Postdramatism, Ethics, and the Role of Light in Martin Crimp's Fewer Emergencies (2005)

Abstract

In this article Mireia Aragay and Clara Escoda examine James Macdonald's Royal Court Theatre production of Martin Crimp's triptych Fewer Emergencies (2005) in the wake of recent critical assessments of Crimp's work in relation to Hans-Thies Lehmann's postdramatic paradigm. By focusing on light design, the authors suggest that Macdonald's staging of the play productively enhanced the tension inherent in Crimp's text between dramatic and postdramatic elements. Light was conceived in postdramatic terms as a major component of the mise-en-scène, synaesthetically interacting with the linguistic material in a way that necessitated the spectators’ active processing of all onstage signs and, ultimately, their critical examination of their own ethical and political positioning with respect to the late-capitalist social and cultural order. Mireia Aragay is a Senior Lecturer in English drama and theatre at the University of Barcelona. She is co-editor of British Theatre of the 1990s: Interviews with Directors, Playwrights, Critics, and Academics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). Clara Escoda has recently completed a PhD thesis on Martin Crimp's theatre at the University of Barcelona, where she lectures in English literature.