 |
Martin Crimp | |
|---|---|
 Crimp (centre) at the Théâtre des Abbesses, Paris | |
| Born | Martin Andrew Crimp 14 February 1956 Dartford, Kent, England |
| Occupation | Playwright |
Martin Andrew Crimp (born 14 February 1956 in Dartford, Kent) is a British playwright.
|
Martin Crimp | |
|---|---|
| Crimp (centre) at the Théâtre des Abbesses, Paris | |
| Born | Martin Andrew Crimp 14 February 1956 Dartford, Kent, England |
| Occupation | Playwright |
Martin Andrew Crimp (born 14 February 1956 in Dartford, Kent) is a British playwright.
The son of John Crimp, a British Rail signalling engineer, and his wife Jennie, Crimp's family moved in 1960 to Streatham where he attended a local primary school before winning a scholarship to Dulwich College. But when his father was transferred to York, he went to the nearby Pocklington School, where he showed an aptitude for languages, music, English literature, and theatre. He read English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge (1975–78), where his first play Clang was staged by fellow student Roger Michell. [1] Before establishing himself as a playwright, he put together An Anatomy, a collection of short stories, and also wrote a novel Still Early Days. These remain unpublished.
His first six plays were performed at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond. As he told Marsha Hanlon in an interview for the Orange Tree appeal brochure in 1991: "When the Orange Tree ran a workshop for local writers [in September 1981], I was invited to take part. The carrot was the chance of a lunchtime production, so I wrote Living Remains and the Orange Tree staged it – my first-ever produced play! I was so excited that I didn't think about the space where it was performed [then a room above a pub], but now I realise that the Orange Tree's intimacy and simplicity provided an extra layer of excitement."
Seven of his plays, and his second Ionesco translation have also been presented at the Royal Court Theatre, London, where he became writer-in-residence in 1997.
Crimp’s play Attempts on Her Life, which premiered at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 1997, was described by critic Aleks Sierz as the "event that secured his reputation as the most innovative, most exciting, and most exportable playwright of his generation" [Sierz, Aleks, Aleks, (2013) p.48]. [1] The play presents a unique structure, as none of the lines are assigned to specific characters, and Crimp does not specify the number of actors required to perform the piece. The play consists of seventeen seemingly unrelated scenes in which groups of people provide contradictory descriptions of an absent protagonist, a woman who is discussed as a terrorist, the daughter of grieving parents, an artist, and even a new car. Through its deliberate fragmentation, Attempts on Her Life challenges the audience to reconsider their understanding of what constitutes a "play" and raises questions about the existence of individuals beyond the constructs we create.
His other plays range from tragi-comic studies of suburban guilt and repression — Definitely the Bahamas (1987), Dealing with Clair (1989), The Country (2000) — via the satirical ‘entertainment’ In the Republic of Happiness (2012) — to powerful re-writings of Greek classics — Cruel & Tender (2004), The Rest Will Be Familiar to You from Cinema (2013). This unusual variety has led Vicky Angelaki to write:
Crimp’s multifaceted theatre, rich in textual, visual and visceral nuances, moves beyond rigid groupings of drama types and genres. What makes Crimp’s work both challenging and fascinating is its dual and equal focus on the private and the public, the collective and the individual, the humorous and the dramatic, the spoken and the unspoken. [Angelaki, Vicky (2012), The Plays of Martin Crimp, Palgrave Macmillan, page1] [2]
Crimp's work has successfully received numerous productions abroad. In Germany, he is considered to be "one of the most respected British playwrights" and it was reported in 2013 that there has been "more than 60 German-language productions of his work in the past two decades." [3]
In 2021, Crimp was recipient of Germany’s Nyssen-Bansemer theater prize in recognition of the importance of his body of work. [Süddeutsche Zeitung, 29 March 2021] [4] Writing about the prize in Theater heute magazine, Till Briegleb praises the way that “With great authority, Crimp sketches the most diverse victims of a bourgeois society that wants to ignore all connections between their tranquil existence and the violence that makes it possible. From the murderer to the child, everyone who appears is unique, their life-lies and fears individual.” [4]
Martin Crimp is sometimes described as a practitioner of the "in-yer-face" school of contemporary British drama, although he rejects the label. [5]
In 2022, he performed his play Not one of these people, which gave voice to 299 different characters. Supported with a live deepfake video generator, imagined by Quebec director Christian Lapointe, the playwright accepted Lapointe’s invitation to perform as an actor on stage for the first time. [6]
From 1997 onwards, Crimp has had a parallel career as theatre translator, making his first impact at the Royal Court Theatre with a translation of Ionesco’s The Chairs, a production that subsequently transferred to Broadway. His re-writings of Molière’s The Misanthrope (1996, revived 2009) [7] and Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac (2019/22) were both commercially and critically successful, the latter transferring from London’s West End to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. [8] These rewritings have led some critics to see them as new plays. Angelaki, for example, argues that "Crimp’s radical adaptations … depart substantially from the early versions of the texts that inspire them and as such belong to a discussion of Crimp’s playwriting canon, rather than of his translations or versions" [Angelaki, Vicky, Op. Cit. page 154] [2]
In 2006, Crimp began a collaboration with composer George Benjamin that has led to the creation of three operas: Into the Little Hill (2006), Written on Skin (2012) and Lessons in Love and Violence (2018). Written on Skin in particular has garnered international acclaim since its premiere at the Festival d’Aix en Provence in 2012. [9]
Sarah Kane was an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre director. She is known for her plays that deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture—both physical and psychological—and death. They are characterised by a poetic intensity, pared-down language, exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of extreme and violent stage action.
In-yer-face theatre is a term used to describe a confrontational style and sensibility of drama that emerged in Great Britain in the 1990s. This term was borrowed by British theatre critic Aleks Sierz as the title of his book, In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today, first published by Faber and Faber in March 2001.
Benoît-Constant Coquelin, known as Coquelin aîné, was a French actor, "one of the greatest theatrical figures of the age."
Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. The play is a fictionalisation following the broad outlines of Cyrano de Bergerac's life.
The Misanthrope, or the Cantankerous Lover is a 17th-century comedy of manners in verse written by Molière. It was first performed on 4 June 1666 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, Paris by the King's Players.
David Harrower is a Scottish playwright who lives in Glasgow. Harrower has published over 10 original works, as well as numerous translations and adaptations.
Philip Ridley is an English storyteller working in a wide range of artistic media.
The Pitchfork Disney is a 1991 stage play by Philip Ridley. It was his first professional stage work, having also produced work as a visual artist, novelist, filmmaker, and scriptwriter for film and radio. The play premiered at the Bush Theatre in London, UK in 1991 and was directed by Matthew Lloyd, who directed most of Ridley's subsequent early plays.
Far Away is a 2000 play by British playwright Caryl Churchill. It has four characters, Harper, Young Joan, Joan, and Todd, and is based on the premise of a world in which everything in nature is at war. It is published by Nick Hern Books. While some critics have expressed reservations about the play's ending, many regard Far Away as one of Churchill's finest plays.
Ghost from a Perfect Place is a two act play by Philip Ridley. It was Ridley's third stage play and premiered at the Hampstead Theatre, London on 7 April 1994. The part of Travis Flood was played by the veteran, classical actor John Wood, for which he received general acclaim and was nominated for 'Best Actor' at the 1994 Evening Standard Drama Awards. The production was the third collaboration between Ridley and director Matthew Lloyd, who had directed all of Ridley's previous stage plays and would go on to direct Ridley's next play for adults Vincent River in 2000.
Mercury Fur is a play written by Philip Ridley which premiered in 2005. It is Ridley's fifth adult stage play and premiered at the Plymouth Theatre Royal, before moving to the Menier Chocolate Factory in London.
Anthony Neilson is a Scottish playwright and director. He is known for his collaborative way of writing and workshopping his plays. Much of his work is characterised by the exploration of sex and violence.
Richard Anthony Bean is an English playwright.
Ranjit Bolt OBE is a British playwright and translator. He was born in Manchester of Anglo-Indian parents and is the nephew of playwright and screenwriter Robert Bolt. His father is literary critic Sydney Bolt, author of several books including A preface to James Joyce, and his mother has worked as a teacher of English.
Dominic Rowan is an English television, film and theatre actor. He played CPS prosecutor Jacob Thorne in the ITV crime drama Law & Order: UK and Tom Mitford in the Channel 4 drama series North Square. Rowan has also had an extensive stage career.
Nick Grosso is a British playwright, born in London in 1968 to Argentine parents of Italian and Russian extraction. His style has been described as that of a "latter-day Oscar Wilde on speed" by Sheridan Morley.
Jamie Lloyd is a British director, best known for his work with his eponymous theatre company The Jamie Lloyd Company. He is known for his modern minimalism and expressionist directorial style. He is a proponent of affordable theatre for young and diverse audiences, and has been praised as "redefining West End theatre". The Daily Telegraph critic Dominic Cavendish wrote of Lloyd, "Few directors have Lloyd’s ability to transport us to the upper echelons of theatrical pleasure."
Aleks Sierz is a British theatre critic. He is known for popularising the term "In-yer-face theatre", which was the title of a book he published in 2001.
Presence is the third full-length play by Scottish playwright David Harrower. It portrays a fictionalised account of the Beatles' first residency in Hamburg.
Alison! A Rock Opera is a musical with music and lyrics by playwright Leo Butler and Dan Persad. The modern rock 'n' roll song-cycle tells the story of ordinary woman Alison who breaks up with her boyfriend Jimmy and goes on a journey of self-discovery.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
