Performing the Past in Situ

Abstract

Johnny Drops the Bomb is a site-specific, historical play written to be performed in the Diefenbunker, a bomb shelter built to protect key members of the Canadian government in the event of a nuclear attack. As a practice-as-research project, Johnny Drops the Bomb explores the theories and techniques associated with performing history in situ: aura and atmosphere, empathy and witnessing, embodiment and being-in-the-world, proximity and site-specificity, and upsurges of the Real. As the written component of that practical project, this thesis contextualizes Johnny Drops the Bomb by situating it within these approaches, reflecting on the role that each technique played as I wrote, rehearsed, and ultimately performed it with two other actors.