Together with Alex Sierz, Sarah Kane, and Mark Ravenhill, Anthony Neilson is a major voice of the in-yer-face theatre that has rocked Britain since the 1990s. Other exponents of the movement include David Eldridge, Kate Ashfield, Simon Block, Jez Butterworth, Nick Grosso, Alex Jones, Tracy Letts, Patrick Marber, Martin McDonagh, Phyllis Nagy, Joe Penhall, Rebecca Prichard, Philip Ridley, Judy Upton, Naomi Wallace and Richard Zajdic.
In-yer-face theatre stands for vulgar, shocking and confrontational material on stage as a means of involving and affecting their audiences. Its mentor Sierz adds the following qualification: “Of course, some writers wrote one or two in-yer-face plays and then moved on. Like all categories, one can’t hope to completely grasp the ever-changing reality of the explosive new writing scene.”
The movement was debated at a two-day conference at the University of the West of England in 2002. Co-conveners Graham Saunders and Rebecca D’Monté observe that the movement has already become a historical phenomenon going on to state (a) many of the plays result from a direct response from Thatcher’s Children; the generation who had grown up in a period in which the British Left seemed fractured and directionless, the Cold War escalated and free market economics brutally re-shaped our society and culture (b) it’s wrong when writers/plays are shackled to a label that places responsibilities on a play and creates expectations before a reading or performance. This disrupts the artistic integrity, and (c) there exist similarities to post-modernism, metaphysical theatre, Artaud’s theatre of cruelty, and Lacan.
Neilson’s plays include The Menu (National Theatre), Welfare My Lovely, Normal, Penetrator, The Years of the Family, Heredity, The Censor (winner of the Writers Guild Award for Best Fringe Play in 1997), Amazing Feats of Loneliness, The Lying Kind (Royal Court) and The Wonderful World of Dissocia. His latest work – Relocated – played at the Royal Court. Neilson directed the UK premiere of the Adams opera, The Death of Klinghoffer (a very Jewish story) for Edinburgh International Festival/Scottish Opera.
After its Royal Court run Stitching, directed by Timothy Haskell and featuring Meital Dohan (from Showtime’s Weeds), moved to off-Broadway, where its run was extended by two weeks.
I attended the play’s private rehearsal. Those who know me are aware of how impatient I am with theatre that deploys shock tactics, graphic language and sheer sexual perversion, or brutality, to compensate for a play’s gaping holes. I am not enamoured with the genre, however, as has happened on Unifaun’s previous outings, I have been unable to altogether shake off the play. To some extent, this stems from Pia Zammit’s and Michael Basmadjan’s commitment in depicting a couple who can’t help but do damage to themselves and the world around them.
Stitching alternates between two realities; in one the couple debates how to handle a newly discovered pregnancy; in the other they play a game of sexual domination in which Pia is cast as a student prostitute. A number of bad decisions are made and Pia is so credible that you understand why a man might make any number of bad decisions just to be near her. And Michael responds well, creating the required raw emotionality. Just as well since Neilson’s writing here fails to supply the real basics of a believable coupling. In fact, although the characters’ pain is clearly convincing, their backgrounds remain hazy. This was important to me for gauging their development into yet more darkness. In a nutshell, the audience’s peeking into this sexual/theatrical experiment hints at considerable thought and effort. It certainly does not deserve the carnivalistic treatment meted to the play via Xarabank.
As to the impasse?
Both the censors and the production team are all honourable men working under severe pressures brought about by their convictions, and the nation should be grateful for people of such commitment. On the other hand, the circus that was the Duchess of Malfi, The Reduced Shakespeare Company’s The Bible and Mario Philip Azzopardi’s Sulari Fuq Strada Stretta cannot be repeated. It is unthinkable that we should be contemplating the same absurd cultural detour. If the case cannot be amicably settled out of court let the good judge and a jury of good men and women, of varying ages, attend a rehearsal. I am hopeful of a decent verdict.
Source: Weekender, March 7, 2009