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.
