ABSTRACT
In this chapter Dan Rebellato and Kim Solga reflect on the politics of Mitchell’s investment in Naturalism. They begin by each offering a provocation. Rebellato addresses the experimental and avant-garde nature of Naturalism when it emerged in the last third of the nineteenth century, arguing that Mitchell’s work recovers and reinvests this radicalism in ways suited to the twenty-first century. Solga then investigates the feminist critiques of the naturalist project produced by scholars in the 1980s and beyond, who argued that its narrative structures were governed by a sense of inevitability, or social and psychological determinism. Solga explores the paradoxes and possibilities of an avowedly feminist practitioner (Mitchell) returning to Naturalism today. In the ensuing conversation, Rebellato and Solga discuss three key case studies: Fräulein Julie (Schaubühne Berlin, 2010), Cleansed (National Theatre, 2016) and Anatomy of a Suicide (Royal Court, 2017), interrogating how Mitchell’s formal experimentation tangoes with the radical project of early Naturalism. What emerges is an understanding of the ways in which Mitchell’s work launches a resuscitated and refigured Naturalism for now.
