John McGrath'ın The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil adlı oyununu petropolitik drama olarak okumak: Ekolojik sömürü ve petromodernite

Year 2022, Issue: 30, 1032 - 1044, 21.10.2022

Kerim Can Yazgünoğlu

Abstract

Petrodrama, ekolojik sorunlara odaklanarak petromodernitenin zorluklarını ve bunun insan ve insan-dışı dünyalar üzerindeki etkilerini ele alan, yeni ortaya çıkan bir çağdaş tiyatro kategorisidir. İnsan çağı olan Antroposen’in sıkıntılarına ve değişimlerine odaklanan petrodrama, esas olarak performans ve politikanın iç içe geçmesiyle meşguldür ve politik söylemlerin ve sistemlerin, insanların ve doğal kaynakların, özellikle de petrolün devam eden sömürüsünü nasıl sürdürdüğüne dair soruları ortaya atmaktadır. Bu amaçla, bu makale John McGrath’ın The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil (1973) adlı oyununu, İskoç Dağlık Bölgesi’nin ekolojik sömürüsü ve petrol kültürüyle ilgilenen petropolitik bir tiyatro olarak yeniden okumaktadır. John McGrath ve tiyatro üzerine politik görüşlerine genel bir bakış sunduktan sonra, bu çalışma İskoç tarihindeki sosyal ve ekolojik mülksüzleştirmenin birbirini izleyen aşamalarını ve McGrath’ın toplumdaki her yapı ve ilişkiyi yapılandıran petromoderniteyi konuşlandırmasını incelemektedir. Bu anlamda, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil oyunu, ekolojik hayal kırıklığı ve politikanın iç içe geçmesini vurgulayarak insanların doğal kaynaklara kıyasla nasıl ikincil görüldüğünü göstermektedir. Politik olarak angaje bir tiyatro olarak oyun, (petro)modernitenin anti-kapitalist bir eleştirisini dile getirmekte ve epik performanslar aracılığıyla açgözlü yeni-sömürgecilik ve neoliberalizme karşı eylem imkânı sağlamaktadır.

Keywords

John McGrath, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil, politik tiyatro, petrodrama, petromodernite, ekolojik sömürü

Reading John McGrath’s The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil as petropolitical drama: Ecological exploitation and petromodernity

Abstract

Petrodrama is an emerging category of contemporary theatre that addresses the challenges of petromodernity and its impacts on human and nonhuman worlds with a main focus on ecological problems. Focusing on the tribulations and vicissitudes of the Anthropocene, the age of the human, petrodrama is mainly preoccupied with the interweaving of performance and politics, one that raises questions about the way political discourses and systems perpetuate ongoing exploitations of humans and natural resources, particularly oil. To this end, this article rereads John McGrath’s play The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil (1973) as petropolitical theatre concerned with ecological exploitations of Scottish Highland and oil culture. After providing an overview of John McGrath and his political views on theatre, the study examines the successive stages of social and ecological dispossession in the Scottish history and McGrath’s deployment of petromodernity that configures every structure and relationships in society. In this sense, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil highlights the imbrication of ecological disenchantment and politics, demonstrating how people are deemed as secondary compared to natural resources. As a politically engaged theatre, the play thus articulates an anti-capitalist critique of (petro)modernity and allows the possibility of action against greedy neocolonialism and neoliberalism by means of epic performances.

Keywords

John McGrath, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil, political theatre, petrodrama, petromodernity, ecological exploitation

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