Abstract
In this chapter, I interrogate the capacity and possibility for theatre to challenge, resist and transform hegemonic, standardised representations of 'refugeeness' in dominant global visual cultures. I compare two European and two Australian theatre productions concerned with refugees. The productions span a 15-year period and provide an opportunity to look at how, for example, the lack of physical access to refugee others (caused by Australia's practice of offshore detention) can influence the staging of refugee theatre. I argue that the necessarily oblique approach undertaken by some Australian practitioners offsets the tendency to reinscribe familiar negative visual culture representations of refugees. The resulting forms of theatrical critique reveal ethical blind spots, veiled government practices and implicate audiences qua political subjects in the production of refugee suffering.