New Publication: Performing Law (Cambridge University Press, 2026)

From Peter Goodrich, Director of the Program in Law and Humanities, Cardozo School of Law:

Intrepid Team, Tireless Textual Troubadours, Tanquam Tessellations, Timbrels and Tympani,

 

That incomparable syntagm, scintillating excursus, and coruscating communal and collective cerebration Performing Law is now published online, extant virtually, as vibrant and vivid in virbiusses as a vaudeville Velasquez. Time, then, for action. To advance, promote, circulate, promulgate, disseminate this cornucopia of geniuses requires, indeed, promotion and reviews. These, in currently restricted publishing economies, lie in our hands. Please circulate the link and corral students, former students, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, or as circumstances dictate, medical team, bouncers, resort staff, inmates, dance partners, crèche, Asylum warders, private security, to the task of reviewing and distributing this magnum and magnificent volume, this jeroboam of bonifacted spectres. And thus, once more to the page, once more unto the books, once more or fill the sibylline leaves with our English dead letters!

 

I remain your fondest Gromboolian hapax legomenon,

 

Peter

ICYMI: Ian Ward, The Play of Law in Modern British Theatre (Edinburgh University Press, 2021) @EdinburghUP @UniofNewcastle

ICYMI: Ian Ward, Newcastle University, has published The Play of Law in Modern British Theatre (Edinburgh University Press, 2021). Here from the publisher's website is a description of the book's contents.

The first book to investigate the place of law in modern and contemporary drama Illustrates the role of contemporary theatre in articulating legal and political issues to a modern audience Analyses a range of different genres in contemporary drama, including historical, poetic, realist, documentary and ‘in-yer-face’ Each chapter focuses on a particular area of law alongside the work of a particular contemporary playwright Shows how modern playwrights engage with issues such as pornography, murder, terrorism, the function of Parliament, and the role of the monarchy Theatre, according to the prominent British playwright David Hare, is our most effective ‘court of justice’. This book assesses the credibility of this arresting claim in the immediate context of contemporary British theatre by investigating the place and purpose of law in a range of modern dramatic settings and writings. Each chapter focuses on a particular area of law and the work of a particular contemporary playwright, and in doing so illustrates the important role of contemporary theatre in articulating legal and political issues to a modern audience. Exploring a range of different genres in contemporary drama, including the historical, the poetic, realist, documentary and ‘in-yer-face’, this volume explores the capacity of modern playwrights to engage with issues such as pornography, murder, the contemporary experience of terrorism, the function of Parliament and the role of the monarchy.

Twenty Minutes with the Devil at The Street, Canberra, June 17-25, 2022 @luisenantipoda

From Thom Giddens, University of Dundee, via the Law and CUlture mailing list, on behalf of Desmond Manderson:

Yes, after no less than three lockdown delays over the past two years, Twenty Minutes with the Devil is finally on. Fri 17 – Sat 25 June, at The Street, Canberra’s home of professional theatre.  Book now if you haven’t already done so – and pass the word on to your students, your colleagues, and your friends!

 

Des

 

 

Twenty Minutes with the Devil is a black comedy, a high-octane thriller, and non-stop entertainment. It is based on real life events surrounding the capture of Mexico’s most notorious narco in 2016. But beneath the headlines, the play probes deeper questions. It brings together the life work of its two authors, well-known legal scholars and teachers Luis Gómez Romero and Desmond Manderson. What does law and justice matter when they seem so very far apart?

 

Two lowly cops and a narco think they have all the answers. Angela believes that if you follow the law, justice will look after itself. Romulo knows better, but the hide of a cynic often conceals a revolutionary heart. El Ticho doesn’t care about justice but he treats the law as a plaything he can twist to his own advantage. Now they’re trapped in a love hotel in the middle of the desert. The army and the cartels are descending and no one knows who will live to tell the tale. The pressure of the ticking clock and the impending storm of violence forces all three to confront what they think matters in the world and what they are prepared to do – to survive.

 

The play is set against the terrible drug wars which have led to the brutal deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in Mexico alone, and destroyed its legal system, its police, its society. But drugs are just a symptom. All over the world, the gap between law and justice seems to yawn wider than ever.

 

Rómulo: Drug’s just the excuse, man, ‘coz the real drug is money. I never met anyone who had enough of it – and millions’d kill for it in a heartbeat. Money buys you violence — violence gets you money. It don’t come cheap. It costs. Know what? Reckon it’ll cost more and more and more and to hell with the rest of us.

 

Climate change, inequality, politics failing and governments giving up. These emergencies effect all of us. Mostly, we look the other way and try to get on with their lives. But our three characters do not have that luxury. It’s now or never. They are in lockdown. And as we all know, there’s nothing like a lockdown to concentrate the mind. Is justice part of the solution? Is law part of the problem? These are urgent questions, and time is running out.

 

El Ticho: Any minute, my men are going to come storming through that door. They’re not going to knock – room service. You think you can stop them? You and that flightless hairy-winged angel of the lord?

 

 

Just Rawling Along: A Theory of Justice: The Musical! @JusticeMusical

Proving that one can set anything to music, John Rawls is coming to the London stage. Well, sort of. (It has already played at the Edinburgh Fringe). On February 19, A Theory of Justice: The Musical! debuts at the Arts Theatre. Josh Seymour directs. More here.  Edinburgh Fringe trailer here.

The work is two hours, plus an intermission, so seems not a long piece, and not only not in pages. 

Advice About "Consent," a New Play by Nina Raine

From the Guardian: a review of a production of Nina Raine's Consent, a play about a rape surviver and the personal and professional lives of the barristers involved in the case. More here. 

Says reviewer Michael Billington in part, "Consent is a play that stimulates debate rather than stifles it. ...This is a very good play that reminds us that drama, like the law, depends on antithetical narratives in which we become judge and jury."

More here from the Independent, the Evening Standard. 

New From Brill: The Theatre of Justice: Aspects of Performance in Greco-Roman Oratory and Rhetoric

The Theatre of Justice: Aspects of Performance in Greco-Roman Oratory and Rhetoric (Sophia Papaioannou, Andreas Serafim, and Beatrice Da Vela, eds.; Brill, 2017).

The Theatre of Justice contains 17 chapters that offer a holistic view of performance in Greek and Roman oratorical and political contexts. This holistic view consists of the examination of two areas of techniques. The first one relates to the delivery of speeches and texts: gesticulation, facial expressions and vocal communication. The second area includes a wide diversity of techniques that aim at forging a rapport between the speaker and the audience, such as emotions, language and style, vivid imagery and the depiction of characters. In this way the volume develops a better understanding of the objectives of public speaking, the mechanisms of persuasion, and the extent to which performance determined the outcome of judicial and political contests.