Contemporary European Playwrights

433 Pages·2020·10.008 MB·English

by  Maria M. Delgado (editor), Bryce Lease (editor), Dan Rebellato (editor)

Contemporary European Playwrights
Contemporary European Playwrights presents and discusses a range of key writers
that have radically reshaped European theatre by finding new ways to express
the changing nature of the continent’s society and culture, and whose work is
still in dialogue with Europe today.
Traversing borders and languages, this volume offers a fresh approach to
analysing plays in production by some of the most widely performed European
playwrights, assessing how their work has revealed new meanings and theatrical
possibilities as they move across the continent, building an unprecedented pic-
ture of the contemporary European repertoire. With chapters by leading
scholars and contributions by the writers themselves, the chapters bring play-
wrights together to examine their work as part of a network and genealogy of
writing, examining how these plays embody and interrogate the nature of
contemporary Europe.
Written for students and scholars of European theatre and playwriting, this
book will leave the reader with an understanding of the shifting relationships
between the subsidised and commercial, the alternative and the mainstream
stage, and political stakes of playmaking in European theatre since 1989.
Maria M. Delgado is Professor of Theatre and Screen Arts at The Royal
Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, UK. Her pub-
lications include ‘Other’ Spanish Theatres (2003, revised Spanish-language edi-
tion, 2017), Federico García Lorca (2008) and ten co-edited volumes.
Bryce Lease is Reader in Theatre and Performance Studies at Royal Hollo-
way, University of London, UK and Co-Editor of Contemporary Theatre Review.
His publications include After '89: Polish Theatre and the Political (2016) and A
History of Polish Theatre (2021).
Dan Rebellato is a playwright and Professor of Contemporary Theatre at
Royal Holloway University of London, UK. His publications include 1956 and
All That (1999), Theatre and Globalization (2009), and the Cambridge Compa-
nions to British Theatre 1945 and Contemporary British Plays and Playwriting
(2020).

Contemporary European
Playwrights
Edited by
Maria M. Delgado, Bryce Lease and
Dan Rebellato
Firstpublished2020
byRoutledge
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Delgado,MariaM.,editor.|Lease,Bryce,editor.|Rebellato,
Dan,editor.
Title:ContemporaryEuropeanplaywrights/editedbyMariaM.Delgado,
BryceLeaseandDanRebellato.
Description:Abingdon,Oxon;NewYork:Routledge2020.|
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2020001676(print)|LCCN2020001677(ebook)
Subjects:LCSH:Europeandrama--21stcentury--Themesandmotives.|
Theater--Europe--History--21stcentury.|Theaterandsociety--Europe--
History--21stcentury.|Literatureandsociety--Europe--History--
21stcentury.|Dramatists,European--21stcentury.
Classification:LCCPN1861.2C662020(print)|LCCPN1861.2(ebook)|
DDC809.2/051--dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2020001676
LCebookrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2020001677
ISBN:978-1-138-08421-6(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-138-08422-3(pbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-11194-0(ebk)
TypesetinBembo
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
Contents
List of figures viii
Acknowledgements x
List of contributors xii
Foreword xvii
TIAGORODRIGUES
Introduction 1
MARIAM.DELGADO,BRYCELEASEANDDANREBELLATO
1 European playwriting and politics, 1945–89 21
DANREBELLATO
2 Elfriede Jelinek and Werner Schwab: Heimat critique and
dissections of right-wing populism and xenophobia 44
KARENJÜRS-MUNBY
3 Weronika Szczawin´ska and Agnieszka Jakimiak: Dramaturg as a
figure of transition 66
BRYCELEASE
4 András Visky and Matéi Visniec: Challenging boundaries of
cultural specificity 76
JOZEFINAKOMPORALY
5 Lars Norén and Jon Fosse: Nordic grey or theatre innovators? 95
RIKARDHOOGLAND
6 Martin Crimp and Simon Stephens: British playwrights as
European playwrights 112
DAVIDBARNETT
vi Contents
7 Marius von Mayenburg and Roland Schimmelpfennig: Dissecting
European lives under global capitalism 129
PETERM.BOENISCH
8 Sarah Kane and Mark Ravenhill: The ‘blood and sperm’
generation 150
ANDREWHAYDON
9 Vasilii Sigarev and the Presniakov Brothers: Staging the new
Russia 168
NOAHBIRKSTED-BREEN
10 Paweł Demirski and Dorota Masłowska: Painful pasts,
transformative presents 185
BRYCELEASE
11 Jordi Galceran and Juan Mayorga: Unravelling the present,
narrativising the past 203
MARIAM.DELGADO
12 Ivan Vyrypaev and Natalia Vorozhbyt: Language, memory, and
cultural mythology in Russian and Ukrainian new drama 226
MOLLYFLYNN
13 Enda Walsh and Martin McDonagh: Reimagining Irish theatre 244
PATRICKLONERGAN
14 Yasmina Reza and Florian Zeller: The art of success 261
DOMINICGLYNN
15 Lena Kitsopoulou and Yannis Mavritsakis: Greek theatre at the
antipodes of crisis 277
ELIZABETHSAKELLARIDOU
16 Emma Dante and Fausto Paravidino: Families, national identity,
and international audiences 296
MARGHERITALAERA
17 Biljana Srbljanovic´ and Ivana Sajko: Voice in the place of silence 313
DUŠKARADOSAVLJEVIC´
18 debbie tucker green and Alice Birch: ‘Angry feminists’ on the
European stage 334
MARISSIAFRAGKOU
19 Peter Handke: Inhabiting the world together 352
HANS-THIESLEHMANN
Contents vii
20 Jonas Hassen Khemiri: Writing out of the binary 364
BRYCELEASE
21 Marie NDiaye: Eliding capture 374
KÉLINAGOTMAN
Afterword: The constructed space 389
DAVIDGREIG
Index 401
Figures
2.1 Werner Schwab’s ÜBERGEWICHT, unwichtig: UNFORM – Ein
Europäisches Abendmahl (OVERWEIGHT, unimportant:
MISSHAPE – A European Supper), directed by Johannes Lepper
(2017) at Schauspiel Dortmund. Photograph © Birgit Hupfeld 53
3.1 Agnieszka Jakimiak’s Hitchcock,directed by Weronika Szczawin´ska
(2017), at the Mladinsko Theatre, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Photograph © Nejc Saje 72
4.1 András Visky’s Juliet, directed by Boian Ivanov at ‘Sava
Ognyanov’ State Drama Theatre Ruse, Bulgaria (2016).
Photograph © Boian Ivanov 82
5.1 JonFosse’sBarnet (The Child), directed byJohannes Holmen Dahl
at Dramaten Stockholm (2015). Photograph © Roger Stenberg 108
6.1 Simon Stephens’ Three Kingdoms, directed by Sebastian Nübling
at the Lyric Hammersmith, London (2012). Photograph ©
Tristam Kenton 123
7.1 Marius von Mayenburg’s production of his own Ein Stück Plastik
(Plastic) at the Schaubühne Berlin (2015). Photograph © Arno
Declair 143
8.1 Sarah Kane’s Zerbombt (Blasted) at the Schaubühne Berlin (2005)
directed by Thomas Ostermeier. Photograph © Arno Declair 155
9.1 Kirill Serebrennikov’s 2004 production of the Presniakov
Brothers’ Izobrazhaia zhertvu (Playing the Victim) at the Chekhov
Moscow Arts Theatre, Moscow, 2004. Photograph © Oleg
Chernous 176
10.1 GrzegorzJarzyna’sproductionofDorotaMasłowska’sInniludzie
(OtherPeople)attheTRWarszawa,Warsaw(2019).Photograph©
MarcinOlivaSoto 197
11.1 Juan Mayorga’s El chico de la última fila (The Boy at the Back),
directed by Andrés Lima at the Sala Beckett, Barcelona (2019).
Photograph © Kiku Piñol 217
12.1 Natalia Vorozhbyt’s Viy 2.0, directed by Maksym Holenko
(2016) at Wild Theatre in Kyiv. Photograph © Gala Lavrinets 240
List of illustrations ix
13.1 Ballyturk (2014) written and directed by Enda Walsh; Landmark
Productions and Galway International Arts Festival. Photograph
© Patrick Redmond 256
14.1 Miguel del Arco’s production of Yasmina Reza’s ‘Art’ at the
Pavón Teatro Kamikaze, Madrid (2017). Photograph © Vanessa
Rabade 266
15.1 Vitriol by Yannis Mavritsakis, directed by Olivier Py (2013) at the
National Theatre of Greece. Photograph © Marilena Stafylidou 289
16.1 Boala Familiei M (M Family Illness) by Fausto Paravidino, directed
by Radu Afrim at the Teatrul National Timi¸soara (2008).
Photograph © Radu Afrim 303
17.1 Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, written, directed, and performed by
Ivana Sajko (2010). Photograph © Dražen Smaranduj 319
18.1 debbie tucker green’s stoning mary, directed by Marianne Elliott at
the Royal Court Theatre, London (2005). Photograph ©
Tristram Kenton 339
21.1 André Engel’s production of Marie NDiaye’s Papa doit manger at
the Comédie-Française, Paris (2003). Photograph © Cosimo
Mirco Magliocca 378
22.1 The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus, adapted by David Greig and
directed by Ramin Gray at the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh (2016)
Photograph © Stephen Cummiskey 391