Martin Crimp's theatre : collapse as resistance to late capitalist society / Clara Escoda Agustí

Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-336)

Preliminaries I: Introduction and rationale -- Preliminaries II: Martin Crimp's theatre, a pedagogy of resistance -- Martin Crimp's context -- The semiotic potential of collapse on stage -- Redefining ethics: a collapsing body -- Beginnings of a dramaturgy: violence, memory and retribution in The Treatment (1993) -- Introduction: Collapse, 'In-Yer-Face' theatre and the 'Society of Spectacle' -- The 'Spectacle' filled our pockets: duplicity, sexism and the market -- The point of rupture: collapse and barbarism -- Conclusion: Towards subjectivity and ethics -- Postdramatic plays: "Attempts on Her Life" (1997) and "Face to the Wall" (2002) -- Interpretation, self-regulation and postdramatism --- Short circuits of desire: Language and power in "Attempts on Her Life" -- 'The Stage, a Skull': Male collapse as resistance in "Face to the Wall " -- Dramatic plays: female breakdown as micropolitical resistance -- Stopping time: Memory and resistance in "The Country" (2000) -- Oppression, resistance and terrorism in "Cruel and Tender" (2004) -- Testimony and world inequality in Crimp's adaptation of Anton Chekov's "The Seagull" (2006) -- General conclusions: Martin Crimp's theatre: a dramaturgy of resistance.

Main description: This book is a timely intervention in theatre studies which reads Martin Crimp's plays in the context of contemporary, late capitalist societies of control or of 'spectacle', and explores how female collapse in particular works as a form of denunciation of the violence of globalized, free-market economy. It contends that Crimp can best be understood as a post-Holocaust playwright, and it will be of interest to both specialists in Crimp and theatre studies, and to anyone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of Crimp's dramaturgy.