Staging Germanness in Contemporary British Theatre

In the contemporary British context, German theatrical culture appears simultaneously familiar and shocking. Critics in the United Kingdom seem to both fetishize and despise the German theatrical scene. It is experimental, innovative, well-funded, and free from commercial pressures, whilst also indulgent, auteur-driven ’directors’ theatre’. It draws practitioners from the UK seeking to learn from fellow theatre-makers in Germany, and yet the reception of these practitioners’ work in Britain can be mixed or, at worst, hostile. Arguing that Anglo-German theatre performed in the UK is fraught with artistic, aesthetic, and critical tensions, Joseph Prestwich examines theatrical performance and institutional practice to ask how Germanness is constructed within the UK in the contemporary context. Drawing on the concepts of institutional dramaturgy and cultural capital, he offers a timely consideration of the perceived value and effects of Anglo-German theatre in the post-Brexit context.Joseph Prestwich is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, working on the European Research Council-funded project ’Theatre and Gentrification in the European City’. He was previously a Teaching Associate at the University of Cambridge, and Lecturer in German at King’s College London.