Stupid,Old Fashioned or Backward or How British In-Yer-Face Becomes New European Drama?

Sanja Nikevi

Stupid,Old Fashioned or Backward or How British In-Yer-Face Becomes New European Drama?

This article presents an idiosyncratic,against-the-grain viewpoint towards theIn-Yer-Facedrama.It explores the development of the phenomenon delving first into the reasons that changed the paradigm of the traditionally supreme importance of the play/drama in the theatre—how the play was ousted as the a-priori foundation of the theatre and how the director took over the leading role.It then focuses on the stages of this trend particularly in the 1990s,as the immediate spring-board for the future phenomenon.Subsequently,the formation of the drama-of-violence wave in Britain is presented in its main aspects,its “export” into mainland Europe and its orchestrated take-over as theNew European Drama.There is a special emphasis on the latter,with accents on the main “demagogical” tools applied.The overall impact of all that on European theatre is further brought into the spotlight,with analyses on the main five consequences both from artistic and sociological points of view.

This text presents the essence of the bookThe New European Drama or the Big Deceit,by Sanja Nikevi,published in Croatia,Slovakia and Bulgaria.

in-yer-facedrama;Mark Ravenhill;Sarah Kane;Thomas Ostermeier;violence on stage;emotions on stage

1.Historical Context—Playwright As Dethroned Old King

European culture functions as a whole and that can be proved in theatre art.From the beginning of theatre in ancient Greece（5.c.B.C） we are shearing the ideas,genres,tendencies,poetics and big epoch in the geographical space of Europe.And all that time—from the beginning till the 20th century-the playwrights were shaping the theatre.Playwrights were not only writing,but often acting and staging a play.More important,all changes of the theatre conventions,new tendencies or epochs were result of playwrights demands.

The first half of the 20th century was also dominated by playwrights who introduced changes in the theatre:Hernik Ibsen,Anton Chekhov,Luigi Pirandello,Bertolt Brecht and theatre of the absurd（Eugene Ionesco,Samuel Beckett...）.Of course it was not only because they were important playwrights but also because the general climate of the theatre needed the changes and waited for the playwrights to bring it.Until theater of the absurd,the playwright was king in European theatre.

After a few centuries where playwrights or actors were staging the play in European theatre,in the 19th century in Germany at the Theatre at the court of Count Meiningen（Hertzog Georg II von Sachsen-Meiningen 1826-1914） appeared the “theatre director” as specific profession.At the beginning the director was just trying to stage a play from the playwright’s point of view（like Konstantin Stanislavski）,but very soon started a line of theatre directors who called themselves “visionaries”and who didn’t like to stage a play according to the playwright’s wishes（ie.Adolphe Appia,Gordon Craig...）.Then in the second half of the 20th century,theatre directors took over and formed an internationalbig boy’s clubof power in the theatre.

Most of the theatre leadership in Europe is in the hand of the directors.They are directors,artistic directors or managers of the theatres,at the head of big festivals.They are deciding about important questions（what will be staged）,they are changing the conventions（how they will be staged）,and they are creating styles accepted and diffused by schools of clones/pupils.They chased away the playwright,as the “old king”,and replaced him with their own visions or classical text in their new interpretation.As Thomas Ostermaier confirmed it:The domination of the directors in the theatre has led to the expulsion of writers from the theatre.You were not a real director unless you put on a classical text.①

Proof n1:Language

Play became atext.Performance was not anymorestaging a playbut became aproject based onpre-text,the director became the author of the project,visionary and wizard of theatre.

Directors didn’t need a play,they needed just words to implant it into their vision.Words become at the same level of importance as light or scenography（Robert Wilson） or actors’ games that produced a play（Peter Brook）.Instead of a playwright who was only “bothering” with his meaning of the play directors used dramaturges as co-authors.Dramaturges were helping directors to cut,collage,patchwork the original play or to make a “text” from a classical or contemporary play or several different plays.Sometimes they even didn’t need words at all.

The quality of a play was not important any more,actually the better a play is according to traditional measurement,the less chances it had to be staged.If a playwright wanted to become accepted by the big boy’s club he had to be close to directors — to his political,sexual or esthetical orientations.The last one means that he was willing to cut and patchwork his text endlessly according to directors’vision.Basically playwright was forced to become a dramaturge.Directors liked plays that are so open in structure so they can put in it whatever he wants as his own vision.That is why Hamletmachine by Heiner Muller or Woyzeck by Georg Buchner were staged so much in the second half of the 20th century.

Proof n2:Awards

One of the best proofs of these situation are the awards.Europe Theatre Prize,given from 1986 in Taormina under the auspice of European Union,is one of the most important awards,sort of European theatre’s Oscar and a place of theatre power.Biggest（or richest） European theatres'managers,most important festivals,big boys'club directors,influential critics are gathered there and have a power to create or（re）affirm the trends and the people.

From 1986-2016 the award"for theatre excellence"was given to 13 directors:Ariane Mnouchkine,Peter Brook,Giorgio Strehler,Robert Wilson,Luca Ronconi,Pina Bausch,Lev Dodin,Robert Lepage,Peter Zadek,Patrice Chereau,Christian Lupa,Peter Stein and Matzs Ek.There are three exceptions—2 playwrights Heiner Muller（author of Hamletmachine） in 1994 and Harold Pinter in 2006.and 1 actor,Michel Piccoli in 2001.②

Award for “new theatre reality” was introduced in Taormina in 1990 but the situation didn’t change-they awarded directors:Anatolij Vasiljev,G.B.Corsetti,Eimuntas Nekrosius,Christopher Marthaler,Thomas Ostermeier,Alan Platel,Heiner Goebbels;or groups:Theatre de Complicite,Carte Blanche,Theatergroup Hollandia,Societas Raffaello Sanzio-all of them dominated by strong directors’vision,with no playwright at all（just dramaturge sometimes） and very political.With one exemption —1999 Royal Court Theatre got the award for developing new plays.

The awards were just mirroring the situation in theatre.Kalina Stefanova’s book Eastern European Theater after the Iron Curtain consists of essays on theatre in twelve eastern European countries.Every singly essay will have a lot of interesting directors’names and every single one will cry for the lack of playwrights.If they mentioned someone it was usually with excuse:he is not something very valuable/artistic… but audiences like it.③

Proof n3:Obstacles for Playwriters

Of course,the playwrights are writing constantly all over Europe,but every time they brought a new play to the director or dramaturge,they faced two obstacles.

The first obstacle was very perfidious.It was proclaimed that a playwright is a “genius not a craftsman”.Making a good play is consequence of the “stroke of God’s light of talent” not a process that can be learned.The Anglo-American types of playwright’s workshops were looked down upon in whole Europe as something completely unworthy.This is a trap because European theatre didn’t allow the playwright to develop a play and to improve it,to learn something from the process of staging.And it is really difficult to make plays without it.Even when a theatre staged a contemporary play the playwright was not allowed to sit on the rehearsals— not to bother the creative team.The playwright was（and is still today）coming to the opening night to see what he is going to see on the stage with the same interest as every other audience member.

The second obstacle was very wicked.Every play was compared directly with—Hamlet.Even the staging of first,new,timid try of young person.Of course nobody had any chance.

I am not saying that some directors from the big boys club were really not visionary,and that some of the performances were not magnificent.I am describing the phenomena of playwrights chased from theatre in spite of their talent or good work in the second half of the 20th century.Not all the directors acted like that.But the directors who liked plays,especially contemporary ones,were/are called invisible directors and not accepted in the club.

2.Nineties or Search for the Playwright

Directors from the big boys club were staging mostly classical text with new reading.But,with changing the conventions and searching for something new and more excited every time,directors were little by little exiting the theater itself—to video,to dance,to movement,to visual tableaux,to mechanical actor and to wordless,storyless theatre,to cold,emotionless,emptiness…that looked like the dead end of the theatre itself.That kind of theatre was first called “directors’ theatre” but Hans Thies Lehmann name it very suitably:“postdramatic theatre”.④

The reign of directors’theatre in the second half of the 20th century resulted with a statement that there are no good playwrights in Europe.Whoever mentioned some living playwrights as good,was labeled as “not-informed” i.e.stupid.Whoever had publicly expressed a need for “traditional”plays or“drama theatre” was labeled as “old-fashioned”.

Critics and theory people were accepting that.From one side we do not want to be“old fashioned or stupid”,from another we saw so many “regular” Hamlet that every other idea of different staging was interesting.But there was a snake in the perfect garden.Audience.They also didn’t want to be proclaimed “stupid” so they didn’t raise their voice but they stopped going to the theatre.Seriously.

In Eastern Europe that was explained（as said in Kalina Stefanova’s book） with the effects of reality-television with direct transmission of history happening on the streets（fall of communism,war in former Yougoslavia）is much more interesting than theatre.But crisis happened everywhere.In Western Europe too.In Germany,for example.

The need for playwright and plays was stronger and stronger,not only in theatre but in the whole society.So in the nineties started a process that I would call“going back to the denied roots”.

The process went differently.In 1990 in Germany at Berlin College of Art Heiner Muller and Tankred Dorst started a course of writing for the theatre-the first time ever in Germany（and whole Europe except Great Britain）!!Most European countries started a national drama festival:countries that got a political independence and tried to define their national identity（like Marul's days in Croatia from 1991）,but also the countries without these problems like Hungary,or Sweden（Swedish Theatre Bienalle started at 1993）.Playwright’s awards were inaugurated:1991 in Croatia,1995 in Hanover,1998 in Lithuania,and so on.

In 1992 Germany started Bonner Biennale subtitled as Festival of New European Drama.Theatre Forum organized by European Theatre Convention dedicated year 1999 to the playwright.Even Taormina did an exemption in awarding new theatre reality and gave the award to the Royal Court Theatre for developing plays in 1999.It became so obvious that need for playwright was strong,so theatre directors became very involved in a search for the “New European Drama”.First they started to search for playwrights,very logically,in England.Because everything said before is not regarding Anglo American theatre.In the USA and in Britain plays were still important and developed.

3.Beginning and Rise of the Violence Trend

At the end of the eighties even Britain had seen a decline of new playwrights on domestic stages（less than 10 percent） and immediately proclaimed sort of national cultural disaster.Arts Council（Britain’s version of Ministry of Culture） started action to encourage staging and developing of new plays and situation very quickly changed.From 1994—1996 the percentage doubled-that means a few hundreds（!）of new British plays staged in only four years.

Among numerous new plays that Royal Court Theatre（RCT） in London staged in 1995 was the first play of young author,Sarah Kane,Blasted.The audience was shocked with the amount of violence explicitly showed on the stage and cried loudly for restoration of censorship in Britain.Critics were severely against it because of the low quality of the writing as Michael Bilington said it.⑤In spite of that her new play Phedra's Love was immediately staged in The Gate Theatre and she directed it herself.Next year RTC staged the first play by Mark Ravenill Shopping and F***with a similar amount of violence and low quality.

4.British Trend Fighting for Domination

Both plays had the bad response but got the attention,became news,caused the stir,polemics pro/contra,and all of a sudden British small,alternative stages were flooded with plays full of violence and dirty language.Fight for that violent trend in Britain was not easy,went through very strong media pressure led by directors and some journalists.The pressure had two very aggressive lines.

First:Esthetical Guilt or Old Fashioned and Conservative

Theatre directors claimed every opponent of Sarah Kane’s work（and later other plays for the trend）to be:old fashioned,stupid,backwards,conservative,narrow minded middle class people,artistically dead.To support the trend it was always highlighted that these plays showed real life and are politically brave in doing so.Soon one of the argument for the trend became world fame and acceptance in some other countries where they recognize the value of these plays and where theatre is open,new and progressive with no limits in staging brutalities.This is of course demagogy and I’ll explain it later.But it was very effective.As most of demagogy is.

Second:Feeling of Guilt or Cruel and Insensitive

The second line of pressure was making every opposed English critic feel guilty.Personally.Sarah Kane was ill with clinical depression,and she took her life in February 1999.Her last play 4.48 Psychosis was staged in 2000 at RCT.They claimed that they want to avoid publicity not to abuse her death but black poster was the very obvious sign and it was given as much publicity as possible.Everybody knew that play was named after the time of her awakening in the deepest stadium of her illness and it was sort of testament.

Edward Bond,English playwright,wrote that Sarah Kane was killed by theatre and critics.⑥Michael Billington ask publicly for forgiveness numerous times because Sarah Kane wrote him that his article hurt Sarah the most.

With such strong feeling of guilt for critics,media campaign,a lot of that kind of plays on the stages,world acceptance of the plays,her death—when they organized retrospective of her plays in 2001—it was not easy to say anything negative.British critics started to decline their first judging and admitted that they were not able to recognize her talent.All of a sudden,they discovered beauty,poetry and truth in her plays,together with portraying the reality and political statements.⑦The vocabulary of“pro” group was accepted completely.

5.The Counterattack of British Critics—Decline of the Trend

Critics accepted the flourishing of different new playwrights in the nineties British and called it“new Britain drama”,as part of Britain cultural renaissance “Cool Britannia”.Soon it was obvious that“dirty plays about violence” were dominating but after a while it was obvious that these plays are forming sort of wave or trend with a new topic.For that wave critics were using several names:Cutting Edge Theatre,dirty plays,Neo-Jacobeanism,New Brutalism,Theatre of Urban Ennui,and In-Yer-Face Theatre.

Aleks Sierz,“Tribune” theatre critic,impose the last name of the trend with his work and a book published in 2001 by that name.⑧After critics accepted the trend,after they saw all these plays and overcame emotional situations（from watching performances itself till media fights and feeling of guilt）they gave very serious analysis.The trend had six years to show what it is about.

When Aleks Siers was writing about this trend he named about twenty authors（most known were Sarah Kane,Mark Ravenhill,Disco Pigs by Edna Walsh,Mojo by Jez Butterworth or Transporting by Irving Walsh）but most of them wrote just one play of that kind and left the wave.In very serious analysis of a trend published in 2002 Aleks Sires will say that this was an iconoclastic fashion that stirred English theatre and faded out.

Obviously the trend lasted five,six years in Britain and then it was over.After euphorical acceptance of Sarah Kane at her posthumous retrospective,critics are going back to first impression about quality of her work.As Aleks Siers will say in an interview for Slovenian magazine “Maska” in 2002:I must admit that in last six months I became very impatient and critical.In some plays of Sarah Kane you have replicas on the level of childish nonsense and most of the play Office（Soho,2001） is very fable.New play by Mark Ravenhill Mother Clap's Molly House disappointed.⑨

Not only critic but directors also started to decline from the trend.Dominic Dromgoole,director and artistic director of some interesting London theatres（The Bush,Old Vic,Whitehall）,in his book Full Room published in 2000,described his observations on contemporary playwrights.About Sarah Kane he wrote while she was alive describing that the only problem with Sarah,in my view,is that I’m not sure that she is a natural writer.⑩But in spite of that remarque he staged and promoted her as new trend!The same happened to other authors from the trend.They are disappearing one by one…

British critics realized that this was just a thematic wave because there were some other very good playwrights in the 90’s like David Harrower,Martin McDonagh,Mike Cullen,Stephen Greenhorn,Rona Munro,Liz Lochead,Martin McDonagh,writing at the same time and far from the into yer face trend.The biggest proof that new British drama is actually something else than just violence and dirty language was the success of Irish Connor McPherson with The Weir（1997）,a warm and emotional play.No violence,no vulgar language,no empty characters.

6.How the Trend Became New European Drama

For European impact the most important was acceptance of this trend by Germany.Young people gathered around theatre Die Baracke,small stage of Deutsche Theatre in Berlin,that was led by young prospective director Thomas Ostermeier from 1996-1999.In the climate where all the power was in the hands of old directors,the young ones were searching for something new that can change the situation.As Ostermeier said Baracke is searching for new writing for theatre that will be able to express new realism.He took new violent British plays as something that will be shocking enough to get the attention of media.And they were right.Shopping and F***by Mark Ravenhill,latter Disco Pig by Edna Walsh,really got attention to the Baracke and its leadership.Ostermeier got the position of intendant at Schaubune,most prominent German theatre,when he was only thirty,mentioned for prestigious award and invited to direct all over Europe.He entered the club.

The trend was taken by German festivals so Berliner festival 1998 was dedicated to"New generation"presenting mostly British writer form the into yer face trend.Bonner Biennale accepted it too and included plays from some other countries that would fit into that trend so,very soon,the festival subtitle “new European drama”,was mistaken for the trend and the word was spread.

Prestigious theatre accepted it.When RCT was accepting the award for development of new drama in Taormina 1999 they presented mostly these kind of plays— they talked a lot about Sarah Kane（and her illness）but plays were presented only in fragments with public “director’s workshops”or instructions how to develop and stage that kind of plays.When Thomas Ostermeier got the award he presented himself as director of the Crave by Sarah Kane performed by most important German theatre-Schaubune.So two very prominent institutions—Schaubune and RCT—offered to the gathered European theatre community these plays as “New European Drama” with a director's manual on how to do it.

These kind of plays were invited to important festivals,everybody wanted to stage them or at least to find something like that in their own yard.But things were not exactly as planned.There were always some critics writing against it,audience leaving the performances and not coming back to the theatre,and even the actors were refusing it all over the world.In Croatia very prominent actress Anja Šovagovirefused to play in Phedra’s Love in 2002.She just had a baby and didn’t want to act the woman that is stabbing her baby on the stage.

But in the fighting for the new trend in Europe directors used the same vocabulary of accusing opponents for “esthetical guilt”,being “backward and conservative” as in Britain.The accusations were sometimes very hard not just for oponents but for the whole country to be homophobic,rightwing or even fascist（as Ostermeier said publicly for Poland because they didn’t like his production of Mayenburg）!Theaters were accused for not staging these British plays（or similar kind of plays） because they are traditional,narrow minded,afraid to stage real plays and so on...Accusations were justified with some demagogy but it was spreading like a fire.

DEMAGOGY n1:EUROPEAN

Even when they tried to impose into-yer-face as New European Drama it was still mostly the British playwrights:Sarah Kane,Mark Ravenhill,Edna Walsh,Irving Walsh and Jez Butterworth.When searching for playwrights in other European countries directors were searching for British clones,as Osterimeier said who is Germany’s Ravenhill?Not Goethe!He found Marius von Mayenburg,his own dramaturge of Die Baracke.And,thanks to the Bonner Biennale,Mayenburg became one of the most important playwrights of“New European Drama” from Germany.In the playwrights club they accepted very few playwrights:Biljana Srbljanovifrom Serbia（but living in Germany as she was married to a diplomat）,Dejan Dukovski from Macedonia and Lars Noren from Sweden.

DEMAGOGY n2:what is ACTUALLY new

To be a new drama theatre you have to change conventions.We are looking at the same world but we are presenting it differently on the stage—thanks to the conventions that we are using.Into yer face is not new drama or drama theatre at all because it didn’t change conventions of staging just brought some novelty on topic level.

Conventions.Into yer face plays were using realistic convections in their presentation on the stage.As Sarah Kane said about her own directing of Phedra’s Love:From the begining we decided to present violence as realistic as possible.Plot is usually very linear（from torture to torture） and very poor on the formal level just piling up the violence.It is much poorer plot then in any ordinary vaudeville）.Characters,mostly drug addicts,prostitutes,and destroyed people,do not develop during the play.They just have different kind of sexual courses,they are just taking more and more drugs and torturing each other in different manners.

Topic.Violence itself is not new:Greeks,Romans（Senekus had one crime revenged by another）,of Elizabethan tragedies（Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus with serving a meal of her own children to a mother）,and so on.The only new convention is — explicit violence on the stage.Some earlier British plays already had some explicit scenes of violence（Saved by Edward Bond,East by Steven Berkoff,The Romans in Britain by Howard Brenton）but usually at the end of some plot that is graduating until the tragic end.Novelty of into yer face is that the violence itself becomes not only visible and is presented on the stage in abundance but become the main,the only topic of the play.In front of our eyes are happening all kind of sexual courses,mostly unwilling,and if possible incestuous,taking drugs on most cruel ways,all kind of torture and cruelty toward another person.As a subject of the play.That is why they needed to invent more and more shocking violence.Because this was the only thing how they can communicate.By applying to the human repulsion toward violence and torture.

World of the play.Another characteristic of these plays is description of the world without any moral values,with abolished distinction between good and bad.

We already used to have a world without Good,or a world where evil dominates.We already saw in literature of absurd murders without any motivation（Camus’ Stranger,Ionesco’s Lesson）,or unknown enemies that are hitting characters during night for no reason（Becket’s Godot）.But we felt these procedures as something not real,as different,as mistaken the is the world as it should be-as absurd.

Novelty in the into yer face trend is that the world without God is ordinary,normal.The world that is shown in these plays has evil and unhappiness not as another side of good and happiness but as the only possible state of the life itself.It is a convention of horror plays,but this time torture is not something terrible that a play is trying to explain（with natural or supernatural reasons）,but something ordinary and actually justified.Very often the victims are searching for it（most of the characters in Cleansed,Kate in Blasted,Gary in Shopping and F***） or they deserve it（Ian in Blasted）.Torturing other people is not put in concentration camps but into sanatoriums（Cleansed） that looks like a university.The worst mutilations are given to us as procedure,cure for pain（Cleansed or Shopping and F***） or cure for financial problems（Shopping and F***）.So the victim should be grateful to the torture.Every wish for positive emotions are finishing in some pain or torture.With so unhappy and lost characters,death is willing exit from this world.

DEMAGOGY n3:REALISM AND POLITICAL RESPONSE

Interesting is how directors took an effort to explain to us that these kind of plays,are honest and realistic,showing the world as it is!The world of drug addicts,prostitutes and incestuous families,crazy,lost people cannot represent my world or theatre audience world because it is the world of the minority of the people in this world.But plays are imposing it as the picture of everybody’s life.Of course it is not.Most of the people are not killing their lovers,or mutilating people or sleeping with brothers,sisters or children,or sleeping without love…

Second demagogy was that these plays are socially aware and politically critical,very leftist.This is not true because socially engaged plays（so called “political plays” defined by Siegfried Melchinger）are showing bad sides of the society i.e.political forces that destroys individual.With the idea that the audience will understand the mechanism of political and social pressure in the society and change it.

Into yer face is showing stable and unchangeable situation of the characters with no society around so these plays are least political possible.They are showing the bottom of the society or some closed room where torture is going in some undefined places and no one is recognizing anything that is touching our own world where we live.We have no idea about the history of characters,their lives,the social system that they live in,political forces—nothing!Real events or social surroundings of the characters were just excuses for media attention.Sarah Kane said that Blasted was about Bosnian war.But there is some undefined violence outside that provoke the violence inside,and have no connection to Bosnia.When Iraq became“in” as war zone,she claimed Iraq as her inspiration.In her next play Sarah Kane actually showed that she doesn’t need that kind of excuses for violence.Cleansed is happening in the western sanatorium.And characters have no connection to any real world.

Third demagogy was proclamation of theatre directors that these plays are tender,gentle,poetic and-about love.As Ostermaier will say that anal raping with knife in Shopping and F***is giving to the victim the true instant of love,and David Graham that Cleansed is just a collection of poetic pictures.While everybody else saw just blood,sperm,drugs,and emotional emptiness.Everybody in the common sense knows that there is many more better signs of love than rape but how to argue with such intelligent,powerful and famous theatre directors!

DEMAGOGY n4:PLAYWRIGHTS IN POWER

Remember,everything started with need and search for playwrights and they were found by—directors.Campaign was led by Stephen Daldry,artistic director of RCT in Brittan and Thomas Ostermeier in Germany.Directors were choosing the plays,directors were explaining the meaning of the plays,explaining that this is new drama,or New European Drama,new theatre that can only express zeitgeist,the feeling of the time.

Interesting fact that most of the playwrights from the British trend were very young people（no one over 25）discovered by and developed under directors auspices in above-mentioned small theatres.Why were young people writing about the worst atrocities in the world not only contemporary but past（Mojo is about Mafia in the fifties）.Well,to me it looks that the playwrights were writing what was“modern”,“cool”,and “in”,and not about something they were actually interested in.That is why the plot was so poor and flat.They do not know their characters,cannot develop them,they are just putting them in the situation of torture.That is why authors didn’t described the world around characters —not because this world is really empty and cold and just filled with violence as directors told us-but because playwrights didn’t know it.

That situation was perfect for the directors that liked open structures of the plays.And into yer face is very open structure.As Max Strafford Clark who directed Shopping and F***said about Ravenhill:He enjoys writing with the actors around-so his scripts tend to be a bit messy when you first read them.

Dominic Dromgoole said,when I started to work in Bush 1990 playwrights would pay to you to be stagedso obviously they were open to suggestion.That is why British directors took young,undefined,unshaped people with urge for writing dialogs and shape them into whatever they want.

When RCT was awarded for developing new plays in Taormina 1999 they organized a round table on their work.On the stage there were eight（8） directors and three（3） critics and just one（1） young playwright.It was a beautiful,tall girl with long,yellow hair about 20,Rebecca Prichard.She was too young to articulate her opinions,she had no answers to any question,but she was proclaimed as genius by these directors.I do not have to say that her most successful play Yard Gals is about violence between young girls.As a question from audience I publicly asked Michael Billington,round table chair,where are the playwrights and why do we have directors explaining playwrights thoughts and intentions?he said that unfortunately it happened that playwrights didn’t have time ad directors did have it.

Media pressure made young people genius and very soon got European and international attention,but this situation made the playwrights very dependent on directors who made them genius,like the young girl at the round table who just turned to the directors for help whenever someone addressed her directly,because they knew why she is genius.She herself couldn’t figure it out because she was not formed yet.Should I say that she was a person with one play and disappeared in the meantime.

DEMAGOGY n5:world fame of the trend REPRESENTATIVES

The worst demagogy is the one about world fame and glory of this trend based on the theatre response.

Whenever anyone objected to this new trend,the directors claimed that this is accepted by audience,but not the “opening night audience “（meaning conservative） but young audience（meaning open and progressive people）.The same claim was heard form RCT（Britain） and Ostermaier（Germany）.But it is not true.

Nicolas Hynter,head of National Theatre（big London theatre） said in 2001:these kind of plays were staged in just 100 seats studio theatres such as the RCT Upstairs,the Bush and the Soho theatre.No one of these titles succeeded at West End（London’s big theaters） although Shopping and F***was produced there.No one from that trend made success in the USA although New York is taking things from London in a light speed.

The same situation was all over Europe.The Baracke,German theatre from where the trend started to conquer Europe is small experimental space with capacity of fifty people.Sold out performance in that theatre is hardly success for Berlin,city of several millions inhabitants.And that was the situation in whole Europe.

The mere staging of that kind of plays was considered as courage and theatre bravery.Media coverage is wonderful.Directors all over newspapers explaining how brave and wonderful these performances are.These performance were traveling to some festivals,getting awards,and directors who staged them very often entered the big boys club.

Who does need the audience anyway?While in Britain the audience counts because the theaters lives on it,Europe does not pay a lot of attention to the audience having subsidized theaters with governmental money.

The best proof that European audiences do not accept"new European drama"was my personal experience with the audience in Taormina 2000.I couldn’t believe my eyes-the audience was constantly leaving from the Crave by Sarah Kane,directed by awarded Thomas Ostermeier and performed by famous German theater Schaubune.And I saw leaving not only “regular audience” but theatre people too.Some of them were strongly for awarding Ostermeyer as new prominent director but when they were audience — they couldn’t watch.

Theatre directors also abandoned that trend and so Ostermeier and all other big boys club directors are staging classical plays again-with new approach and their personal vision.

Importance In the Theatre Life

Even the above-mentioned 4th Theatre Forum from 1999 is showing that the world glory is not so worldly.Of 30 articles that were actually explaining most important theatre events in their countries only two are mentioning this trend as important—Great Britain and Germany.And only three others are mentioning single performances:Greece Shopping and F***,Bulgaria Powder Keg by Macedonian author Dean Dukovski and Sweden Lars Noren.

The World of Theatre,edition of International Theatre Institute,is published once every two years and presenting seasons in theatre of numerous countries-ITI members.In edition 1994-1996,the trend was mentioned only once by Ian Herbert who was describing the 1996 theatre season in Great Britain and mentioning a lot of interesting new plays staged at RCT,among others Shopping and F***by Mark Ravenhill as another astonishing debut.

In the second book that covers four seasons（from 1996 till 2000） the authors from the trend are mentioned only in the German article,the Swedish article is talking about Lars Noren and nothing else.Even Peter Hepple,speaking about British theatre and RCT,mentiones only The Weir by Conor MacPherson.

Although the passion is high when we are talking about that trend when you have to show the most important things in the season of one country and put this trend together with other events—the significance diminishes.The bigger is the period for reviewing the theatre-the meaning of that trend is smaller.Even in the countries that invented it.

7.Impact to the European Theatre

Although I proved that into yer face is just a trend disguised as New European Drama,although the trend is declining all over the Europe and now even nobody is using that term-something did change in European theatre because of it.Actually five impacts:four bad and one good.

First bad theatre impact or spoiling the term

The term New European Drama gives a false pretension that we do have new European drama.It was given to the theatre community hungry for the playwright but it didn’t fulfill the demands.They just used and spoiled the term.Now whenever you say or think about new European drama you have in your head all this pictures of violence and you loose the wish for it.

Second bad theatre impact or increasing the violence

The media pressure of the “pro trend” group was so strong that theatre begins to obey the pressure.Violence gets into the theatre as an obligatory topic.You had to have rape,murder,suicide,or drug consuming on the stage in a play to be “modern enough”.

The worst example I heard from a theatre manager that recently came back from very esteemed festival for children theatre Augenblick Mal from Berlin（2002）.She said that of 15 performances 10 were about suicide or murder.They stage Fireface by Maynebourg and Norway.Today by Igor Bauerisima.For children!

That trend raised the level of explicit violence on the stage.Even in other plays now theatre directors are showing on the stage much more violence than stated in stage directions.

Third bad theatre impact or negative influence on playwrights

The trend was influencing playwrights all over the world.They tried to obey it.The best proof for that is development of the playwright under the pressure of the trend.Very talented Martin McDonagh in his Beauty Queen of Leenainne（1996） has violence at the end,developed as climax by the interesting plot and very vivid characters,with very much recognized world around them.Also in Cripple of Inishmore（1997）.But then his plays like The Lieutenant of Inishmore?（2001） or The Pillowman（2003）were just piling up the violence.

Similar things happened to other writers like Biljana Srbljanovi.She wrote a first play Belgrade trilogy where she described three circles of emigrant Serbs in the world.At the end there is one murder but this play is very far from the trend.It is full of worn characters,unhappy people and very strong political and social context.Characters were defined by their social context but also universal enough with their apatride’s unhappiness that can be recognized anywhere.This performance was invited to Bonner Biennale in the wave of supporting dissident picture of Serbia.Her second play Family Stories is about children playing atrocities “that they saw from their parents”.There were killing at the end of every scene but it was a cruel child game as reflected of the society.This society is not specific anymore.It is happening somewhere on the ruined and dirty city,socialist she said in stage directions but no one can recognize it as it.Third play Supermarket was written for German production and it is about molesting kids,very realistic.Formally it is in the school for immigrants but this has nothing to do with their social context.School is just a cadre for the story about harassment and making love without love.It was much closer to into yer face than her first play and much weaker.

Without that influence both mentioned playwrights would have developed their first choice that was the best play they wrote.Although they didn’t fit exactly to the trend,the trend did make negative influence in these cases on very talented writers.

Fourth bad theatre impact or audience is leaving again

I said in Demagogy n5 that there is no such interest of audience as theatre directors claimed.But the problem is worse:audience is leaving again.The theaters that followed the trend soon experienced empty seats.Marketing in drama Croatian theatre Gavella from Zagreb that used to be packed by audience,from 2000 had a big problem in finding it.I do not have to say that they are staging Popcorn（Ben Elton） and plays like that.The same situation is with our ZKM（Zagreb Youth Theatre）that is supposed to stage new modern performances.They embraced trend and it impacts so that they lost audience.But directors find the way out:staging on the scene,making audience smaller“for artistic purpose”,or international co-production that cannot have a lot of performances because of the“organizational reason”.

First good theatre impact or we do have playwrights

When they started the award in Lithuania in 1998 they got to the surprise of the organizers 36 new plays.Thanks to the two obstacles from the beginning of my text people in Europe were really thinking that there is no playwrights.Now everybody realized that there are a lot of talented people that can become real playwrights.They just need the stage.The only problem is:is this first bad theatre impact stronger than the first good one.See above.

8.Reasons or Why This Happened

The possible reasons— vanity of directors who need to rule by all means,directors’wish to stir the audience by shock therapy,directors’wish to stir themselves by shock therapy（because they came to the creative dead end in searching for new conventions）,possible similarity of directors’ world with these plays-was not enough as explanation….If there was a real abundance of new plays in Britain why directors choose these kind of plays.

It looks like there is one bigger reason:expulsion of the positive emotion and affirmation of the values from the stage.When the kitsch was expelled from the “art” in the middle of the 20th century as false beauty,false value and false art,until the end of the century from the art was expelled every positive emotion.After World War II in Europe wins so called modern art（realism,modernism...）because only valuable function of the art become criticism of the society but from the secularist point of view.Only intellect,mind,pure thought and vision that are revealing the problems of our society were considered as “the art”,and kept in canon.Everything else,positive emotions,affirmation of the traditional values,were expelled together with old genres that kept emotions（melodrama,folk plays,well-made plays...）.When you expel positive emotions automatically you are expelling the story because story is（from myth till today） transmitting one event to the audience in order to affect the audience by evoking our emotions bringing us to understanding,compassion and catharsis.Story is told through life of the characters that we have to recognize and care about,as Aristotle said in Poetics.

Expulsion of the playwrights from the theatre in the reign of the directors was actually expulsion of the story,characters and emotions.And a need for playwright was actually need for these three basic aspects of the theatre（see Aristotle）.

So a plan to make into yer face into New European Drama was a trick.On the first sight directors took writers back in the theatre but with very controlled topic.After directors were telling us the positive emotion is kitsch now they found the playwrights showing in their plays that positive emotion is not possible at all in the world that we live.That is why directors proclaimed into yer face visions truth and realism,their attitude courage and their plays “new drama theatre”,theatre response that will help us to understand the world as it is.Also they tried to explain to us that all that violence is actually love（and other positive emotions） because they knew that the audience is striving for that.Of course no one in the right mind will accept that rape or killing is act of love but the directors,represented here by Ostermaier,are claiming so.

Need for playwright was a need for performances that will show audience relevant problems（not just directors private visions staged in expensive package）,that is why trend insisted so hard on connection with realism.Realism as a picture of the real world on the stage was a magnet for the audience tired by directors visions from the stage.But the audience didn’t get what they wanted.This was not at all the world of audience,but a most terrified world possible—it looks like directors hoped that if they show the real world as repulsive enough,maybe audience will be grateful to get“cold directors visions” in the theatre again and will not bother them with “real and warm stories”.

Remember the “search for denied roots”?Theatre directors didn’t really search for the playwright,they were just giving us a false way out of theatre crisis that they actually caused.That is why when directors realized that the trend didn’t fulfill their expectation or that trend is dying out they renounced from their “genius”.As Dromgoole did in his book.As Ostermeier now（and all the other big boys club directors）are staging classical texts.

European audience and theatre is tired of art that is hitting into the face,theatre directors are telling us that art must be boring and cold,that is forbidden to feel in the theatre.We do need story that is touching us,we do need characters that we understand and we do need emotion on the stage to communicate with us.I am sure everybody can find in their own backyard that kind of sensibility that makes you feel good after performance,but how can you say so publicly.And face the terrible accusation of being backward.Longing for emotions.Maybe if we stop being afraid of labels and face them,they will fall off and we will discover that behind all this media pressure is hidden new sensibility waiting to be approved.If we start to judge according to our taste and our feeling not following the trend and media pressure maybe we will help to cure obviously sick theatre.

In Croatia we have the situation that because of the directors brought theatre to the crisis actors are taking roles of playwrights（actors from HNK Split:Elvis Bošnjak,Trpimir Jurki,Filip Šovagovior Zagreb comedy quartet—Zorii,Ljuština,Stazi,Svrtan） or directors（Rene Medvešek,Matko Raguž,Vili Matula）.One of the most interesting is Rene Medvešek who is creating through actors games pure emotion and exchanging it with audience.Very important are the plays by Miro Gavran that bring back emotions and story.This new sensibility,something like new or modern romanticism,is developing and asking for new conventions.

I do believe that theatre should make us feel better,teach us,wake us but shouldn’t destroy us.There is a theory that whatever we saw it is storage in our sub-consciousness affecting us.That is why I refuse to go to the into yer face theatre any more.Even being theatre addict.I do not want to pollute my sub consciousness more than absolutely necessary.And I do not care of being labeled stupid,backward or old-fashioned!

Conclusion

As a result of the diminishing of theater audience,European theatre in the 1990s started to search for the playwright,but actually theatre directors took one British trend（into yer face） and proclaim it New European Drama.I am discussing it here that this is not new drama theatre（conventions are still realistic and in the hands of director）-just one trend with a new topic/form:explicit violence on the stage.Very empty plays about people from the bottom of the society with a lot of explicit brutality and dirty language caused a stir and theatre directors tried to impose it as new drama theatre.But it didn’t go exactly as planned.The trend stopped in Britain after few years but in Europe lasted for longer time.World fame got just few playwrights（mostly British） but Sarah Kane sort of entered the canon of European valuable plays.The trend did leave some influence on the theatre:staging violence became more explicit,in following the trend playwrights were including that kind of characters or excessive violence into their plays.The theatre directors who invented that trend are still in the big boys club of power in European theater-and the audience is leaving again.

【Notes】

① Thomas Ostermeier,“The Theatre at the Time of its Acceleration”,in The 4th European Theatre Forum 1999 —Writing for the Theatre Today,p.245.

②Official web site:http://www.premio-europa.org/open_page.php?id=244

③Stefanova,Kalina.Eastern European Theatre After the Iron Curtain.London:Harwood,2000.various pages.

④Thies Lehmann,Hans.Postdramatic Theatre.New York:Routledge,2006.

⑤ ⑥ Hattenstone,Simon.“And Now Hurray.” Guardian 1.7（2000）.

⑦ ⑨ Petra,Pogorevc.“I also didn’t see it.” Maska,5-6（2001）:30.

⑧Sierz,Aleks.In-Yer-Face Theatre.British Drama Today.London:Faber and Faber,1997.

【Works Cited】

Aristotle Poetics,Dover Thrift Edition,Dover,1997.

Dromgoole,Dominic.The Full Room.London:Methuen 2000.

Hattenstone,Simon.“And Now Hurray.” Guardian 1.7（2000）.

Kane,Sarah.Complete Plays.London:2001.（Introduction by David Graham）

---.Razmadežna/Clensed,playbill,Slovenian National Theatre,Ljubljana,（2001）:45.

Melchinger,Siegfried.Histroy of Political Theatre,Friedrich Verlag,Velber,Hanover 1971.（orig.Geschichte des Politischen Theaters）

Pogorevc,Petra.“I also didn’t see it.” Maska 5-6（2001）:30.

Rebellato,Dan.“Sarah Kane:an Appreciation.” New Theatre Quarterly 59（1999）:280-282.

Sierz,Aleks.In-Yer-Face Theatre.British Drama Today.London:Faber and Faber,1997.

---.“Cool Britania.In-Yer-Face writing in the British theatre today.” New Theatre Quarterly 56（1998）:324-333.

---.“Still In Yer Face.” New Theatre Quarterly 69（2002）:17-25.

Stefanova,Kalina.Eastern European Theatre After the Iron Curtain.London:Harwood,2000.

Strafford,Max Clark.“Planned offensive.” The Stage 1.4（2001）.

Thies Lehmann,Hans.Postdramatic Theatre.New York:London,New York:Routledge,2006.2001.（orig Postdramatiche Theatre,1999）

Europe Theatre Prize 1999.Taormina:1999.

Europe Theatre Prize 2000.Taormina:2000.

The World of Theatre 1994-1996,Dakha,1997.

The World of Theatre 2000,Dakha,2001.

“The 4th European Theatre Forum 1999 — Writing for the Theatre Today.” Du Theatre 11（2000）,Pariz.

Nova evropska dramatika（New European drama）.Maska 5-6（2001）.（in Slovenian language）

本文旨在表达对“直面戏剧”不同以往的观点。为了探索这一现象的发展历程，文章首先探究了剧场中剧本/剧目至上这一传统范式改变的原因——即剧本是如何不再成为剧场的基础，而导演又是如何占据主导地位。本文所聚焦的舞台正是这一潮流风行的二十世纪九十年代，这一时期的舞台表演又推动了后续现象的产生。从结果来说，英国暴力戏剧潮流的成型体现在它的主要方面上、它对欧洲大陆的“出口”上、以及它成为“新欧洲戏剧”的精心策划上。这里的精心策划是加引号的，暗示了主要的“煽动性”工具的参与。通过从艺术和社会学的角度分析这一现象的五个主要后果，本文阐明了“直面戏剧”对欧洲剧场的全面的冲击。

本文表达了《新欧洲戏剧还是骗局一场》一书的主旨。本书作者桑雅·尼可埃维科，在克罗地亚、斯洛文尼亚和保加利亚出版发行。

直面戏剧 马克·拉文希尔 萨拉·凯恩 托马斯·奥斯特米尔 舞台暴力 舞台情感

桑雅·尼可埃维科，理学博士，克罗地亚奥西耶克艺术学院戏剧与剧场史教授，主要研究当代英美、克罗地亚和欧洲戏剧以及戏剧批评。

Author:Dr.Sc.Sanja Nikeviis full professor at Art Academy of Art in Osijek Croatia where she teaches history of theatre and drama.She specializes also in contemporary Anglo-American,Croatian and European drama and theatre criticism.She lives in Zagreb,Croatia.Email:sanja.nikcevic@uaos.hr

标题：笨拙、老套、还是退化——抑或英国“直面戏剧”如何成为新欧洲戏剧？