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While some may shy from “a reading of a reading of a reading”—this is one of the norms of postmodernist method, whereby everything old is old again. This is especially pertinent to theatre, particularly if one goes one better than Richard Schechner’s notion of performance as “the rearrangement of old behavior in new settings.”3 The term notional culture is offered to counter the certainty of national culture. In our day, “hard” definitions go limp and the preference contemporary scholars have for the plural form of nationality teases us into the thought of “grand theory” culture. Thus, it becomes a matter of planes of existence rather than places of existence. The following chapters engage with the contemporary critique of culture, nation, and their location.
One can hardly comment on “cultural location” without drawing on the work of Homi Bhabha. Recall Bhabha’s comments on V. S. Naipaul, who remains one of the most controversial “Englishmen” alive.4 Bhabha draws attention to Sir Vidia as a writer who makes almost everyone uncomfortable, mostly because he refuses to be a “third world” writer. He is Trinidadian by birth, Indian by heritage, and British by choice. Of course, in a sense, Naipaul is not “British,” and Bhabha’s critique is amplified by