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

这项基于实践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框架（IDF）发展逐字戏剧（VT），使用心理地理学分析的民族志。这种方法突出了影响抗议者和公众的空间政治，超出了证词依赖VT的范围，从而限制了同情。我通过发展关于灭绝叛乱（XR）的VT作品来展示这种方法。矛盾的是，XR的批评与日益增加的气候焦虑有关（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得到了进一步的发展，在抗议活动中，公共空间是由新自由主义意识形态构建的，以封闭私人利益，从而保护经济活动免受颠覆（Ruiz，2017）。这种理论可以扩展到剧院，被广泛认为是“公共空间”（Trueman，2018）VT具有治疗潜力，可以在观众和表演对象之间产生同情（Madsen，2018）。然而，VT从业者Stuart Fisher（2011）引用了创伤的模仿概念作为语言的不可传达性，以表明VT在使用非语境化证词时的局限性。与新自由主义公共空间的压抑性质相结合，这导致同情心进一步受阻。盖伊·德波（1967）的心理地理学方法通过揭示公共空间的隐藏结构来挑战新自由主义的压抑（史密斯和卡茨，1993）。通过使用detournément explanistically，抗议的民族志可以开发VT，这是既情境化和挑战;从而产生同情和转变的意见。通过在XR抗议进行民族志研究，并使用IDF分析这些数据，我将能够开发VT性能。然后，这些活动将针对对气候危机持非正统观点的团体进行，然后可以分析他们的反应。这项研究提高了人们对气候危机的认识，并进一步促进了戏剧和社会运动研究领域的思考。

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.