Cruel Britannia: In-Yer-Face Theatre on Page and Stage

The term ‘in-yer-face theatre’ emerged in the mid-1990s in critical reactions to contemporary plays by young writers which were considered, in terms of their subject matter, language, and production, particularly vulgar, shocking, and confrontational. In 2001, Aleks Sierz chose the label as the title of a book that represents the first attempt to argue for an understanding of ‘in-yer-face theatre’ as a more or less coherent style and sensibility which was in fashion on London stages in the mid- to late 1990s.

Sierz considers Philip Ridley’s The Pitchfork Disney, which premiered at the Bush Theatre in 1991, as an early instance of a kind of dramatic aesthetics that “turned auditoriums into cauldrons of sensations” and which became a formative influence for later playwrights. Another key play of the ‘in-yer-face’ wave was Sarah Kane’s Blasted, which Stephen Daldry included, among work by other predominantly new writers, in the programming of his 1994/95 season at The Royal Court Theatre. The play caused outrage and a media frenzy and became a major cultural scandal and one of the most notorious plays of the decade. The Royal Court went on to produce similarly provocative ‘in-yer-face’ plays, such as, in 1996, Mark Ravenhill’s Shopping and Fucking. ‘In-yer-face’ plays came to have a profound influence on contemporary theatre in general, not least because of their radical experimentation with form: Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life (1997), for example, abandons narrow notions of character, scene, and ‘theatre’ in favour of flexible scenarios and clusters of texts to be staged as something akin to an art installation.

In this course, we will discuss the four mentioned plays as prominent examples of ‘in-yer-face theatre’ and consider them in the context of British culture in the 1990s – in particular as counterpoints to the dominance of an upbeat and optimistic cultural mood and pride in UK culture now associated with the labels ‘Cool Britannia’ and the phenomenal success of 1990s Britpop. We will ask how these works’ aesthetics of provocation and violence challenge and involve readers and audiences, and how we can approach them today as historically significant but also potentially still relevant und uncomfortable cultural texts.

Content warning: The texts discussed in this seminar contain depictions and discussion of physical violence, sexual violence, psychological violence, misogyny, racism, homophobia, depression, self-harm, torture, genocide, cannibalism, infanticide, and suicide.
 

Please note:

Personal attendance during the first session is mandatory to maintain enrolment status. Please direct all your inquiries about vacancies to britlit.fragen.fk15tu-dortmundde.

The course starts in the second week (18.10.23).

Philip Ridley. The Pitchfork Disney (Methuen Drama)

Sarah Kane. Blasted (Methuen Drama)

Mark Ravenhill. Shopping and Fucking (Methuen Drama)

Martin Crimp. Attempts on Her Life (Faber Drama)

Credits will be awarded on the basis of either:

• a term paper
• project
• ‘Aktive Teilnahme’