Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik
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Es handelt sich um einen Open-Access-Artikel, der unter den Bedingungen der Lizenz CC by 4.0 veröffentlicht wurde.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/61
2017
421
KettemannThe Oscillation Between Dramatic and Postdramatic Theatre: Mark Ravenhill’s Shopping and F***ing
61
2017
Sibel Izmir
Drama and theatre, which are distinctive forms of art, stand among those concepts which are often used interchangeably regardless of their uniqueness. In order to contextualize and reassess this relationship between drama and theatre, Hans-Thies Lehmann, a German scholar and theoretician, has provided a useful formulation in his ground-breaking study Postdramatic Theatre. He claims that theatre has been subordinated by drama particularly in western cultures until the 1960s. This has naturally resulted in a domineering position of the dramatic text and the playwright in the final production. Lehmann argues that since the 1960s western theatre has demonstrated an interest in creating theatrical productions which display an equal treatment of the playtext, playwright, director, performers, costumes, décor, etc. in order to subvert the rooted hierarchal order. In his book, he does not neglect to mention that British ―in-yer-face‖ dramatists are also among those who have influenced the emergence of German-based productions with their shock tactics to capture the audience. In such productions, the events happening on the stage make the audience feel as if they are attacked. The British playwright, Mark Ravenhill, is one of such in-yer-face dramatists. This study will offer an exploration of Ravenhill‘s Shopping and F***ing in the light of Lehmann‘s theory of postdramatic theatre. The study puts forward that the play under examination goes beyond the confines of in-yer-face sensibility and exhibits a tension between dramatic and postdramatic theatre.
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The Oscillation Between Dramatic and Postdramatic Theatre: Mark Ravenhill’s Shopping and F***ing Sibel İzmir Drama and theatre, which are distinctive forms of art, stand among those concepts which are often used interchangeably regardless of their uniqueness. In order to contextualize and reassess this relationship between drama and theatre, Hans-Thies Lehmann, a German scholar and theoretician, has provided a useful formulation in his ground-breaking study Postdramatic Theatre. He claims that theatre has been subordinated by drama particularly in western cultures until the 1960s. This has naturally resulted in a domineering position of the dramatic text and the playwright in the final production. Lehmann argues that since the 1960s western theatre has demonstrated an interest in creating theatrical productions which display an equal treatment of the playtext, playwright, director, performers, costumes, décor, etc. in order to subvert the rooted hierarchal order. In his book, he does not neglect to mention that British ―in-yer-face‖ dramatists are also among those who have influenced the emergence of German-based productions with their shock tactics to capture the audience. In such productions, the events happening on the stage make the audience feel as if they are attacked. The British playwright, Mark Ravenhill, is one of such in-yer-face dramatists. This study will offer an exploration of Ravenhill‘s Shopping and F***ing in the light of Lehmann‘s theory of postdramatic theatre. The study puts forward that the play under examination goes beyond the confines of in-yer-face sensibility and exhibits a tension between dramatic and postdramatic theatre. AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 42 (2017) · Heft 1 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Sibel İzmir 72 1. Introduction Drama and theatre 1 are art forms that are dialectically, paradoxically and mutually in relationship with one another: While drama refers to a dramatic text written in order to be read by readers and to be staged by directors, theatre connotes not only to the performance but also lighting, costumes, make-up, décor, the theatre building etc. In this respect, the analogy that drama is full of holes to be filled by another text during the performance, which is the staging, the mise-en-scène, is remarkable and meaningful (Ubersfeld qtd. in Carlson 1993: 498). This binary yet inseparable relationship between drama and theatre has led critics, scholars and theatre practitioners to question the value and superiority of each concept. Some assume that there can be no staged play without a text while others believe that a play text has no value if not staged. Although drama as a literary genre has lost its popularity in our media-driven age, it is important in its own merit just like theatre, since both of them are art forms that are fundamentally about life. From the ancient times to the present, drama and theatre, which have changed society and spectators, have been, in turn, affected and shaped by society and the audience. The strength of this reciprocal bond between theatre and society primarily stems from the fact that theatre is about human existence. It is a representation of life. Yet, it is not life. As it is explained by Richard Courtney: ―Drama is a fiction. It is the mirror of existence, the reflection of human life so re-created as to be meaningful and significant to the audience … it raises the key questions being asked within the community for which it is written‖ (1982: 2). This contradictory and collaborative co-existence of drama and theatre is one of the reasons why Hans-Thies Lehmann has preferred to use the term ―postdramatic theatre‖ in his book entitled Postdramatic Theatre (published in German in 1999 and translated into English in 2006). For Lehmann, while dramatic theatre is characterized by plot, dramatic action, dramatis personae, dialogues, a definable setting offering a ―fictive cosmos‖ (2006: 22), postdramatic theatre is generally marked by, or may include, ―states (instead of a plot), anonymous speakers, fragmented or juxtaposed speeches, indefinite time and place‖ (Sierz 2007: 379). These traits of postdramatic theatre put the power of such definitive traits of dramatic theatre as representation, mimesis, character, dialogue, time and place as well as the Western text-based theatre into question. Lehmann asserts that in order to understand postdramatic theatre, there is a need to comprehend to what extent there should be a ―mutual emancipation and division between drama and theatre‖ (2006: 46). Since theatre in Europe has been dominated by drama, Lehmann advises to use 1 Drama is a Greek-originated word meaning to ―act‖ while theatre comes from the word ―theatron‖ which means the place where the audience sit. The Oscillation Between Dramatic and Postdramatic Theatre 73 the term ―postdramatic‖ to refer to the newer developments and relate them to the older ones. As he explains: ―In postdramatic forms of theatre, staged text (if text is staged) is merely a component with equal rights in a gestic, musical, visual, etc., total composition‖ (2006: 46, original emphasis). This explanation constitutes one of the core assumptions of postdramatic theatre, which is equally important for this study. Aspects like plot structure (or the existence of it), the idea of representation, character development, physicality and the thin line between fact and fiction are all relevant in postdramatic theatre and this study will concentrate on the dramatic/ postdramatic world represented/ presented in the script. As stated by Peter Campbell, ―postdramatic theatre is not necessarily nonor even antidramatic, but is a theatre that does not valorize drama above all other elements of the theatrical experience‖ (2010: 55) and the current article will question the ―dramaticity‖ of the play considering that the text is not valorized above other theatrical components. In order to achieve a juxtaposed assessment of the dramatic and postdramatic theatre, this study will analyse Mark Ravenhill‘s groundbreaking play Shopping and F***ing. Considered to be the ―rude boy‖ of contemporary British theatre, Ravenhill was born in 1966 in England. As Aleks Sierz informs, Ravenhill discovered theatre at an early age. To no one‘s surprise, Ravenhill studied Drama and English at Bristol University. His controversial play Shopping and F***ing (1996) has attracted the attention of spectators, directors and reviewers not only by its provocative title but also ‗offensively‘ extraordinary content. Admitting to have been inspired by American novels of the late eighties and early nineties 2 , Ravenhill added that he had also watched the plays of Martin Crimp, David Mamet, Caryl Churchill and Anthony Neilson, by whom he seems to have been greatly influenced as well. However, in the course of an interview with Aleks Sierz, Ravenhill acknowledges that although he had not seen Sarah Kane‘s Blasted when he was writing Shopping and F***ing, he later considers this play as one of the best contemporary plays and Kane‘s influence on him has been immense (qtd. in Sierz 2001: 124). Though Sierz believes that at that time Ravenhill did not feel he was belonging to part of a movement (2001: 124), his stylistic similarity with the so-called in-yer-face playwrights was already apparent 3 . What is relevant and of vital importance for the current study is Lehmann‘s positioning of in-yer-face theatre within postdramatic paradigm in 2 Douglas Coupland‘s Generation X, Bret Easton Ellis‘s Less Than Zero and Tama Janowitz‘s Slaves of New York are among them. 3 His acclaimed success was strengthened by other plays, some of which include: Faust is Dead (1997); Sleeping Around (1998); Handbag (Evening Standard Award - Most Promising Playwright, 1998); Some Explicit Polaroids (1999); Mother Clap‟s Molly House (2000); Feed Me (2000); Totally Over You (2003) and Citizenship (2006); The Cut (2006); Pool (No Water) (2006); Shoot/ Get Treasure/ Repeat (2008); The Experiment (2009) and Ten Plagues (2011). Sibel İzmir 74 his book. He argues that German theatre during 1990s seems to have been inspired by British in-yer-face theatre. Since postdramatic theatre, both in practice and theory, is originally a German-based phenomenon, Lehmann‘s attempt to establish a bridge and similarity between German and British theatres is noteworthy for the current article. Although British theatre is generally considered to be a text-based theatre in which the playwright occupies a substantial place, Lehmann‘s argument that German plays have been inspired by British in-yer-face plays strengthens the claim of this study. He explains this inspirational interaction particularly with regard to the relationship between the spectator and stage: It should be mentioned that a (roughly speaking) neo-realist wave in the new German theatre of the 1990s has frequently been considered as having been inspired by the British movement of ‗in-yer-face‘ theatre. Indeed the ‗attack‘ on the spectator in such plays is a trait that would have to be theorized as a tension between dramatic and postdramatic theatre. (Lehmann 2006: ix) From a similar point of departure as Lehmann‘s, this study primarily argues that Mark Ravenhill goes beyond the confines of in-yer-face sensibility and his play, Shopping and F***ing, demonstrates a tension between dramatic and postdramatic theatre. 2. Avantgarde Aesthetics In order to discuss the roots of postdramatic theatre, there is a need to make an account of the historical avant-gardes to comprehend their similarities with and differences from postdramatic theatre aesthetics and how they disrupted the conventions of dramatic structure. As a matter of fact, no sooner had realism and naturalism became popular than the revolts against them began. Symbolism, expressionism, epic, surrealism, Dadaism, existentialism and theatre of the absurd will be briefly explored in order to see to what extent dramatic theatre has deviated from the conventional norms. Symbolism is the first revolutionary reaction against realism and naturalism. It emerged in France in the late 19 th century. As a movement, it denies realism‘s claim that ultimate reality can be found through five senses and rational thought process. Thus, it is antirealistic because of ―disdaining everyday reality and the realism that reflected it‖ (Cohn 1995: 1049). Thus, the aim of a symbolist play is, through symbols, to convey intuitions about a higher truth although symbolists did not think that truth can be expressed logically or rationally. Therefore, symbolist drama is characterized by being ―vague, mysterious and puzzling‖ in style The Oscillation Between Dramatic and Postdramatic Theatre 75 (Brockett 1969: 311) 4 . Therefore, the so called deviations in symbolic theatre are more ostensible in the perception of reality than in form. As a matter of fact, symbolist theatre is no different from realist theatre in terms of its plot structure. Whatever a symbol signifies, what is represented is still an illusion of reality as in realist theatre. The second revolt against realism is expressionism which aims to ―go beyond drama as interpersonal dramaturgy of conflict and beyond motifs inherent to it‖ (Lehmann 2006: 65). As a movement expressionism emerged in Germany at around 1910. Michael Patterson clarifies and formulates this movement as follows: Reacting against the limited and untheatrical nature of naturalism, the defining characteristics of expressionist theatre are, in addition to the depiction of powerful emotions: the rejection of individual psychology in order to penetrate to the essence of humanity; a concern with the contemporary social situation; episodic structures; generalized, often nameless characters; strongly visual incidents in place of scenes dependent on linguistic exchange; a highly charged, often abrupt language (telegraphese); symbolic scenography, lighting, and costumes; and powerfully theatrical performances. (2010: 195) Oscar Brockett is of the opinion that expressionism as a movement is difficult to describe because soon after its emergence, any departure from realism was defined as expressionism especially in Germany. He explains that its emergence is related to the fabric of modern society, which is industrial and scientifically driven. Man has been degraded to a machinelike position in such a society. Actually, there were two different approaches in the depiction of man‘s changed position in an industrialised and mechanical society: Many plays focus on how man has been transformed into a machine-like creature. Also, although smaller in number, some plays attempt to imagine the transformation of society and man‘s coming to terms with his environment. Thus, most expressionist plays are ―structurally episodic, their unity deriving from a central idea or argument rather than from a casually related action‖ (Brockett 1969: 324) 5 , and it is this unity which allows expressionist plays to be categorized under the rubric of dramatic theatre. J. L. Styan, in his comparison of realism and expressionism, points out that: ―In realism … actors sit about on chairs and talk about the weather, but in expressionism they stand on them and shout about the world. …‖ (V3 1981: 1). In other words, al- 4 The French poets Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud and Mallarme are considered as the precursors of symbolic theatre. The influence of Richard Wagner, who believed that greatest truths cannot be acquired through realism, is also noteworthy in the emergence of symbolism. The Belgian Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) is among the most famous symbolic dramatists. William Butler Yeats and Garcia Lorca also showed many attributes of symbolism (Brockett 1969: 316-317). 5 The Swedish playwright August Strindberg and the German dramatist Franz Wedekind are thought to be the forerunners of expressionism. Sibel İzmir 76 though expressionistic theatre still carries realistic traits, it is characterized by a dreamlike/ nightmarish mood, unrealistic depiction, disjointed plot structure, nameless characters and poetical monologues or dialogues. Without doubt, it is impossible to investigate historical avant-gardes without an analysis of epic theatre. As it is well known, it was Bertolt Brecht who used the term ―dramatic theatre‖ to demonstrate the tradition to which his epic theatre aimed to put an end by creating a non-dramatic, anti-Aristotelian one. Epic theatre is marked by a rejection of following a structure of acts and scenes since ―Brecht attempted to destroy continuity by dividing his fables into series of episodes, each of which is selfcontained‖ (Morgan 1987: 77). Thus, the audience would be prevented from being captured by a fictional illusion since for Brecht the audience should be kept estranged from the play. That is Brecht‘s famous ―Verfremdungseffekt‖, translated variously as V-effect, A-effect, estrangement, alienation or distancing effect. The structure in epic theatre is related to the fact that Brecht totally disagrees with the conception of Aristotelian drama which aims at creating terror and pity in the audience as well as purging their emotions to obtain relief and refreshment by creating an illusion of real events and causing spectators‘ full identification with the characters. Brecht wholeheartedly argues that the audience members should not be made to feel, but should be made to think. Identification with the characters, however, prevents them from thinking due to the ―horrors‖ of illusion of reality. Therefore, the spectators should be constantly made aware of the fact that they are not watching a real event, on the contrary, they are ―sitting in a theatre, listening to an account of things which have happened in the past at a certain time in a certain place‖ (Esslin 1959: 110). However, in spite of all the anti-Aristotelian claims of epic theatre, Lehmann believes that it is still dramatic since it ―clings to the presentation of a fictive and simulated text-cosmos as a dominant 6 , while postdramatic theatre no longer does so‖ (2006: 55). Following epic theatre, theatre of the absurd gained prominence although it had its roots in the late 19 th century. Alfred Jarry, with his Ubu Roi (1896) is usually considered to be the first absurdist playwright. ―While this play, with its inversion of conventional values and its determinedly non-realistic techniques, certainly anticipates many later works, it had no immediate successors‖ (Brockett 1969: 362). At this point, before delving into absurd theatre, it would be proper to focus on dadaism, surrealism and existentialism since they are all considered as the forerunners of the absurdist school. Dadaism was first initiated by the Romanian Tristan Tzara in 1917. ―The term was meant to signify everything and 6 The word ―dominant‖ is used as a noun here by Lehmann‘s translator, Karen Jürs- Munby. Although, when used as a noun, it is a musical term meaning the fifth tone of a diatonic scale, here it is almost equivalent to ―norm, rule or style‖. The Oscillation Between Dramatic and Postdramatic Theatre 77 nothing, or total freedom, anti rules, ideals and traditions‖ (Cuddon 1999: 203). Works of art with a dadaistic aesthetic contain collage effects, the arrangement of unrelated objects and words chosen randomly (Cuddon 1999: 204). It is not surprising that such works were satirical, illogical and irrational. Dadaist artists ―championed automatic writing (i.e. setting down thoughts as they came into the mind regardless of connection or relevance), the formless nature of which was said to be a truthful expression of the writer‘s subconscious mind‖ (Brockett 1969: 362). Dadaism, however, did not last long and was succeeded by surrealism. Just like expressionism, surrealism privileges collage and montage which develop the speed and intelligence capacity of the recipient. The surrealists hardly produced any remarkable theatre, but their ideas influenced the newer theatre to a great extent. For the surrealists, truth can be attainable in the dreamlike state in which the subconscious recreates everyday reality by avoiding the monotonous process of thought. Thus, the mind is freed from rationality and the subconscious mind is activated. Just like Dadaism, surrealism ―drew from a similar rejection of bourgeois norms‖ (Causey 2010: 583). It began in Paris with a group of poets and theatre practitioners such as Antonin Artaud, André Breton and Tristan Tzara. In a surrealist staging practice, masks and costumes were used to change the performer‘s body with caricatured and cartoonish emblems. ―The stage was likewise distorted in fantastic imagery, bold colours, and a general sense of play‖ (Causey 2010: 584). The twentieth century theatre was affected by the surrealist experiments to a great extent. However, both Dadaism and surrealism became important movements because they were the precursors of other schools like theatre of the absurd. One of such precursors of absurd theatre is undoubtedly Luigi Pirandello. As a playwright who was primarily influenced by Sigmund Freud, Pirandello was amazed at the ―complexity of human psyche and the split nature of personality‖ (McMillan & Kennedy 2010: 465). This attraction naturally was reflected in his plays like Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921). Considered to be an epitome of metatheatre and theatrewithin-theatre, questioning the truth of performance and the performance of truth, the play ―dramatizes the discrepancy between illusion and reality‖ (McMillan & Kennedy 2010: 465). In almost all the plays by Pirandello, such as Right You are, if You Think You Are, Henry IV and As You Desire Me, truth is depicted as a relative phenomenon since for him there is no objective truth. Therefore, characters in his plays recount the same events and experiences totally different from each other, each believing that his version is the true one as if to suggest the impossibility of objective truth. However, like the symbolist or expressionistic theatre, which display similar tendencies, the theatre of Pirandello is still dramatic theatre since his plays make an audience ―experience the pathos and humour of human self-deception and the relativity of truth‖ (Styan V2 1981: 81). Sibel İzmir 78 Another forerunner of the absurdist school is existentialism. Actually, a majority of plays which are now labelled as absurdist were originally called existentialist. Existentialist philosophy, as its name suggests, questions the meaning of ―existence‖. It is not surprising that ―with its concern for moral values in a civilization which had engendered two world wars and produced the atomic and hydrogen bombs, existentialism seemed particularly relevant after 1945‖ (Brockett 1969: 364). Among the representatives of this school, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus are the best known dramatists. As far as Sartre is concerned, man is born into a sort of void, a mud. He may either choose to remain in this mud and lead a passive, inert existence in a semi-conscious state or by coming out of this passive, paralysed situation, he may ―become increasingly aware of himself and, conceivably, experience angoisse (a species of metaphysical and moral anguish). If so, he would then have a sense of absurdity of his predicament and suffer despair. The energy deriving from this awareness would enable him to ―‗drag himself out of the mud‘, and begin to exist‖ (Cuddon 1999: 295). Both Sartre and Camus see man as possessing the potential to determine his own fate rather than being at the mercy of heredity and environment. ―In their plays, both dramatists adhere rather closely to traditional structural patterns‖ (Brockett 1969: 365). However, content-wise, the existential anxiety felt and verbalized by these playwrights has affected the playwrights who would succeed them, especially those in the absurdist vein. Absurdism as a term was coined by Martin Esslin in 1961 to describe the plays produced by playwrights such as Arthur Adomov, Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus and Eugene Ionesco which ―tend to reflect the influence of contemporary existential philosophy as well as a post war nihilism‖ (White 1995: 1). With such a worldview, the theatre of the absurd produced plays in which ―accepted stage conventions were largely abandoned in order to present a view of the world as meaningless and incomprehensible‖ (Law et al 1994: 2). As Kerry White clarifies, ―Art, and especially dramatic and theatrical art, therefore tends to present itself self-consciously as a metaphor of human existence in a world without absolutes‖ (1995: 2). Thus, absurdist plays ―lack a formal logic and conventional structure, so that both form and content support (while emphasizing the difficulty of communicating) the representation of what may be called the absurd predicament‖ (Cuddon 1999: 912). As seen in Samuel Beckett‘s Waiting for Godot, which is the epitome of theatre of the absurd, plays in this school use an unsettling form as a reflection and symptom of a society which has lost value and meaning because ―[s]tories cannot be told within traditional or recognizable forms; … The world of the absurd has lost the unifying factors of logic, reason and rationality … which is why the stage cannot maintain the qualities of realism‖ (Singleton 2010: 3). In the absurdist view, therefore, ―everything is possible, and the dramaturgical mechanics of tradi- The Oscillation Between Dramatic and Postdramatic Theatre 79 tional theatre are exposed as false‖ (Singleton 2010: 3). When compared with a play by Shakespeare or Ibsen, Waiting for Godot is [a]stonishing: no plot, barely any character and certainly no moral or emotional character development, no revelation, and no climax: but the facts remain that on stage and page alike it can be wholly compelling, and that its structural, cyclical, rhythmical, and philosophical means of being so are available to the attentive reader of its densely woven text. (Lennard & Luckhurst 2002: 46) Thus, it is not surprising that Eugène Ionesco, Arthur Adamov and other practitioners of absurd theatre are linked to the classical tradition because of the dominance of speech in their plays. Theatre was still a world of representation in the form of an absurd game since ―the absurd theatre remains pledged to the hierarchy that in dramatic theatre ultimately subordinates the theatrical means to the text‖ (Lehmann 2006: 54). It should not be gone unnoticed that although absurdist movement emerged in France, its influences were seen in other countries as well. In England, the early plays of Harold Pinter, such as The Room, The Dumb Waiter and The Birthday Party, display many absurdist features. Similarly, absurdist drama popularised new approaches which were inspired by Antonin Artaud. Artaud‘s theatre of cruelty is ―a kind of theatre that would subject the spectators to an emotional shock treatment, in order to free them from the grip of discursive and logical thought processes …‖ (Pavis, Dictionary 1998: 402). Thus, the aim in his theatre is to set the spectators‘ unconscious free from any repressions and enable them to embrace their true self. In productions that manifest the features of theatre of cruelty, ―mime, gesture and scenery are more important than words, and the director is a kind of maker of magic, ‗a master of sacred ceremonies‘. Much depends on spectacle, lightening effects and the exploitation of the full range of the ‗theatrical‘‖ (Cuddon 1999: 910). One must keep in mind that the disruption of dramatic norms is not limited to the afore-mentioned movements, playwrights or plays. There have been numerous playwrights in the preand post-Beckettian period who experimented with both form and content such as John Osborne, Arnold Wesker, Sean O‘Casey, John Arden, Robert Bolt, Edward Bond, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard and Caryl Churhill, to name but a few. As a matter of fact, it is assumed that British new writing (in theatre) begins in 1956 with John Osborne‘s Look Back in Anger. In addition to British playwrights, especially Austrian and German playwrights such as Peter Handke (for example his 1966 play Offending the Audience), the plays of Elfriede Jelinek, Heiner Müller and Wolfgang Bauer subverted all the norms of traditional theatre especially by breaking with a realistic plot structure, characterization and mimetic representation. It can be said that particularly since post World War II, Austrian and German theatres have Sibel İzmir 80 been among the most innovative ones throughout Europe and therefore it is no great surprise that postdramatic productions emerged in these countries. 3. In-Yer-Face Theatre Before an examination of postdramatic theatre, there is a need to concentrate on in-yer-face theatre for two primary reasons: Firstly, as was mentioned, Mark Ravenhill is assumed to be a pioneer and practitioner of inyer-face theatre which makes this theatre relevant in this study. Secondly and equally importantly, Lehmann in his book admits the fact that German theatre in the 1990s was inspired by the British in-yer-face theatre and this is what he considers as a tension between dramatic and postdramatic theatre. In order to figure out this tension, in-yer-face theatre is worth dwelling upon. Aleks Sierz, a British theatre critic, coined the term ―in-yer-face‖ with his 2001 book entitled In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today to refer to a group of British playwrights in 1990s whose common denominator was their use of sheer violence, physical and verbal, as well as the shocking and brutal content of their plays. In his thought-provoking book, Sierz claims that Mark Ravenhill is one of the most promising British in-yerface playwrights 7 . The reason why he was labelled as an in-yer-face playwright was the common characteristics he shared with many of his contemporaries: shocking plays with abundant graphic violence and sex. At this point, it must be remembered that British and European theatre history has numerous manifestations of violence on the stage such as murders in Shakespearean tragedies and histories, the male rape scene in Howard Brenton‘s The Romans in Britain or the baby stoning scene in Edward Bond‘s Saved, to name but only a few. However, as defined by Sierz, plays that could be categorized as examples of in-yer-face theatre are those that take ―the audience by the scruff of the neck‖ and shake it ―until it gets the message ... In other words, it is experiential, not speculative‖ (2001: 4). Employing shock tactics is a strategy to disturb both performers and spectators and to rid them of the conventional responses, since such plays present a more outrageous and experimental world than the one audiences are used to. In this respect, the characteristic traits of in-yer-face theatre are explained by Sierz as follows: 7 Other playwrights who were examined as in-yer-face British dramatists in the book include Philip Ridley, Philip Nagy, Tracy Lett, Harry Gibson, Anthony Neilson, Sarah Kane, Naomi Wallace, Jez Butterworth, Simon Block, David Elridge, Nick Grosso, Patrick Marber, Che Walker, Richard Zajdlic, Joe Penhall, Judy Upton, Martin McDonagh and Rebecca Prichard. The Oscillation Between Dramatic and Postdramatic Theatre 81 The language is usually filthy, characters talk about unmentionable subjects, take their clothes off, have sex, humiliate each other, experience unpleasant emotions, become suddenly violent. … Writers who provoke audiences or try to confront them are usually trying to push the boundaries of what is acceptable - often because they want to question current ideas of what is normal, what it means to be human, what is natural or what is real. … The most successful plays are often those that seduce the audience with a naturalistic mood and then hit it with intense emotional material, or those where an experiment in form encourages people to question their assumptions. In such cases, what is being renegotiated is the relationship between audience and performers - shock disturbs the spectator‘s habitual gaze. (2001: 5) After such an account, it is not surprising that in-yer-face theatre subverts the binary oppositions we use to define ourselves such as human/ animal, clean/ dirty, good/ evil, real/ unreal, etc. Any subversion is undoubtedly a painful experience. That is one of the reasons why Sierz is of the opinion that in-yer-face theatre is experiential, not speculative. As an audience, you are experiencing the same feelings presented on the stage rather than speculating about how it would be if the things you are watching befell you one day. Sierz also handles the issue of form in in-yer-face theatre as he believes that a play‘s strength as drama relies upon form, too. As he puts it: ―The further a play departs from the conventions of naturalism, especially those of the well-made three-act drama, the more difficult it is for many audiences to accept‖ (2001: 6). In this respect, forcing the audience to accept what they see on the stage (whether they accept or not) means radicalising the form, too. In Rewriting the Nation. British Theatre Today, Sierz enthusiastically assumes that meaning in theatre comes across by means of not only the content but also the form. He even gives a direct quotation by Tim Etchells, a British playwright and director, who declares that in theatre ―The meaning of what you do is the aesthetic and is the form‖ (qtd. in Sierz 2011: 7, original emphasis). In spite of all the attributed importance of form in in-yer-face theatre, it has been the content which attracts the attention of most critics and spectators, mainly because of the graphic violence and sexuality. However, the impossibility and impracticality of separating the content from the form manifests itself particularly by the language. As Sierz emphasises, as a set of theatrical techniques, in-yer-face theatre contains a stage language that ―emphasised rawness, intensity, swearing … a ninety-minute structure that dispensed with the relief of an interval. … in-yer-face theatre describes not just the content of a play but rather the relationship between the stage and the audience‖ (2012: 57-58). Sibel İzmir 82 4. Postdramatic Theatre Hans-Thies Lehmann‘s pivotal study Postdramatic Theatre was translated into English in 2006 with a substantial introduction by Karen Jürs- Munby. As Karen Jürs-Munby suggests in the introduction, Lehmann‘s book offers a new paradigm in theatre since it demonstrates the relationship between drama and the new forms of theatre that have emerged since 1970s and are claimed to be no longer dramatic in the Aristotelian sense. As Jürs-Munby points out, ―post‖ in postdramatic should be considered: neither as an epochal category, nor as a chronological ‗after‘ drama, a ‗forgetting‘ of the dramatic ‗past‘, but rather as a rupture and a beyond that continue to entertain relationships with drama and are in many ways an analysis and ‗anamnesis‘ of drama. (2006: 2) This affirmation of Jürs-Munby regarding the prefix ―post‖ is elaborated further by David Barnett, too. In his article entitled ―When is a Play not a Drama? Two Examples of Postdramatic Texts‖, he asserts that the term postdramatic ―can imply a reflection on the dramatic without necessarily presenting a complete break‖ (2008: 14). In another study entitled Postdramatic Theatre and the Political, Lehmann‘s use of the term is re-evaluated: ―Lehmann had deployed the term as an alternative to the then ubiquitous term ―postmodern theatre‖ in order to describe how a vast variety of contemporary forms of theatre and performance had departed not so much from the ‗modern‘ as from ‗drama‘‖ (Jürs-Munby 2013: 1). Lehmann himself points to the difference between the terms postmodern and postdramatic. The term ―postmodern theatre‖ has been widely used in order to talk about ―the theatre of deconstruction, multimedia theatre, restoratively traditionalist theatre, theatre of gestures and movement‖ (Lehmann 2006: 25). Defining and describing a field in respect to the epoch is a difficult task according to Lehmann. He believes that keywords such as ―ambiguity, celebrating art as fiction; celebrating theatre as process; discontinuity; heterogeneity; non-textuality; pluralism; multiple codes; subversion; all sites; perversion; performer as theme; and protagonist; deformation; text as basic material only; deconstruction‖ (2006: 25) function only to generalize; they are not persuasive. At this point, Lehmann explains why he has chosen ―postdramatic‖ as a term to use. As he puts it: The adjective ‗postdramatic‘ denotes a theatre that feels bound to operate beyond drama, at a time ‗after‘ the authority of the dramatic paradigm in theatre. What it does not mean is an abstract negation and mere looking away from the tradition of drama. ‗After‘ drama means that it lives on as a structure - however weakened and exhausted - of the ‗normal‘ theatre: as an expecta- The Oscillation Between Dramatic and Postdramatic Theatre 83 tion of large parts of its audience, as a foundation for many of its means of representation, as a quasi automatically working norm of its dramaturgy […]. (2006: 27) One should always bear in mind that in Lehmann‘s study, the text is only one component, one layer of theatre, ―as a material of the scenic creation, not as its master‖ (Lehmann 2006: 17). As emphasised by Markus Wessendorf , the idea of postdramatic theatre ―does not imply that theatre no longer uses texts or that writing plays would no longer be possible (or relevant), it only implies that the other components of the mise en scène are no longer subservient to the text‖ (Wessendorf 2013). In order to clarify and illustrate his argument, Lehmann explains his theory of postdramatic theatre with the following features: 4.1 Parataxis/ non-hierarchy In postdramatic theatre, theatrical means are in a relationship of dehierarchization. Such a non-hierarchical structure is in opposition with the tradition which has preferred subordination of elements to avoid confusion and to produce harmony and comprehension. As Lehmann clarifies: …in postdramatic theatrical practice: different genres are combined in a performance (dance, narrative theatre, performance, etc.); all means are employed with equal weighting; play, object and language point simultaneously in different directions of meaning and thus encourage a contemplation that is at once relaxed and rapid. The consequence is a changed attitude on the part of the spectator. (2006: 87) This changed attitude actually paves the way to enable the spectator of postdramatic theatre to postpone the meaning. In other words, the spectator, after contemplating on the details, can get the meaning. 4.2 Simultaneity The simultaneity of signs is related with the idea of parataxis and nonhierarchy. ―While dramatic theatre proceeds in such a way that of all the signals communicated at any one moment of the performance only a particular one is usually emphasized and placed at the centre, the ... ordering of postdramatic theatre lead[s] to the experience of simultaneity‖ (Lehmann 2006: 87). Likewise, language sounds are simultaneously presented on stage; thus, they are only partially understood particularly when different languages are being spoken. Sibel İzmir 84 4.3 Play with the density of signs Violating the established norm of sign density is like a rule in postdramatic theatre. Signs are either too much or too little with regards to time, space or the importance of the matter. An aesthetic intention to provide dialectic of plenitude or emptiness can be seen. In this situation, all levels of signification as well as presence, absence and density of signs become important. Lehmann states that in this respect theatre reacts to media culture and gives McLuhan‘s world as an example which increased the number of stimuli. Such a world with abundant images causes the ―disappearance of the naturally, physically perceived world‖ (Lehmann 2006: 89). As he explains: In the face of our everyday bombardment with signs, postdramatic theatre works with a strategy of refusal. … The play with the low density of signs aims to provoke the spectator‘s own imagination to become active on the basis of little raw material to work with. Absence, reduction and emptiness are not indebted to a minimalist ideology but to a basic motif of activating theatre. (2006: 89-90) 4.4 Plethora As opposed to minimum use of signs stands the idea of plethora, which refers to excessiveness in sign usage. Lehmann points out that exceeding the norm leads to a deforming figuration. In other words, rejecting conventionalized form and the normalized form of the image is usually done by a turning to extremes. The proliferation of signs disturbs the order of images. Furthermore, there is usually division of stage time and this division of time ―into minimal sequences, quasi-filmic ‗takes‘, already indirectly multiplies the data for perception, because, in terms of perception psychology, a mass of unconnected elements is estimated to be larger than the same number of elements arranged in a coherent order‖ (Lehmann 2006: 90). 4.5 Musicalization As Lehmann clarifies, musicalization is an important part of the sign usage in postdramatic theatre. By an independent auditory semiotics, directors apply their sense of music and rhythm, which is influenced by pop music, to classical texts. Moreover, ―in the course of the dissolution of dramatic coherence the actor‘s speech becomes musically overdetermined through ethnic and cultural peculiarities‖ (2006: 91). The Oscillation Between Dramatic and Postdramatic Theatre 85 4.6 Scenography, visual dramaturgy As a natural consequence of de-hierarchized use of signs and since logocentric hierarchy is dissolved in postdramatic theatre, there occurs the possibility of assigning the dominant role to ―elements other than dramatic logos and language‖ (Lehmann 2006: 93). Visual dimension is thus more emphasized than the auditory dimension. Visual dramaturgy does not solely mean a visually organized dramaturgy. It is the one which has not been subordinated to the text. Thus it becomes free to develop its own logic. In Lehmann‘s words ―a theatre of scenography” develops (2006: 93). He thinks that theatre of scenography, that is, ―a theatre of complex visuality, presents itself to the contemplating gaze like a text, a scenic poem, in which the human body is a metaphor, its flow of movement in a complex metaphorical sense an inscription, a ‗writing‘ and not ‗dancing‘‖ (2006: 94). 4.7 Warmth and coldness Lehmann explains these two concepts in postdramatic theatre by stating that the ―dethroning‖ of signs problematizes the situation of the audience who is used to the tradition of text-based theatre. As he clarifies, the participation of living human beings leads to a certain warmth in the theatrical event. However, for the audience who are familiar with such warmth, it would be difficult to accept a theatre which is devoid of the representation of a human. This can come across as coldness for them and equally difficult is the toleration of such coldness (Lehmann 2006: 95). 4.8 Physicality Lehmann openly puts forth that theatre conveys meaning and it is a difficult task to name this meaning. The body is not a carrier of meaning anymore; it is rather conceived in terms of its physicality. As he explains: ―Postdramatic theatre often presents itself as an auto-sufficient physicality, which is exhibited in its intensity, gestic potential, auratic ‗presence‘ and internally, as well as externally, transmitted tensions‖ (2006: 95). 4.9 ‘Concrete theatre’ A theatre without action/ plot or theatrical theatre has been called ‗abstract‘ theatre. Lehmann is of the opinion that at this point concrete theatre should also be mentioned due to the fact that abstract theatre lacks any reference to reality. He believes that ―the non-mimetic but formal structure or formalist aspects of postdramatic theatre are to be interpreted as ‗concrete theatre‘‖ (2006: 98). Sibel İzmir 86 4.10 Irruption of the real Traditional theatre has been produced by means of mimesis in a closed fictive cosmos. Although there are a number of disruptive elements in theatre such as asides and direct audience address, the play on stage is perceived as a reality shaped by its own laws. Such disruptions were considered as an insignificant aspect of theatre. Characters in Shakespeare‘s plays, for example, communicated with the audience. However, all these disruptions were integrated into the cosmic world and therefore addressing the real audience would not be considered as a disturbing attitude. For Lehmann, in postdramatic theatre, the main issue is not ―the assertion of the real as such … but the unsettling that occurs through the indecidability whether one is dealing with reality or fiction. The theatrical effect and the effect on consciousness both emanate from this ambiguity‖ (2006: 101). 5. Mark Ravenhill and Shopping and F***ing The relationship as well as the interaction between the stage and the audience and the tension between the dramatic and the postdramatic act in Ravenhill‘s Shopping and F***ing represent a common denominator of in-yer-face and postdramatic theatre. Therefore, dramatic and postdramatic qualities in his play are also common to some of the characteristics of in-yer-face theatre. Verbal and physical violence as well as topical and controversial themes such as people‘s addiction to consumerism, sex, shopping, drugs and commodification of culture mark many of Ravenhill‘s plays (Buse 2003). However, the controversy in his plays stems not only from the ―brutal‖ content, but it is, more importantly, the result of the form or ―aesthetic norms‖ employed in his plays. Experimentation with content and particularly, with form, urges one to question the value and scope of the deviations and novelties brought about by Ravenhill who has been extensively analysed as an in-yer-face playwright with the result that the content of his plays has gained importance while the form has often attracted less attention. In addition to the unsettling violence and brutal content of his plays, like many other in-yer-face dramatists such as Sarah Kane or Martin Crimp, the form of Ravenhill‘s plays is as noteworthy as the content. When the characteristics of postdramatic theatre are taken into consideration, it becomes apparent that postdramatic theatre is particularly marked by its liberation from the printed script and avoidance or minimization of a representative unified world. In Lehmann‘s exclusive study, the clear-cut yet inseparable division between the dramatic and postdramatic as well as the blurred boundaries between mimesis and presence, between text and performance, and ―self-reflection, decomposition The Oscillation Between Dramatic and Postdramatic Theatre 87 and separation of the elements of dramatic theatre‖ (Lehmann 2006: 48) will all serve as an illuminating guide in the analysis of Ravenhill‘s play since the new trends in today‘s English stages ―definitely help us understand how post-dramatic is not only concerned with the downfall of logocentricity [of the text] but with the deconstruction of the frontier between fiction and reality‖ (Angel-Pérez 2013). Being the first full-length play of Ravenhill, Shopping and F***ing was first performed in 1996 at the Royal Court, produced by Out of Joint and directed by Max Stafford-Clark and its scandalous title, let alone the content, was enough to shock the public. It is not surprising at all that the title not only in the first posters of the play but also in the printed version was written with asterisks as Shopping and F***ing. Initially, while writing the first draft in 1995, Ravenhill imagined to create ―characters whose whole vocabulary had been defined by the market, who had been brought up in a decade when all that mattered was buying and selling‖ and these characters would be those who were driven to extreme situations since ―the market had filtered into every aspect of their lives‖ and they were leading lives in which ―sex, which should have been private, had become a public transaction‖ (Ravenhill qtd. in Sierz 2001: 123). What he conjured up in his mind regarding buying, selling, sex and addiction turned out to be a real coup de théâtre and became one of the canonical works of 1990s. The emergence of in-yer-face playwrights producing plays similar in style and content is considered to be a reflection of or a reaction to the cultural and political zeitgeist of the 1990s Britannia and the new world order which are characterized by the following: fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), decline of communism, neo-liberal economies, globalization, consumerism, rising popularity of media and digitalized technologies, to name but a few. Mark Ravenhill‘s Shopping and F***ing was no exception and it is this play which caused him to be labelled as a theatrical ―enfant terrible‖. Dan Rebellato in his ―Introduction‖ to Ravenhill Plays: 1 agrees with this label but reminds the readers that in addition to this, ―Ravenhill is profoundly moral in his portraiture of contemporary society. His vision is elliptically but recognisably social, even socialist‖ (2001: x). Ravenhill himself explains his moralist attitude in a rather theatrical way: ―I want audiences to make moral choices: to decide moment by moment - intellectually and emotionally - whether what the characters are doing and the choices they are making are right or wrong. I find this dramatic. It makes good theatre‖ (2004: 313). However, Ravenhill‘s determination to have a say in changing ―things‖ around is not direct. He is of the opinion that a playwright‘s task is not to give definite answers to the audience but to ask the right questions: ―One of the major shifts in audience attitudes is that now people don‘t expect someone to give them a neat answer after two hours in the theatre ... they feel rather insulted if you do. The thing is Sibel İzmir 88 to more urgently and more cogently ask the right questions‖ (Ravenhill qtd. in Sierz 2001: 149). Shopping and F***ing is the first play with which Ravenhill literally shook up the theatre. The play has been extensively examined as an example of in-yer-face theatre or in terms of its affinity with postmodern aesthetics. Some critics such as Clare Wallace argue that although Ravenhill seems to be criticizing the postmodern condition, he does not employ postmodern techniques in his critique of postmodernity: Ravenhill‘s drama is less involved with theatrical postmodernism as practice, than with postmodernity as a subject. In fact, although the plays flaunt references to pop culture blended with allusions to and borrowings of ideas from critical texts on postmodernism, and are structured around rapid sequences of scenes and visceral images, a relatively coherent narrative usually unfolds in a manner structurally indebted (at least superficially) to television or cinema. Rather than being formally innovative, Ravenhill does not significantly break with the conventions of plot, character and narrative. (2005: 270) However, critics like Aleks Sierz believe that Ravenhill is playfully making use of postmodern techniques while still clinging to the traditional. To illustrate, Sierz exemplifies the way Ravenhill employs these techniques in Shopping and F***ing by fusing the postmodern with the dramatic, which seems to be a complete mixture: ―On one level, the play is a very postmodern mix of savage critique and playful entertainment; on another, the evident longing of its characters for something more than postmodern irony, for narratives that make sense of the world, links the play with an older tradition of committed drama‖ (2001: 133). Composed of fourteen scenes ―in a series of sequential but disconnected episodes to explore the lives of a group of young people‖ (Kritzer 2008: 39), Shopping and F***ing contains five definable (in the dramatic sense) characters: Lulu (the only female), Robbie, Mark, Gary and Brian. Actually, they are ―sketched with the minimum detail; their identities are delineated primarily by their roles in a system of commodities and commodification‖ (Wallace 2005: 270). Although the characters are dramatically definable, they are, as Ravenhill confesses, named after the members of the boy band Take That. At this point, it is important to note that, as Rebellato points out, by naming everyone after members of the then very famous boy band, ―Shopping and F***ing perhaps draws attention to the artificiality of the very idea of character‖ (2013: 29). By the artificiality of the idea of character, Rebellato clearly refers to the postmodern idea of the fluidity of identity and characters whose moral values are subject to change at any moment just like their identities. The characters in this play will demonstrate similar tendencies. In addition to Rebellato‘s comments, Aleks Sierz, who is definitely an ardent lover of Ravenhill‘s plays, criticizes the playwright for his unrealistic idea of character and he The Oscillation Between Dramatic and Postdramatic Theatre 89 considers this as the most problematic side of Shopping and F***ing. Ravenhill responds to this criticism by saying that his characters are ―the sum of their actions‖ and that he is a type of playwright who would allow ―the actor to add to them [characters] and the audience to project onto them‖ (qtd. in Sierz 2001: 131). It is precisely his stance as a playwright that his plays, while they carry the features of dramatic theatre, also refer to postdramatic aesthetics. Giving the actor/ actress the opportunity to add to the characters they are playing and similarly giving the audience the chance to project onto the characters mirror Lehmann‘s assumption that the text and the playwright do not have the supreme power in the theatrical event. Structurally, the play revolves around the lives of five characters. As Caridad Svich points out, the play ―presents snapshots of increasingly disconnected moments of human behavior … revolving around work and sex in which every moment can be reduced to a transaction‖ (2003: 82). The setting in Scene One is a flat - ―once rather stylish, now entirely stripped bare‖ (Ravenhill, Shopping 3). Such a setting would make it impossible for the audience to predict the characters‘ lifestyles when they first see the décor. In this sense, the play is in parallel to what Lehmann calls ―non-hierarchical use of signs‖ (2006: 86). In a fully dramatic play, we find an ―established hierarchy, at the top of which we find language, diction and gesture and in which visual qualities such as the experience of an architectonic space - if they come into play at all - figure as subordinated aspects‖ (Lehmann 2006: 86). In Shopping and F***ing, the space and setting are intentionally designed to be bare and filthy, with minimum décor, which deconstructs the notion of the established hierarchy. Instead of a rich décor that provides a picture of the living space of the characters to the audience, technological means such as neon signs are applied. As Amelia Howe Kritzer relates, in the first production of the play, the characters ―move in a fast-paced and brightly lit urban landscape evoked in Max Stafford Clark‘s production through neon signs, video, and rhythm-driven techno music‖ (2008: 39). Moreover, it is known that the so called in-yer-face plays were produced in intimate, small spaces which were ―generally ordinary places with a sense of familiarity if not comfort‖ (Kritzer 2008: 30) - this is certainly valid for Shopping and F***ing. Ravenhill already confirms that he wrote the play for ―a close-up audience of 65 people‖ (qtd. in Sierz 2001: 127). Without doubt, staging the play in an intimate space carries an anti-dramatic quality. As Lehmann remarks: ―In general it can be said that dramatic theatre has to prefer a ‗medium‘ space. Tendentially dangerous to drama are the huge space and the very intimate space. In both cases, the structure of the mirroring is jeopardized‖ (2006: 150). In this respect, the play valorises the text equally with the décor, setting, music and technology, a technique seen in postdramatic productions. Sibel İzmir 90 Content-wise, the play begins with the appearance of Lulu and Robbie trying to get Mark to eat from a carton of takeaway food, a scene which will gain importance throughout the play. At the very beginning of this scene, Mark vomits. It is understood from Lulu‘s reaction that Mark has been vomiting recently. Mark does not utter a word till this point and his vomiting is not pretended since in most productions 8 he has this ―vomiting material‖ already put into his mouth. Although vomiting may be a part of everyday life and although the audience may be prepared for such scenes because of the provocative title of the play, it is likely that they are surprised to watch this scene very early in the play. This scene, though it is not as shocking as the scenes to come, may hinder the identification of the audience with the character from the very beginning. As mentioned before, in-yer-face theatre shares a similar view with postdramatic theatre in that there should be a sort of ―attack‖ on the spectator. ―While the dramatic body was the carrier of the agon, the postdramatic body offers the image of its agony. This prevents all representation, illustration and interpretation with the help of the body as a mere medium. The actor has to offer himself‖ (Lehmann 2006: 163, original emphasis). In this play, most of the time the actor/ actress will go beyond the confines of playing a role and offer his/ her body as a medium by which agony is presented. As the play proceeds, more ―physical attacks‖ will be seen. In a dramatic work, it is by way of dialogues, monologues or soliloquies that the audience gets to know about the characters and their past. Traditionally speaking, ―all explanations and digressions which hinder the flow of the dramatic action are to be abolished; drama is by definition a strict organisation of time in linear sequence‖ (Karschnia 2007). In this play, most of the time, we learn the characters‘ past experiences by way of long narrative texts that remind us of short stories and that digress the flow of the dramatic action. In the middle of the characters‘ interaction with each other through dialogues, there comes a story-like narration which definitely results in a sort of de-concentration on the part of the audience and fragmentation of the text. As Lehmann explains, the ―principle of narration is an essential trait of postdramatic theatre; the theatre becomes the site of a narrative act. … One often feels as though one is witnessing not a scenic representation but a narration of the play presented‖ (2006: 109). In Shopping and F***ing, there are various narratives related by Mark, Robbie, Lulu and Gary and these narratives ostensibly subvert the traditional plot structure which Ravenhill claims the play has. The relationship between the three characters is revealed through the narration of Mark at the beginning of the play. Although Lulu and Robbie are adults, Mark says to them ―Look … you two go to bed.‖ (Ravenhill, 8 The Process Theatre Co.‘s version directed by DeWayne Morgan and another production directed by Sebastián Cruz Prieto on YouTube are among them. The Oscillation Between Dramatic and Postdramatic Theatre 91 Shopping 3), in a manner normally used while speaking with children. These are the clues at the very beginning of the play which make the audience question the relationship among the three. When Lulu and Robbie want Mark to tell them the ―shopping story‖, the use of present tense to refer to the past is linguistically interesting: ―Robbie: We have good times don‘t we? / Mark: Of course we have. I‘m not saying that. / Robbie: Good times. The three of us. Parties. Falling into taxis, out of taxis. Bed. / Mark: That was years ago. That was the past‖ (Ravenhill, Shopping 4). It is apparent that the two are speaking about the past in the present tense, at least till the point Mark reminds Robbie of the time. Although we can follow the plot in the traditional sense so far, this does not seem to be in parallel to the theatre of illusion which ― ‗mirrors‘ a world in which language is reliable, in which the ‗real‘ may lie buried but can be unearthed, in which the ―self‖ is more or less at one with itself‖ (Hollinger 1992: 184). This sense of lack of reliability in language and the ―real‖ may remind us of Harold Pinter‘s Old Times (1971). Similarly in Ravenhill‘s play, language, the self and reality are concepts that are put into question from the very second page on, and their reliability will be questioned throughout the play. Reality is constantly juxtaposed with fiction in this play, and consumerism is one of the central themes that allows the playwright to question the blurring boundaries between fact and fiction. Lehmann juxtaposes the idea of real and fictive and gives a clear-cut account on the subject: Without the real there is no staging. Representation and presence, mimetic play and performance, the represented realities and the process of representation itself: from this structural split the contemporary theatre has extracted a central element of the postdramatic paradigm - by radically thematizing it and by putting the real on equal footing with the fictive. It is not the occurrence of anything ‗real‘ as such but its self-reflexive use that characterizes the aesthetic of postdramatic theatre. (2006: 103) The ―shopping story‖, which Lulu and Robbie beg Mark to tell, is one of the accounts that puts the real on equal grounds with the fictive. Mark narrates how he has ―bought‖ Lulu and Robbie from a fat guy in a supermarket: ―It‘s summer. I‘m in a supermarket. It‘s hot and I‘m sweaty. Damp. And I‘m watching this couple shopping. I‘m watching you. And you‘re both smiling. You see me and you know you don‘t have a choice‖ (Ravenhill, Shopping 5). Thus, Mark ―buys‖ Lulu and Robbie for twenty pounds, by way of transaction. From that time on, Mark has been keeping a room for them: ―And I‘ve been keeping a room for you and I take you into this room. And there‘s food. And it‘s warm. And we live out our days fat and content and happy‖ (Ravenhill, Shopping 5). This shopping story is significant in the play for two reasons. First, it creates a ―fictive cosmos‖, though not a coherent one as Lehmann refers to, and this makes the audi- Sibel İzmir 92 ence feel that they are in a world of illusions. Secondly, however, since buying a couple from a supermarket is not an ordinary action, the audience once again questions the validity of this weird story. As Clare Wallace points out: ―This embedded narrative functions as an abstract synopsis of all relationships in the play, and introduces a sense of self-conscious performativity at the outset, where identity is considered in terms of ownership of oneself or others‖ (2005: 271). This ―self-conscious performativity‖ is one of the points that problematizes the issue of representation and mimesis. The audience rightly wonders whether the characters on the stage are really representative of what they seem to represent and possess because, as Wallace maintains, ―while the shopping story expresses a fantasy of objectification, it is significantly the means by which Lulu, Robbie and Mark negotiate and perform identities in the alternative family unit …‖ (2005: 271). In this play the setting is constantly shifting from one place to another. In this respect, and to no one‘s surprise, the play manifests an anti- Aristotelian structure. After Mark‘s farewell scene, the setting shifts to an interview room with a man named Brian showing an illustrated plastic plate to Lulu. While he is showing the plate, he makes a speech about the Disney film The Lion King (1994 American animation film), and relates how the protagonist, the Lion King, was crushed by wild cows intentionally and how it was arranged by the uncle. Brian obviously wants Lulu to internalize this story ―while Lulu anticipates its incidents by drawing from a cultural reservoir of which Brian seems completely ignorant‖ (Kritzer 2008: 42). The inclusion of such intertextual materials is also significant in terms of postdramatic theatre since for Lehmann ―the postdramatic both embraces and challenges the fundamental differences (even contradictions) between reality and art‖ (Woolf 2013: 40) and in this play by putting reality and art side by side, Ravenhill points to a similar tendency. The audience and its responses are constantly challenged in the play. For example, the setting is ostensibly an interview room; Brian is the interviewer and Lulu is the interviewee. However, for a period of time that could be said long, there is no reference to the job being applied for. It is after some time that Brian gives the plastic plate to Lulu, who, as a ―trained actress‖, is going to promote it in an advertisement - again a commercial activity. What Brian says to Lulu about the product summarizes the policy of global trademarks: ―Our viewers, they have to believe that what we hold up to them is special. For the right sum - life is easier, richer, more fulfilling. And you have to believe that too‖ (Ravenhill, Shopping 10). Consuming a product and believing that you are a ―whole‖ special person when you do it is how the postmodern individual gets entrapped in the contemporary world. Brian seems to be the one who is one of the ―experts‖ of capitalism and his relationship with Lulu is of a ―master-slave‖ type for the time being. Thus, Brian does not hesitate to The Oscillation Between Dramatic and Postdramatic Theatre 93 force Lulu to take her jacket and blouse off to ―assess [her] talents‖ and ―do some acting‖, any acting speech will be acceptable (Ravenhill, Shopping 13). Lulu, with a clear reference to Chekhov‘s The Three Sisters, says: ―One day people will know what all this was for. All this suffering. There‘ll be no more mysteries. But until then we have to carry on living. We must work. That‘s all we can do. I‘m leaving by myself tomorrow …‖ (Ravenhill, Shopping 13). This is the second intertextual reference after The Lion King. Ravenhill has a point here. As Alexander Karschnia (2007) states: ―Postdramatic theatre is polylogical, intertextual and transgressive‖. Certainly, such references make the play transgressive since they go beyond their literal meaning at the end of the play. The interview of Lulu by Brian ends in Brian‘s giving three hundred E, i.e. ecstasy pills, as a pretrial to see whether she has the ability to sell anything or not. Her acceptance of the offer will alter the course of the action in the rest of the play. The use of obscene words in the play is another technique that shocks the audience. Up to this point in the play, words such as ―f***, cunt, shit‖ or graphic sexual scenes like Robbie‘s dropping his trousers to be kissed by Mark (and rejected) have been already shocking. However, it is from this scene on that both verbal and sexual ―indecency‖, increasing in number, gets even more shocking. Gary, who is a rent boy, has a role that is considerable in terms of two points: his perceptions about reality and sex. His speech about virtual reality is noteworthy: ―Course, any day now it‘ll be virtual. […] Couple of years‘ time and we‘ll not even meet. We‘ll be like holograph things. We could look like whatever we wanted. And then we wouldn‘t want to meet ̓ cos we migh t not look like our holographs‖ (Ravenhill, Shopping 22). This presupposition of Gary about a virtual future is supported by Mark‘s finding him on the phone because of liking his voice. Again, Mark wants sex based on transaction so that ―it won‘t mean anything‖ and what he demands from Gary is ―to lick your [Gary‘s] arse‖ and then pay for it (Ravenhill, Shopping 25). In such a commercialized sexual environment, the distant sounds of coins clattering in the casino downstairs surely complete the picture. While this graphic scene of sexual intercourse is taking place, Gary talks about a ―big bloke‖, a rich man with a big house, who wants to live with him. However, ―when Mark emerges from rimming Gary, his mouth is covered in blood from the unhealed wounds inflicted on Gary previously‖ (Alderson 2010: 865). Gary‘s outcry that he is not infected, his giving Mark champagne to rinse the blood out from his mouth, Mark‘s demanding his money back because of the incomplete sexual attempt all are scandalizing enough for the audience. These really come as an ―attack‖ on the spectator because such sexually graphic scenes pose problems in terms of the issue of representation. In other words, the audience, rather than establishing identification with the characters or with their assumed roles, is likely to begin questioning the representationality of the characters on the stage. As Sierz relates his experience of the play, Mark‘s ―rising with his mouth bloody Sibel İzmir 94 after rimming Gary provoked groans‖ among the audience (2001: 127). This, no doubt, shows Ravenhill‘s skill to create a tension between dramatic and postdramatic theatre aesthetics by simultaneously conforming to a traditional plot structure on the one hand, and calling representation into question, on the other hand. Such scenes should also be considered in terms of the text‘s hierarchical place within the production. The possibility of staging the play by remaining loyal to the text does not seem possible, at least culturally, for such scenes. At this point, the interpretation of these scenes will depend on the imagination of directors which calls the supremacy of the text into question. For example, during the first production by Max Stafford-Clark, the play opens with the song ―Life‘s a bitch‖ (by Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones known as Nas) whose lyrics ostensibly reflect the content of the play and ends with the song ―Love is the sweetest thing‖ (by Ray Noble) and its lyrics refer to the end. Similar to the effort made by Robbie to attain a sort of self-liberation, Lulu tries to react against the situation she has been put into. When the telephone rings stop, it is understood that Lulu, exhausted, has disconnected the telephone line to find peace at least for a few minutes. Soon it is clarified that one of the callers, while speaking on the phone with Lulu, is watching a video ―of a woman, a student girl who‘s in the Seven- Eleven, working behind the counter‖ (Ravenhill, Shopping 61). Lulu tries to disconnect from this issue of phone sex by eating ready-made food, which she insists that Gary eat, too. However, Gary expresses how he hates such food: ―it doesn‘t taste of anything … This is shit. / This? I wouldn‘t feed a f***ing paraplegic with cancer this shit‖ (Ravenhill, Shopping 61-62). This scene brings Mark, Gary, Robbie and Lulu together. Envious of Gary, Robbie tries to irritate him. Soon they quarrel over whether Mark loves Gary or not. In the meantime, Lulu‘s only effort is to protect the ready meals. Gary explains that actually Mark is not his type as he is too soft. As he talks about the firm guy he is imagining, Robbie interrupts him: I think we all need stories, we make up stories so that we can get by. And I think a long time ago there were big stories. Stories so big you could live your whole life in them. The Powerful Hands of the Gods and Fate. The Journey to Enlightenments. The March of Socialism. But they all died ... we‘re all making up our own stories. Little stories. It comes out in different ways. But we‘ve each got one. (Ravenhill, Shopping 66) Now, all the stories narrated so far in the play find a meaning by the intertextual reference of Robbie to François Lyotard‘s thoughts on the idea of postmodernity. As David Lane clarifies: In 1979 the postmodern philosopher François Lyotard articulated in The Postmodern Condition the inadequacies of such grand narratives as religion, the The Oscillation Between Dramatic and Postdramatic Theatre 95 Enlightenment and a knowable history; ... Our thirst for story is now quenched through the day-to-day narratisation of life through the media, television, film and a technological world that offers audiences the ability to narrate, engage and even live their own virtual performances. (2010: 9-10) Robbie will be quick to make up their stories and thus enhance a more virtual reality. He offers Gary to play a game for which he will pay. When Gary changes his mind and retreats from playing, the four begin playing the game of ―truth or dare‖. The first question goes to Mark from Lulu: ―Who is the most famous person you‘ve ever f***ed? ‖ (Ravenhill, Shopping 69). He starts narrating the story: It was about 1984 or 85. Mark is in Tramps or Annabel‘s; he does not remember the place exactly. He goes to the toilet where he sees a woman, in a police uniform, watching him. While he is telling the story, he is careful about attracting the attention of his listeners; therefore he tries hard to conceal the name of the woman until the end to keep the others‘ curiosity. After telling all the details of this sexual intercourse in the toilet, at the end it is revealed that the woman is Fergie, the American singer and actress. Following this account, the turn is Gary‘s. He is going to tell the story, the pictures ―in his head‖ and Robbie assures him that he will help him. As Robbie verbalizes the story in Gary‘s head, it becomes exactly the same shopping story of the trio; Mark, Robbie and Lulu. Just like Lulu and Robbie who have been sold, it is being imagined that Gary is being sold from the fat man to Lulu and Robbie. Thus, we hear the same story for the second time in the play. However, when they arrive home, Gary, according to the story, is blindfolded. Although Mark tries to stop this game, Gary fervently rejects the idea. His trousers are pulled down by Robbie. Then, the hardcore sexual intercourse is initiated. First, Gary is seen to spit on his hand. ―Slowly he works the spit up Gary‘s arse … Robbie unzips his fly. Works spit on his penis. He penetrates. … He starts to f*** him. … Robbie pulls away. Mark goes through the same routine‖ (Ravenhill, Shopping 83). Mark soon hits Gary repeatedly because Gary wants Mark to pretend that he is his father, which Mark rejects. Robbie continues the attempts while Gary tells that his stepdad has always used knife instead of his penis. Although even Robbie tries to disagree with this violent offer, Gary is determined to finish this game: ―When someone‘s paying, someone wants something and they‘re paying, then you do it. Nothing right. Nothing wrong. It‘s a deal. So then you do it. I thought you were for real. Pretending, isn‘t it? Just a story‖ (Ravenhill, Shopping 85). Mark requests Robbie and Lulu to leave them alone. When they exit, Gary begs Mark to finish what he desperately needs, sex by knife: ―I‘m sick and I‘m never going to be well. … He‘s got no face in the story. But I want to put a face to him. Your face. … Do it and I‘ll say ‗I love you‘‖ (Ravenhill, Shopping 85). Gary‘s desperate desire for this experience undoubtedly reflects his quest for reality since ―in an age in which reality tends to become more and more virtual, Sibel İzmir 96 young people try to recover ‗reality‘, above all the ‗reality‘ of the body, by extreme forms of sex, violence and self-harm‖ (Broich 207). The scene ends with the implications that Mark has accepted the offer and taken the risk of killing Gary who already has anal bleeding. As Ulrich Broich puts forth: ―Apparently he is given this experience after the end of this scene, and we must assume that he dies from it - death as the ultimate experience of one‘s own body, of reality. (Fortunately, this was not shown on stage.)‖ (2001: 218). Actually, Gary‘s story is thus left open to interpretation since ―the play does not reveal its conclusion. The gap in dramatic action exposes an awkward desire for traditional resolution but an inability to represent such closure‖ (Kritzer 2008: 43). When this scene is considered from the viewpoint of the audience and its reaction, one should remember that, this play, as an example of ―experiential‖ theatre, offers a sort of live experience, in which ―anything can happen. The paradox is that while the audience is watching in perfect safety, it feels as if it is in danger‖ (Sierz 2003: 19). It is definitely the paradoxically presented body of Gary which offers a staging that goes beyond the limitations of dramatic theatre, reminding us of Lehmann‘s claim that ―The dramatic process occurred between the bodies; the postdramatic process occurs with/ on/ to the body‖ (2006: 163, original emphasis). 6. Conclusion Dramatically speaking, the play is a manifestation of Ravenhill‘s talent to create a tension and resolve it. As Caridad Svich very well summarizes: Ravenhill‘s skill in creating moments of dramatic tension and sustaining them for long periods of time is admirable … Each scene effectively ‗tops‘ the other, as we see: a) Lulu undress to get her job; b) Robbie drop his trousers to get Mark‘s attention; c) Mark lick Gary‘s ass only to find blood on his mouth; d) Lulu blood-stained from witnessing a violent drug-store burglary, Robbie bruised and bleeding from a club altercation; e) Robbie attacks Gary only to have Mark attack him, etc. … Shopping and F***ing places the audience as voyeur to the outré actions presented in the piece. In an intimate space, there is no question as to the power of the graphic nature of the physical interactions presented by Ravenhill on stage. (2003: 83) In this respect, when the plot of Shopping and F***ing is taken into consideration, Ravenhill has a traditional style though with fragmentary narrations. The play has a climax towards the very end (the scene when Gary is blindfolded) and each scene, though disconnected, has their own climax, which are brought together and resolved at the end. Although this is not the plot structure Aristotle advocates for, it still belongs to dramatic theatre. The questions that must be asked at this point are: How The Oscillation Between Dramatic and Postdramatic Theatre 97 does Ravenhill succeed in portraying this postmodern world with a plot structure that contains a climax and resolution? Why does Ravenhill write in traditional style while he is exploiting the boundaries of content? Can it be claimed that the form and content of Shopping and F***ing have an ambivalent relationship? All these questions have their answers when replied in terms of the aesthetics and rubric of postdramatic theatre. It is true that Shopping and F***ing has a well-structured plot, definable characters, structured time and space as well as understandable dialogues and monologues, all of which characterize dramatic theatre. However, the play certainly problematizes such major points as its potential to render mimesis possible, the blurred boundaries between fact and fiction, text‘s place/ validity in the theatrical production and the ―attack‖ on the spectator. David Lane‘s ideas on the place of text in contemporary theatre indicate a similarity with the theatre of Ravenhill: Even across many diverse European forms of theatre, the use of paradigmatic dramatic features such as plot, imitative action, characters facing dilemmas and the resolution of conflicts to reach some sort of goal or super-objective has persisted. These elements remain present even in theatre that has moved increasingly away from a text-based culture; German academic Hans-Thies Lehmann‘s influential study Postdramatic Theatre … finds evidence of theatre‘s literary legacy even through ‗new‘ forms of theatre which have rejected text as the dominant mode of discourse. (2010: 8) In conclusion, in Shopping and F***ing, Ravenhill does employ strategies which give him the opportunity to enrich his theatrical ―space‖ as a playwright. While he is fully interested in plot structure and characterization, the play, nevertheless, seems to be lacking ―a naturalistic plot and well-rounded characters, but its strength is density of metaphor and theatrical flair‖ (Sierz 2001: 130). The play is also marked by a juxtapositional approach to fact and illusion, de-hierarchal setting, sexual and violent scenes which problematize mimetic representation. 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London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Sibel İzmir English Language and Literature Atılım University
