Staging Madness: Communicating Lived Experience of Psychosis in Contemporary British Drama from the 1980s to the Present

Abstract

This thesis argues that experimentation with form in contemporary British theatre plays an important role in communicating the subjective experience of psychosis. To question how theatre can convey the lived experience of madness, this study examines a variety of British drama plays from the 1980s to the present and identifies the modes of communication employed to convey psychosis. Furthermore, it examines how the psychotic state is conceptualised and formally represented on stage and how formal experimentation is utilised in each case study. In this thesis, I engage more deeply with plays that cover a range of time periods and a variety of textual approaches, such as Alan Ayckbourn’s Woman in Mind 1985, Claire Dowie’s Adult Child/ Dead Child 1987, Sarah Kane’s Crave 1998 and Anthony Neilson’s The Wonderful World of Dissocia 2004.

This thesis conducts a close textual reading and analysis of the selected plays. Using various theoretical perspectives to approach each case study, this thesis problematises and challenges the biomedical psychiatry diagnostic paradigm of madness using dramatic representation that depicts madness as a sensory experience and an alternative way of being, ultimately providing a subjective point of view of madness. I engage critically with this anti-psychiatry approach, specifically drawing on R. D. Laing’s thoughts on self-fragmentation, the existential experience of psychosis, the psychotic state, and the importance of the subjective experience of the psychotic individual for understanding madness. I also rely on Matthew Ratcliffe’s philosophy of existential feeling. Laing’s and Ratcliffe’s ideas ultimately form the intellectual background and starting point of this thesis.

By focusing on the lived experience of madness, this thesis situates itself in the growing field of Mad Studies and mad movements, such as Hearing Voices Network, and in current discussion on the representation of madness in British theatre, which reflects the importance of the subjectivity when dramatizing madness. I argue that the studied British playwrights use formal experimentation to communicate the experience of madness and simultaneously allow audiences to experience and feel this madness. Throughout the analysis, this thesis suggests that the discussed plays demonstrate how formal experimentation can elicit in audiences a shared subjective experience of madness. Lastly, this thesis demonstrates that stylistic experimentation is employed in representations of madness as a tool for communication.