This paper introduces several ways of engaging with the concept of 'utopian space' in relation to theatre, and provides a preliminary application of this to Caryl Churchill's plays, and specifically to Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (written and performed in 1976). I concentrate on the relationship between utopian ideas and the signification of the theatre, theatre production and the theatrical stage; exploring the potential of the stage as as a utopian space, and collaborative theatre work as informed, at times, by a utopian impulse.

Theories of utopian space are applied to Light Shining in Buckinghamshire in terms of tracing extra-discursive loci of utopian possibility, as well as identifying the production of space wherein the discursive deconstruction of ideological structures and reconstruction of politically enabling sites are dramatically enacted. Utopian political strategy is identified as existing alongside a more 'critical' discourse, and the two in tandem are considered for their political success in a play that is concerned with (failed) revolutionary activity on the part of the Levellers, Ranters and Diggers in the 1640s as well as contemporaneous mid-1970s socialist politics.

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