New Readings in British Drama: From the Post-War Period to the Contemporary Era, Mesut Günenç,Enes Kavak, Editör, Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., Berlin, ss.95-114, 2021
Thomas Eccleshare’s Instructions for Correct Assembly is directed by Hamish Pirie
and first performed in 2018 at Royal Court Theatre. Although at its core the play is about the
trauma of losing a son, the specific choice of competing with loss by purchasing a flatpack
humanoid and the addiction to anthropocentric progress and perfection provide fertile ground
for a posthumanist critique of the play. While the play shows that the humanoid, Jån, is
transformed into a marginalized and colonized other, it also unfolds a desire of becoming
human on Jån’s side, and becoming machine on Max and Hari’s side, however, not in a
Braidottian way. Thus, in the light of Rosi Braidotti’s philosophy of the Posthuman,
becoming and hybridity in Eccleshare’s play become central to a critical posthumanist
reading.