Ecology and Climate in Theatre and Australian Performance

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Peta Tait (La Trobe University, Victoria) Denise Varney (University of Melbourne)

Ecology and Climate in Theatre and Australian Performance

Name: Ecology and Climate in Theatre and Australian Performance
Price: 250.53 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9781009618267

Peta Tait (La Trobe University, Victoria), Denise Varney (University of Melbourne), Lara Stevens (Charles Sturt University, Albury, New South Wales)

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English

Cambridge University Press
09 April 2026

Theatre Studies; Literary studies: from c 1900 -; Literary studies: plays & playwrights; Environmentalist thought & ideology

Series: Cambridge Studies in Modern Theatre

Charting a history of theatrical resistance to environmental exploitation, this study places drama and theatrical performance staged in Australia within the context of international scholarship to address changing ecological systems. Exploring the staging of disasters ranging from droughts and floods to forest fires and rising seas, it examines a strikingly diverse body of work that reflects the entanglement of socio-economic and environmental forces leading to ecological damage and climate change. Weather phenomena become protagonists in plays by Jack Davis, Andrea James, Louis Nowra and Hannie Rayson, while mutant creatures manifest climate threats in Jill Orr's work, and performances by the Australian Indigenous Marrugeku and Bangarra Dance Theatre invite grief for immense losses. Featuring First Nations performance and its profound knowledge of biodiverse multispecies habitats, this study challenges the ways in which socio-ecological disaster is called 'natural' and positioned outside human responsibility.

By: Peta Tait (La Trobe University Victoria), Denise Varney (University of Melbourne), Lara Stevens (Charles Sturt University, Albury, New South Wales)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Weight: 570g
ISBN: 9781009618267
ISBN 10: 1009618261
Series: Cambridge Studies in Modern Theatre
Pages: 282
Publication Date: 09 April 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction; 1. From ecology to ecocriticism; 2. Drought escalates; 3. Endangered lands; 4. Flood damage; 5. Contaminating atmospheres; 6. Water restrictions; 7. Melting ice, rising seas; 8. Facing mass extinction; 9. Staging hot weather and fire; 10. Forms of future disaster; 11. Dramaturgies of dissent; References; Index.

Peta Tait is Emeritus Professor at La Trobe University, a playwright and Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Her twelve authored and edited books include the authored Forms of Emotion: Human to Nonhuman in Drama, Theatre and Contemporary Performance (2022). Denise Varney is Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne and Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Her most recent book is Patrick White's Theatre: Australian Modernism on Stage 1960–2018 (2021). Lara Stevens is Lecturer in English at Charles Sturt University. She is co-author with Eddie Paterson of Performing Climates (2025), co-editor with Peta Tait and Denise Varney of Feminist Ecologies: Changing Environments in the Anthropocene (2018), and author of Anti-War Theatre after Brecht (2016).