Introduction: Improper Naming

Abstract

I began writing this book with a desire to understand what I perceived to be an obsession with naming in recent theatrical performances and texts. The naming in these plays and performances — of characters, settings, events, and phenomena — seemed to interrogate naming itself. How, I found myself asking, did this conspicuous name-play reflect on, and how did it intervene in, social experience of, and critical thinking about, identity, reality, and the mediation of identity and reality? The chapters that follow address this multi-part question through close reading of particular theatre-makers and works. In outlining the book’s argument, this Introduction will contextualize those readings socio-politically vis-à-vis critical discourse, theatre history, and performance theory.