Siting the Other

The emergence of contemporary Australian and English-Canadian multicultural drama undoubtedly constitutes a fascinating development in the history of international literatures written in English. These postcolonial plays offer ideal vantage points from which to observe the struggle of two comparable Commonwealth countries to accommodate the pluralism of their social fabric. As the prominent theatre scholars of this collection cogently argue, the articulation of otherness forms a central concern in the drama of these two countries. The postcolonial playwrights studied in this book interpret marginality as an expression of resistance against the legacy of Empire, often through the weapon of subversive mimicry. The organising spatial metaphor of the book suggests new readings of the other as an evolving site of contestation. This volume articulates a new form of comparative poetics, in which dramatic texts are used as reflecting mirrors, as privileged tools to explore the similarity and otherness that Australia and Canada share.