David Greig’s Europe: Staging Globalization, Mobility and Refugehood

Abstract

The acclaimed Scottish playwright David Greig depicts contemporary mobility of various kinds. Focusingprincipally on mobility and travel in David Greig’s Europe, this paper aims at exploring the notion of“geopathology” in Una Chaudhuri’s sense, and thus brings a new perspective in the interpretation of the play.Chaudhuri has appropriated the term “geopathology” and “geopathic disorders” to describe the suffering causedby one’s location. Greig is fascinated with the contemporary world which is determined by actual dislocations ofimmigration and refugehood. His 1994 play Europe alludes to the Balkan unrest in the 1990s, and this paperattempts to explore such isues as geopathology, mobility, travel, and identity as the connecting substance of Greig’sEurope. The paper describes the Europe myth both as utopia and dystopia with the following themes: Europe as asymbol of geopathology, Europe as the embodiment of a utopic future, and Europe as the language ofhomelessness, rootlessness and hence mobility. It will be argued that the play incorporates “geopathology” as adramatic and structural device and calls for an urgency for the contemporary refugee problem.