Food and Theatre on the World Stage [Hardcover]

Putting food and theatre into direct conversation, this volume focuses on how food and theatre have operated for centuries as partners in the performative, symbolic, and literary making of meaning. Through case studies, literary analyses, and performance critiques, contributors examine theatrical work from China, Japan, India, Greece, Italy, France, Germany, England, the United States, Chile, Argentina, and Zimbabwe, addressing work from classical, popular, and contemporary theatre practices. The investigation of uses of food across media and artistic genres is a burgeoning area of scholarly investigation, yet regarding representation and symbolism, literature and film have received more attention than theatre, while performance studies scholars have taken the lead in examining the performative aspects of food events. This collection looks across dramatic genres, historical periods, and cultural contexts, and at food in all of its socio-political, material complexity to examine the particular problems and potentials of invoking and using food in live theatre. The volume considers food as a transhistorical, global phenomenon across theatre genres, addressing the explosion of food studies at the end of the twentieth century that has shown how food is a crucial aspect of cultural identity.

Introduction: Culinary Theatres  Dorothy Chansky and Ann Folino White  Part I: Dramatizing Gluttony and Famine  1. When You are What You Eat: Ruzzante and Historical Metabolism  Will Daddario and Joanne Zerdy  2. Gluttonous Pleasures: Arlequin, the Nouveau Th??tre Italien, and the Eighteenth-Century French Stage  Maria Bobroff  3. Staging the Politics of the Belly: Depictions of Food and Violence in the Zimbabwean Play Super Patriot and Morons  Praise Zenenga  Part II: Staging Nationalism and Culture vial3$