‘Parasitic Scenographics’: A critical reflection on the digital scenography design for David Ian Rabey’s Last Ditch

The presentation will reflect on the digital scenography I designed for the Last Ditch as a critical discourse on the socio-political themes espoused in the piece. It will do so by considering Elfriede Jelinek’s concept of the ‘secondary play’, or ‘parasitic play’ as Karen Juers-Munby conceptualised it. I will apply this concept to the dramaturgical functions of digital scenography and consider the notion of ‘parasitic scenographics’. The presentation will thus explore how digital scenography can position itself in a ‘parasitic’ relationship to the dramatic material of the piece. It will subsequently explore how the digital scenography visually juxtaposes ideas from the plays effectuating instances of iconoclasm, parody, satire and the carnivalesque. It will also consider how it re-contextualises scenarios, furthers critical political commentaries and establishes a network of correspondences and intertextualities which enmesh the performance. Finally, I will argue that the production processes behind the digital scenography challenge some of the practices of late capitalism criticized in the play by operating within the parameters of what Paul Mason has described as ‘postcapitalism’, thus arguably to some extent becoming a practice of resistance and of economic dissent.