Confronting Environmental Melancholia: A Dramaturgical Examination of Environmental Protest through the Making of Verbatim Theatre

这项以实践为基础的研究挑战了环境抗议者无法维持公众支持的问题。我提出了一个跨学科的戏剧学框架(IDF)来发展逐字戏剧(VT)，它使用心理地理学来分析支撑民族志的基础。这种方法突出了影响抗议者和公众的空间政治，这超出了依赖证词的VT的范围，从而限制了同情心。我通过开发关于灭绝反抗(XR)的VT文章来演示这一方法。矛盾的是，对XR的批评与日益加剧的气候焦虑相关(Conner和Mann，2021)。心理学家认为这种“解释性否认”是创伤的症状(Stanley，2021)。运动理论家认为，这种否认在抗议活动中进一步加深，在抗议活动中，公共空间由新自由主义意识形态建造，以屏蔽私人利益，从而保护经济活动免受颠覆(Ruiz，2017)。这一理论可以扩展到剧院，被广泛认为是“公共空间”(Trueman，2018)。VT具有在观众和表演对象之间创造同情的治疗潜力(Madsen，2018)。然而，VT实践者Stuart Fisher(2011)引用了创伤的模仿概念，认为它在语言中是不可交流的，以表明VT在使用去语境证词方面的局限性。再加上新自由主义公共空间的压抑性质，导致同情进一步受到阻碍。盖伊·德博德(1967)的观光心理地理学技术通过暴露公共空间的隐藏形态来挑战新自由主义的压抑(Smith和Katz，1993)。通过启发式地使用调查，抗议的民族志可以发展出既有背景又有挑战性的VT；从而引发同情和观点转变。通过在XR抗议活动中进行民族志研究，并使用IDF分析这些数据，我将能够发展VT表演。然后，将为对气候危机持有不同观点的团体举行这些会议，然后可以分析他们的反应。本研究推进了人们对气候危机的认识，并对戏剧和社会运动研究领域进行了深入的思考。

This practice-based research challenges the inability of environmental protestors to sustain public support. I propose aninterdisciplinary dramaturgical framework (IDF) for developing verbatim theatre (VT), that uses psychogeography toanalyse the undergirding ethnography. This approach foregrounds the spatial politics influencing protestors and publicalike that are beyond the ambit of testimonial-dependent VT, which thereby limits sympathy. I demonstrate thismethodology through developing VT pieces about Extinction Rebellion (XR).Criticism of XR has, paradoxically, been correlated with increasing climate anxiety (Conner and Mann, 2021). Psychologistsidentify this 'interpretive denial', as symptomatic of trauma (Stanley, 2021). Movement theorists argue this denial isfurthered at protests, in which public spaces are constructed by neoliberal ideologies to occlude private interests, therebysafeguarding economic activity from subversion (Ruiz, 2017). This theorisation can be extended to theatre, widelyconsidered as 'public space' (Trueman, 2018).VT has therapeutic potential to create sympathy between audiences and performed subjects (Madsen, 2018). However VTpractitioner Stuart Fisher (2011) cites mimetic conceptions of trauma as incommunicable in language, to suggest VT'slimitation in using decontextualized testimonies. Combined with the repressive nature of neoliberal public space, thisresults in sympathy being further obstructed.Guy Debord's (1967) psychogeographic technique of détournément challenges neoliberal repression by exposing thehidden configuration of public spaces (Smith and Katz, 1993). By using détournément heuristically, an ethnography ofprotest can develop VT that is both contextualised and challenging; thereby engendering sympathy and shifting opinion.By undertaking ethnographic research at XR protests, and using an IDF to analyse this data, I will be able to develop VTperformances. These will then be staged for groups with heterodox opinions on the climate crisis, whose responses canthen be analysed. This research advances awareness of the climate crisis and furthers thinking in the fields of theatre andsocial movement study.