The ?Unhomely? stage

Abstract

AbstractDrawing on Freud's concept of the unheimlich, this article proposes the notion of ‘The Unhomely Stage’ as a category of postmodern theatre which responds to contemporary lived experience of fragmentation and insecurity. The idea of The Unhomely Stage emerged during the process of devising and documenting a research production at the University of Reading of Backtracks, a performance which re-evaluated what it means to feel ‘at home’ in the modern world. Focused around explorations of migration, journey, loss and memory, Backtracks looked to Homi Bhabha's postcolonial reworkings of heimlich/unheimlich to find a theoretical framework for responding to the experience of alienation and displacement that marks modern existence. But it alo connected Freud's concept of the unhomely to Brecht's Defamiliarization, with its emphasis on reflexive analysis, and to Artaud's Cruelty, with its focus on personal experience and the internal dynamics of the psyche.