Staging Strangers: Theatre and Global Ethics

Staging Strangers: Theatre And Global Ethics Is A Study Of Cultural Difference In Contemporary Canadian Theatre. Theatre In Canada Has Long Been A Forum For Cultural Communities To Celebrate Their Traditions, But It Has Now Emerged As A Forum For Staging Stories That Stretch Beyond Local And National Communities. This Book Onsiders The New Demand This Global Shift Is Placing On Theatre's Narratives And Strategies And Asks: How Might Theatre More Meaningfully And Ethically Stage Strangers? Combining Archival Research And Performance Analysis To Discuss A Set Of Performances Mainly In Toronto, Staging Strangers Offers A Fresh Look How Theatre Can Be An Important Site Of Cultural Encounter In A Global Age. Because The Examples Are Mainly Drawn From Toronto, The Book Is Also A Study Of How Cultural Difference Is Realized In An Emblematic 'global City.' The Book Adopts The Guiding Metaphor Of 'the Stranger' To Discuss The Many Ways Cultural Difference Is Made To Appear-or Disappear-onstage. Equally, The Book Considers The Many Ways The Stranger On Stage May Be Fetishized Or Domesticated, Marked For Assimilation, Or Made An Object Of Fear. It Argues That A Theatre That Only Valorizes Individual, Cultural 'self-realization' And Concretizes Cultural Difference May At Times Also Erect Barriers To Meaningful Ethical Engagement With Strangers. More Than A Descriptive Text About A Shift Toward The Global, The Book Offers A Vision Of Theatre That Contributes Meaningfully To Global Ethics, That Is, A Sense Of Ethical Responsibility To Global Issues And Distant Strangers.-- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Prologue : Strangers At The Threshold -- Making A World Of Difference -- Church Basement Globalism -- Domesticating The Stranger -- A New Melodrama Of Globalization -- Making Strange : The Active Audience -- Epilogue : Stranger Danger -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index. Barry Freeman. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 167-175) And Index.