Martin Crimp in conversation with Aleks Sierz The Question Is the Ultimate in Discomfort

Abstract

Martin Crimp is one of the most exciting British playwrights to have emerged since the 1980s: his work is characterized by its vision of contemporary society as a place of social decay, moral compromise, and barely suppressed violence. He is also a writer whose work engages with both British and European theatre traditions. He started his career in 1981 at the Orange Tree Theatre, a fringe venue in Richmond, and this theatre produced all his early work, including Dealing with Clair and Play with Repeats. But it was when he became a Royal Court playwright in 1990, with No One Sees the Video, that he achieved international success and recognition. Three plays in particular – The Treatment, Attempts on Her Life and The Country – have become recognized masterpieces. Crimp has also pursued a parallel career as a translator and adapter of classics such as Molière's The Misanthrope and Sophocles' The Women of Trachis (as Cruel and Tender). The interview with Aleks Sierz which follows is assembled from conversations with Martin Crimp in London during February and March 2006, and the NTQ Checklist of Crimp's work on page 361 is derived from materials assembled by Sierz for his forthcoming book from Methuen, The Theatre of Martin Crimp.