Abstract
The article focuses on Martin Crimp’s recent collaboration with Katie Mitchell in a version of The Phoenician Women by Euripides, staged at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg in November-December 2013. Considering the context of the production, from venue to audience experience, the piece delivers a performance analysis that emphasises the key points of focus for this new work. As the article argues, Alles Weitere kennen Sie aus dem Kino, as the piece is currently known, since Crimp’s original text in English remains unpublished, evidences a preoccupation with issues relating to our understanding of and engagement with history, but also to the representation of women. Crimp and Mitchell’s work in this case is set on achieving a reversal of established attitudes and normative formats when it comes to these two major areas. The article therefore considers defining moments of the piece from a perspective that is equally performance- and text-focused, in order to formulate an understanding of why this piece stands out in the body of work that Crimp has produced for the theatre to date. It also contends that Alles Weitere kennen Sie aus dem Kino is emblematic of the current stage in Crimp’s playwriting, which represents a major transition in how he conceptualises and formulates his texts, moving into the next stage of his career.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 315-330 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Contemporary Theatre Review |
Volume | 24 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 31 Jul 2014 |