Performing East Asian Identities in Contemporary British Theatre

Abstract

This thesis asks how East Asian identities are performed in contemporary British theatre. The research is conducted through analyses of, and discourses surrounding performances that took place between 2016 and 2019. It explores the strategies adopted by East Asian artists in Britain (EAB) and their performance practices. What does it mean to be an East Asian artist in Britain? How is East Asian identity shaped by historical, cultural, material conditions, and what kind of continuity and subversion does it undergo through performance practice?

This thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 explores the historical context of this research in relation to representation of China and East Asia in the UK. The following three chapters examine contemporary performance productions, each focusing on a main theme: ‘universality’, ‘authenticity’, and ‘cultural currency’/’consumption’. Chapter 2 on universality examines performances of or by East Asian people aiming/claiming to represent universal values. The cases studied in this chapter are In the Depths of Dead Love (the Print Room, 2017) and Tamburlaine (Yellow Earth Theatre, 2017). Chapter 3 considers performance and representation of East Asian identities situated within a specific time-space, adopting theories of ‘languaging’ to explore how East Asian artists tune their own identities. The case studies in this chapter are Snow in Midsummer (the RSC, 2017) and Forgotten (Yellow Earth Theatre and Moongate Productions, 2018). Chapter 4 shifts the focus to solo auto/biographical performances framed through a concept I call ‘consumption of identity’. I examine my own performance practice from 2016 to 2019 in this chapter, and consider the strategies individuals employ to simultaneously challenge and make use of structural stereotypes.

I argue that under the broad, contested, category of ‘East Asian’, East Asian artists from diverse cultural backgrounds adopt different artistic strategies at different stages in sometimes self-contradictory ways. On the whole, performance of East Asian identity is as fluid as the identity itself, and is at the same time a restriction and a resource in performance practice.