This sample of recent articles reflects the variety and richness of research that Theatre Research International authors have brought to the journal, covering a range of geo-political and cultural contexts, and drawing upon a wide and diverse set of theoretical and critical paradigms. 

Alyaa A. Naser and Majeed Mohammed Midhin examine plays that explore questions of gender, honour, chastity and reputation in Iraq against the backdrop of war. Their essay focuses on work by two male playwrights writing in the aftermath of the first and second US invasions of Iraq (1995 and 2014). The article examines how the plays highlight the need for male solidarity with women in the struggle against patriarchal oppression.

Birgitta Lindh Estelle’s essay examines social expectations of femininity and ideals of womanhood in nineteenth century Scandinavia, in her thought-provoking analysis of Charlotte Leffler’s family drama Sanna kvinnor. Here, too, questions of honour, gender, and family reputation are at the centre of the plot.

Will Schuler’s essay The Athenian Male Gayze critiques historiographical approaches that have ignored evidence of same-sex practices in Ancient Greece in favour of modern heteronormative concepts, marking how binary and fixed models of gender and gendered behaviour can obscure historical realities.

These cultural, geographical, and methodological approaches address normative models of gendered behaviour across time and geographic space, reflecting the myriad resonances of gender and its performances. 

Jyana Browne's article explores the revitalization of a puppetry tradition dating back to the Edo period (1603–1868) by the Naoshima Onna Bunraku troupe. The troupe must negotiate the local community-oriented past alongside the global tourism of the present moment, as they forge cultural and educational links through the puppetry of Naoshima.

From India, Anuradha Kapur draws from her production notes written while she was co-directing the show Dark Things with Deepan Sivaraman. The work is based on Ari Sitas's oratorio on the Silk Road, and Kapur reflects upon collaboration as ‘the performance's explicit grammar [that] has been shaped by a sensuous give-and-take between the practitioner and the material’. Dark Things explores labour migration, economic exploitation, and precarity.

Jihay Park's analysis of The Great Gatsby brings an original twist to immersive performance focusing on playification, gaming and ludic activities, drawing on the work of Johan Huizinga and Richard Schechner. Writing of her experience as a spectator of the work, Park reflects upon the proprioceptive and kinaesthetic experiences of navigating the architectural limits of the performance, and points to the contributions that game theory can make to performance studies.

Mehdi Tajeddin's ‘Flying in the Cage’ offers a substantive account of censorship in Iranian theatre and how directors invent creative means to represent onstage what may not be shown. The article lists directors whose works cannot be analysed because censors intervened before it could go in front of the audience. In a small way, this article resists state censorship and addresses the abuse of artistic freedom by bringing to our attention some of the work and authors who have been absented from the public sphere.