Abstract
Through detailed analyses of Punchdrunk’s large-scale immersive theatre performances and corporate partnerships, Alston considers how core neoliberal values inform the company’s influential brand of immersive theatre aesthetics. He addresses the immersion and productivity of audiences in the company’s corporate partnerships and the implicit politics of Punchdrunk’s free-roaming immersive theatre by critically analysing what he calls ‘entrepreneurial participation’, focusing on an expectation that savvy audiences should produce self-made opportunities. Drawing on a timely investigation of neoliberal value in the political outlooks and policy initiatives of successive governments in the UK since the 1980s, Alston critiques the terms of an audience’s empowerment in work by Punchdrunk, unearthing a deeply political core at the heart of the Punchdrunk aesthetic.
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Notes
- 1.
For instance, in sourcing funds for Faust, Gideon Reeling provided the creative and productive impetus behind Southern Comfort’s Fat Tuesday club nights and the funds raised through this corporate venture helped to make Faust a realisable project for Punchdrunk (Gardner, 2006).
- 2.
A similar model was used in Punchdrunk’s The Crash of the Elysium (2011–12) and Against Captain’s Orders: a Journey into the Uncharted (2015), which were both performances designed for young audiences.
- 3.
For this particular one-on-one, I make reference not to my own experience, but that of Chloe Veltman (2008).
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- 5.
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Alston, A. (2016). Theatre Through the Fireplace: Punchdrunk and the Neoliberal Ethos. In: Beyond Immersive Theatre. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-48044-6_4
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