines close reading of texts with archive recordings and interviews with playwrights, directors and designers, my study reveals that naturalism performs a number of crucial eco-dramaturgical functions. Firstly, it presents the audience with an image of itself, vicariously suggesting ways to cope on a human scale with the suprahuman scale of ecological crisis. Secondly, it interrogates moral culpability, concerning itself with the long consequence of human actions. Thirdly, it highlights the deterministic effects of environment on character which, in the Anthropocene, reveals a degraded environment returning to haunt humans for their reckless custodianship of the planet. Lastly, it raises awareness of deep time, a concept which lies at the heart of ecological thinking.