Towards a Narrative Aesthetic? The Scarcity of Stage Directions as (Text-)Theatrical Challenge in Plays by Crimp, Ravenhill and Stephens

Subtitle:Eine narrative Ästhetik? Die Reduzierung des Nebentextes als (text-)theatrale Herausforderung bei Crimp, Ravenhill und Stephens

This article investigates the decrease of typographically identifiable stage directions in British drama since the 1990s. Taking the ongoing scholarly debate about the theatrical or literary status of stage directions as its point of departure, it explores and compares the shift from acting to storytelling that characterizes Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life (1997), Mark Ravenhill’s pool (no water) (2006) and Simon Stephens’s Pornography (2007). All three plays juxtapose mimetic minimalism with diegetic density. Their postdramatic ways of writing character cast actors as storytellers and point towards a narrative aesthetic. As well as the distinction between primary and secondary text, the plays also undermine dramatic conventions concerning plot in different ways that contribute to their postdramatic ›openness‹ and their deliberate appeal to creative intervention when reading or staging them.

Keywords:stage directions, narration in drama, performing stories, narrative aesthetic, postdramatic theatre, British Drama since the 1990s, Martin Crimp, Mark Ravenhill, Simon Stephens

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