A political interrogation of theatrical representations of the precarious by and for the cultural fraction of the middle class.

This Element focuses on the frequent staging of the most precarious fraction of the working class in the context of a theatre industry, academy and audiences that are dominated by the cultural fraction of the middle class. It interrogates the staging of an abjectified figure as a means of challenging the stigmatisation of the poor in political discourse, defined here as an ideological imaginary of moral and cultural deficit. The Element argues that in seeking to subvert such an imaginary, theatre that stages the abjectified subject may risk consolidating two further imaginaries of working class deficit that have been confected in political discourse from the 1990s to the 2020s. In conclusion, the Element reflects on the political potential of theatre that rather seeks to eradicate class descriptors, conflicts and hierarchies altogether. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.