Fog of War: British theatrical responses to the 2003 invasion of Iraq in an "exceptional" political environment

Abstract

This thesis examines the “post-truth” political environment through a retroactive exploration of issues surrounding the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and how these were depicted on the British stage. By presenting “post-truth” politics as an extension of Giorgio Agamben's theories on the “State of Exception”, this thesis aims to analyse how political theatremakers have attempted to depict and critique political exceptionalism on stage. A second field of enquiry is to examine how these theatremakers differentiate their representation and how they disseminate “truth” from the ‘exceptional’ institutions that they intend to critique. The plays specifically covered in this survey include David Hare’s Stuff Happens, Richard Norton-Taylor’s Justifying War and Caryl Churchill's Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?