MASCULİNİTY, ANXİETY, AND THE GLOBAL INTİMATE: RE-READİNG JEZ BUTTERWORTH FROM STAGE TO SCREEN

Masculinity, Anxiety, and the Global Intimate: Re-reading Jez Butterworth from Stage to Screen offers a groundbreaking re-evaluation of one of the most influential voices in contemporary British theatre and cinema. Bringing together spatial theory, affect studies, and performance analysis, this book argues that Jez Butterworth’s dramatic and cinematic worlds are shaped by an intricate interplay of spatial anxiety, uncanniness, and global intimacies that redefine modern masculinity. Across four richly researched chapters, Kağan Kaya examines Butterworth’s artistic development, the tensions between stage and screen, and the fractured geographies inhabited by his male protagonists. From the uncanny rural landscapes of The Night Heron to the transnational intimacies of Birthday Girl, the study reveals a dramaturgy haunted by displacement, failed belonging, and the collapse of traditional masculine narratives. Moving beyond established critical frameworks such as in-yer-face theatre or masculine nostalgia, the book situates Butterworth’s works within broader socio-cultural currents—globalisation, precarity, mobility, and shifting borders. Kaya offers one of the most comprehensive accounts of Butterworth’s oeuvre to date, establishing a new critical vocabulary for understanding how masculinity is staged, threatened, and reimagined in the twenty-first century. This book is an essential resource for scholars of contemporary British theatre, masculinity studies, performance theory, film studies, and anyone seeking deeper insight into the uneasy, uncanny, and globally entangled worlds of Jez Butterworth.