This exploration of theatre and the rural argues that the reality of the lived rural is overlaid with external representations, often coloured by nostalgia, which are reflected and potentially created by theatre and its practices. It suggests that we need to re-engage with the actuality of the rural in order to fully understand our own nations.

How has theatre represented the rural? And how does a re-viewing of theatre of and in the rural help to build and complicate our sense of place?

Theatre & the Rural explores the different ways in which theatre has performed the rural from the medieval to the contemporary, and examines the changing relationships between place, performance and audience when theatre is staged in rural communities. The book argues that theatre has a key role to play in both producing and potentially changing understandings of the rural, challenging dominant views of the relationships between city and country which can affect the political, social and cultural lives of the nation.