Towards a History of COVID-Era Theatre: Philip Ridley’s <i>The Beast Will Rise</i>

Abstract This article examines Philip Ridley’s The Beast Will Rise (2020) as a significant example of COVID-era theatre, in terms of both its aesthetic impact and its historical importance. This series of fifteen monologues, recorded under lockdown conditions and posted to YouTube, is an underexamined work by a major playwright that simultaneously deepens his oeuvre while serving as a groundbreaking artistic statement on quarantine. Through an analysis of the content, many of Ridley’s familiar preoccupations are discernible, including the crisis of characters pushed to make extreme choices in dark, near grotesque worlds; these concerns prove to be quite fitting for a pandemic world as well. Further, analyzing the form of the videos shows them to be representative of the way the genre of COVID theatre evolved in the initial weeks of lockdown: the simplicity of self-taping gave way to more experimental techniques. Finally, an examination of The Beast Will Rise ’s place in the history of COVID theatre reveals a metanarrative that serves as a warning to today’s theatre-makers and the world at large: the tendency to ignore lessons learned in favor of returning to the status quo is strong but must be resisted.