Robert Cohen - Theatre, Brief Version-McGraw-Hill Education (2016)

274 Chapter 10 Global Theatre Today
Paul James Corrigan, Paul Rattray, and Emun Elliott play members of Scotland’s Black Watch in the verbatim drama
by that name that dealt with the horrors of the Iraq war. Created by the National Theatre of Scotland in 2006, it has
been performed around the world, enjoying a sold-out, four-city American tour in 2011. © Geraint Lewis
in 1995, became a worldwide success with its 2001 London
revival following Kane’s 1999 suicide (at age 28).
Even the language of theatre has become violent,
perhaps starting in America with David Mamet’s 1983
Glengarry Glen Ross—with lines like “Fuck marshalling
the leads. What the fuck talk is that?” The trend caught
on quickly. The titles of Mark Ravenhill’s 1996 Shopping
and Fucking and Stephen Adly Guirgis’s 2011 The
Motherf**ker With the Hat forced family newspapers to
puzzle out how to list such works in their pages. A play’s
theme or plot can be dangerous as well; accusations of
religious defamation led to bomb threats and the eventual
cancellation of a planned 1998 New York opening of
Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi, in which a Jesus-like
character was to have sexual relations with his disciples.
(The play finally opened in New York ten years later, causing
no disturbance at all.) And Neil LaBute’s violent, babymurdering
The Distance from Here was met with outrage
by some subscribers and loud screams from at least
one audience (as well as plaudits from many critics) at