Outside Edge's Theatre for Recovery

Abstract

Relapse is a major obstacle in recovery from addiction – illustrating starkly that the recovered remain under the influence of their drug of choice (henceforth DOC) even in its absence. This article examines performative strategies that might both help prevent relapse, and combat the ongoing influence of the DOC. My investigation draws on a long-term engagement (2009-2017) as research adviser and trustee for leading Theatre for Recovery group, Outside Edge. Their treatment centre, work and public performances have turned from Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed towards experiment and contemporary forms, but their work still relies on an idealist ‘construction of human nature’ (Nicholson 2005: 117) and faith in the power of ‘meaningful’ provocation (Jackson 2009: 44) to create change. My interrogation of this turn, and these issues, reveals the complexities of Outside Edge's theatre. Their founder, Phil Fox, called their work ‘a denial of denial’ (Reynolds and Zontou 2011: 170) – where the recovered perform to the recovering, risking engagement with influence to escape it, and exploding notions of anonymous recovery by performing recovery publicly. Interrogating these intricacies produces important new insights into the agency of addict identities, and their re-shaping through performativity into an influencing – rather than an influenced – mode of subjectivity.

Notes

1 See Boal (1992). Fox regularly used exercises taken directly from Boal's publications.

2 Unless otherwise stated, Outside Edge public performances referred to in this article take place at Munster Road, Fulham, the company's base of operations in London.