'Setting the Scene Ambivalent Encounters/Visibilities'. In The Routledge Companion to Twentieth Century British Theatre and Performance Volume One: 1900–1950

‘Ambivalent encounters’ spotlights a complex and transformative British theatrical landscape at the turn of the twentieth century. Looking at a diverse array of audiences, performers, and performances across the country, we find an aspirational, transnational culture, undergoing commercial and aesthetic structural changes in its production. Drawing on current theoretical debates across performance and theatre history, ambivalent encounters uncovers the emergence of multiple national narratives in this period which would become pivotal in the development of both Britain and its theatres in the twentieth century.