Renaissance Re-examined: The Diversification of Scottish Playwriting 1970-2000

Abstract

The renaissance of theatre and playwriting in Scotland since 1970 is not to be seen as a single undifferentiated phenomenon and has important antecedents which should not be neglected. In the seventies, the dominant modes focussed either on West Scotland urban working class topics or historical themes revisited and interrogated anew. The emergence of women playwrights in the eighties marked a new diversification of theatrical perspective which led thereafter to a general thematic and dramaturgical variety which reflects and reinforced a perception, developed since 1970, of the variousness of “Scotland” and Scottish identities.