Hauntological Dramaturgy

This book is about some of the ways we remember the dead through performance. It examines the dramaturgical techniques and strategies that enable artists to respond to the imperative: Remember Me the command King Hamlets ghost gives to his son in Shakespeares famous tragedy, Hamlet. The book develops the concept of hauntological dramaturgy by engaging with a series of performances that commemorate, celebrate, investigate, and sometimes seek justice for the dead. It draws on three interrelated discourses on haunting: Derridas hauntology with its ethical exhortation to be with ghosts and listen to ghosts; Abraham and Toroks psychoanalytic account of the role spectres play in the transmission of intergenerational trauma; and, finally, Mark Fisher's and Simon Reynolds development of Derridas ideas within the field of popular culture. Taken together, these writers, in different ways, suggest strategies for reading and creating performances concerned with questions of commemoration. Case studies focus on a set of known and unknown figures, including Ian Charleson, Spalding Gray and David Bowie. This study will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners working within theatre and performance studies as well as philosophy and cultural studies.