Directing Disturbance: Three theatremakers in discussion

In this Affective Encounters roundtable discussion, three directors — Corinne Jaber, Atri Banerjee, and Andrew Quick — will reflect on their methods for bringing theatregoers into and out of states of psychological unease.

Talking first about their experiences directing the unsettling and confrontational aspects of Shakespeare’s works, the three theatremakers will turn to several of their other productions and then to a more general discussion of the properties of dramatic form which most engage, excite, upset, and disconcert us all.

The discussion between the three will then open up to an audience Q&A.

For more information about this event, please visit:https://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/50729/

About the network

“If a student of English literature doesn’t know that Titus Andronicus contains scenes of violence,” a director once grumbled about so-called ‘trigger warnings’, “they shouldn’t be on the course.” But does a play like Titus Andronicus simply ‘contain’ depictions of violence, or might it better be said to enact various kinds of violence — upon its spectators and its participants? When we think about drama not just as a mode of representation but as a means of exhibition — sometimes coercion — sometimes involvement — we can better recognise it as an artistic form which has the potential to link individuals through (painful) empathy and, sometimes, alienate them (painfully) from one another’s experiences.

Dramatic methodologies can immerse us in distressing and disorientating experiences but can also hold us apart from them, looking on. Discussing how these methodologies play out in educational spaces as well as in spaces designed for theatrical entertainment, it’s become clear to the Affective Encounters team that practitioners in a range of different fields — theatremakers, teachers, psychiatrists, counsellors, musicians, and many others — all participate in dramatic encounters in the course of their work, all playing out and only sometimes reflecting on the situations of control, loss of control, collaboration, and conflict which they therefore inhabit with others.

Throughout this year, you are invited to join the Affective Encounters team as we investigate the dramatic forms of psychological disturbance, and as we share with one another what each stage-space can learn from its fellows — how the dramaturgies of classrooms, clinical settings and performance spaces can each inform one another, pointing towards more sensitive and more supportive practices in the apprehension and understanding of disturbance.

For details about this network, please visit:

https://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/research/networks/affective-encounters/