From History to ‘Ourstories’ in Martin Crimp’s Metanarratives
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Vicky Angelaki
Abstract
Even though Martin Crimp is now internationally recognized as one of the major trailblazers of recent and contemporary British theater, having consistently produced formally and textually groundbreaking work since the early 1980s, it is essential to acknowledge that his reputation has also been built on the innovative ways in which he has approached classical texts. Crimp’s representational methods are marked by a characteristic ease of combining the old with the new and the past with the present into a new state of co-existence; a continuum of experience lived, being lived and about to be lived. We have seen evidence of this in Crimp’s numerous translations for the stage, from Eugène Ionesco to Bernard-Marie Koltès which, as I have argued in The Plays of Martin Crimp: Making Theatre Strange (2012), have consistently fostered attention to cultural sensibilities, as well as social, political and historical specificities. This kind of sensitive intervention has been crucial in avoiding melting-pot translations that indiscriminately intermesh languages and traditions for the sake of simplified universal applicability. Negotiating past and present alongside different cultures on the understanding that history is the interconnecting, living and vibrating vein of humanity is not an easy task for any artist; this article examines how Crimp has handled this challenge in recent work.
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© 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: Theater and History – Cultural Transformations
- Articles
- Introduction: Theater and History – Cultural Transformations
- Anthropo-Scenes: Theater and Climate Change
- ‘Provincializing’ Post-Wall Europe: Transcultural Critique of Eurocentric Historicism in Pentecost, Europe and The Break of Day
- Utopian Histories: Transforming Past Ideals in Stoppard’s Plays
- A Historiography of Protest and the Politics of Commemoration in Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica
- Je Me Souviens – Re/Writings of History in Contemporary Canadian Drama
- David Greig’s The American Pilot and Earlier Dramatizations of Political Hostage Takings
- Time and Temporalities in Contemporary British War Plays – Roy Williams’s Days of Significance and Owen Sheers’s The Two Worlds of Charlie F.
- Women and Historical Agency in Contemporary British Plays
- From History to ‘Ourstories’ in Martin Crimp’s Metanarratives
- Locating History on the Contemporary Stage
- Reviews
- Vicky Angelaki. The Plays of Martin Crimp: Making Theatre Strange. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, x + 228 pp., $ 85.00 (hardback); available as eBook.Clara Escoda Agustí. Martin Crimp’s Theatre: Collapse as Resistance to Late Capitalist Society. CDE Studies Volume 24. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2013, xi + 336 pp., $ 140.00 (hardcover or eBook), $ 210.00 (hardcover and eBook).
- Sophie Bush. The Theatre of Timberlake Wertenbaker. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, viii + 337 pp., £ 16.99 (paperback and eBook).
- Peter Fifield and David Addyman (eds.). Samuel Beckett: Debts and Legacies: New Critical Essays. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, 244 pp., £ 58.50 (hardback), £ 19.99 (eBook).Katherine Weiss. The Plays of Samuel Beckett. Critical Companions. London: Methuen Drama, 2013, 286 pp., £ 50.00 (hardback), £ 16.99 (paperback).
- Anne Cremieux, Xavier Lemoine and Jean-Paul Rocchi (eds.). Understanding Blackness Through Performance: Contemporary Arts and the Representation of Identity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 282 pp., $ 90.00 (hardback).
- Denise Varney, Peter Eckersall, Chris Hudson and Barbara Hatley. Theatre and Performance in the Asia-Pacific: Regional Modernities in the Global Era. Studies in International Performance. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, xiii + 253 pp., $ 85.00 (hardback).
- Clare Wallace. The Theatre of David Greig. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, ix + 259 pp., £ 50.00 (hardback), £ 15.29 (paperback).
- Gareth White. Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, x + 224 pp., $ 90.00 (hardback), $ 29.00 (paperback).
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: Theater and History – Cultural Transformations
- Articles
- Introduction: Theater and History – Cultural Transformations
- Anthropo-Scenes: Theater and Climate Change
- ‘Provincializing’ Post-Wall Europe: Transcultural Critique of Eurocentric Historicism in Pentecost, Europe and The Break of Day
- Utopian Histories: Transforming Past Ideals in Stoppard’s Plays
- A Historiography of Protest and the Politics of Commemoration in Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica
- Je Me Souviens – Re/Writings of History in Contemporary Canadian Drama
- David Greig’s The American Pilot and Earlier Dramatizations of Political Hostage Takings
- Time and Temporalities in Contemporary British War Plays – Roy Williams’s Days of Significance and Owen Sheers’s The Two Worlds of Charlie F.
- Women and Historical Agency in Contemporary British Plays
- From History to ‘Ourstories’ in Martin Crimp’s Metanarratives
- Locating History on the Contemporary Stage
- Reviews
- Vicky Angelaki. The Plays of Martin Crimp: Making Theatre Strange. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, x + 228 pp., $ 85.00 (hardback); available as eBook.Clara Escoda Agustí. Martin Crimp’s Theatre: Collapse as Resistance to Late Capitalist Society. CDE Studies Volume 24. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2013, xi + 336 pp., $ 140.00 (hardcover or eBook), $ 210.00 (hardcover and eBook).
- Sophie Bush. The Theatre of Timberlake Wertenbaker. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, viii + 337 pp., £ 16.99 (paperback and eBook).
- Peter Fifield and David Addyman (eds.). Samuel Beckett: Debts and Legacies: New Critical Essays. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, 244 pp., £ 58.50 (hardback), £ 19.99 (eBook).Katherine Weiss. The Plays of Samuel Beckett. Critical Companions. London: Methuen Drama, 2013, 286 pp., £ 50.00 (hardback), £ 16.99 (paperback).
- Anne Cremieux, Xavier Lemoine and Jean-Paul Rocchi (eds.). Understanding Blackness Through Performance: Contemporary Arts and the Representation of Identity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 282 pp., $ 90.00 (hardback).
- Denise Varney, Peter Eckersall, Chris Hudson and Barbara Hatley. Theatre and Performance in the Asia-Pacific: Regional Modernities in the Global Era. Studies in International Performance. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, xiii + 253 pp., $ 85.00 (hardback).
- Clare Wallace. The Theatre of David Greig. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, ix + 259 pp., £ 50.00 (hardback), £ 15.29 (paperback).
- Gareth White. Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, x + 224 pp., $ 90.00 (hardback), $ 29.00 (paperback).
