Abstract
Several twentieth-century playwrights wrote dramatic literature scrutinizing Robert Falcon Scott and the Terra Nova Expedition’s parallel historical legacies. As Freddie Rokem notes in Performing History: Theatrical Representations of the Past in Contemporary Theatre, “collective identities, whether they are cultural/ethnic, national, or even transnational, grow from a sense of the past; the theatre forcefully participates in ongoing representations and debates about these pasts” (2000, p. 3). In a few cases, playwrights reinforced dominant societal narratives surrounding the expedition’s contributions towards a shared national identity as well as our human understanding of perseverance against fate. However, in other cases, playwrights repurposed the historical narrative to offer didactic commentaries regarding their contemporary societies.
This presentation considers two theatrical responses to the Terra Nova expedition: British playwright Howard Brenton’s early-career dramatic work Scott of the Antarctic: Or, What God Did Not See (1971) and New Zealand playwright Stuart Hoar’s Scott of the Antarctic (1989). In these dramatic works, the playwrights recalibrate their audience’s relationship with the Terra Nova expedition through discourses on gender, imperialism and sensationalism. This presentation argues that both playwrights’ non-realistic dramatic methods effectively repositions the existent historical narrative through metatheatrical devices and Brechtian techniques.
Works Cited
Rokem, Freddie. Performing History: Theatrical Representations of the Past in Contemporary Theatre. U of Iowa P, 2000.