ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies a small number of plays that came to the stage many years ago at times of famine or harvest failure, and could, because they thematise dearth, be described as dearth plays. It discusses two well-documented Shakespearian examples of dearth-relevance – The Merry Wives of Windsor and King Lear – as well as modern examples of dearth in performance, then move on to consider a specific scene in William Shakespeare’s play Coriolanus in greater detail. In live theatrical performance, the human body is centre stage, both on stage and in phenomenological spectatorial responses in the audience. Thus, Raymond Williams, discussing naturalism on stage, and describing the “lives of the characters” as having “soaked into their environment” and the environment as having “soaked into” their lives, could be talking about any live theatrical performance or, indeed, about life in a more general sense. The chapter discusses the “environment” is anthropocentric and throws into focus the fundamental problem underpinning.
