THREATENING PLAY: RADICAL SPACES OF LUDIC DISRUPTIONS

Abstract

This thesis develops and presents a systematic review and repositioning of the theory and practice of play in applied theatre. It critically explores, and argues for, an idea of play as an autotelic entity, a self-purposed platform for social engagement - not an instrumentalised notion, limited to children and warm-up exercises, games that prepare mind and body for serious work of making theatre, and as a means to a social, educational or therapeutic end. This research offers an alternative story of play: one that has no play dates, soft toys or safety latches, and, equally, no workshop plan, learning objective or theory of change. What would happen if we understood play practices as determined by the players, and not by its observers? Grounded in an anthropological study of play, spatial theory, and activist and artistic practices, this study explores whether play and the spaces it occurs in can subvert and disrupt social and institutional systems of hierarchy, order and discipline. Following three, detailed case studies centred on play practices in varied cultural contexts and ages, it seeks to demonstrate how - whether in a junkyard playground or in sites of civil disobedience - ludic disruptions might confuse spatial boundaries and destabilise social constructs to potentially imagine alternative possibilities. The research aims to show a riskier side of play, or what an observer outside of its reality might consider potentially threatening, disobedient, wild, untamed, and dangerously uncontrolled. It argues that, if we are to understand players themselves as self-determined agents, we must also accept and encourage a practice that adopts and celebrates the world and logic of their play as such. It belongs to them, and as applied theatre practitioners, there are new possibilities in engaging and embodying this often disorienting and unpredictable practice: play has the potential to reveal and destabilise institutional rationales and discourses that currently frame our discipline, and can also challenge limitations in how we understand form and process in our work so as to move toward something genuinely collaborative, autogenerative and entirely rooted in the moment.

Date of Award	31 Dec 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Johannes Sjoberg (Supervisor) & Jennifer Hughes (Supervisor)