Martin Crimp
Encyclopedia
Martin Andrew Crimp is a British playwright.
Sometimes described as a practitioner of the "in-yer-face
" school of contemporary British drama, Crimp though rejects the label. He is notable for the astringency of his dialogue, a tone of emotional detachment, a bleak view of human relationships – none of his characters experience love or joy – and latterly, a concern for theatrical form and language rather than an interest in narrative.
signalling engineer, and his wife Jennie, Crimp's family moved in 1960 to Streatham
where he attended a local primary school before winning a scholarship to Dulwich College
. But when his father was transferred to York, he went to the nearby Pocklington School
, where he showed an aptitude for languages, music, English literature and theatre. He read English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge
1975–78, where his first play Clang was staged by fellow student Roger Michell
. Before establishing himself as a playwright, he put together An Anatomy, a collection of short stories, and also wrote a novel Still Early Days.
His first six plays were performed at the Orange Tree Theatre
in Richmond. As he told Marsha Hanlon in an interview for the Orange Tree appeal brochure in 1991: "When the Orange Tree ran a workshop for local writers [in September 1981], I was invited to take part, The carrot was the chance of a lunchtime production, so I wrote Living Remains and the Orange Tree staged it — my first-ever produced play! I was so excited that I didn't think about the space where it was performed [then a room above a pub], but now I realise that the Orange Tree's intimacy and simplicity provided an extra layer of excitement."
Seven of his plays, and his second Ionesco
translation have also been presented at the Royal Court Theatre
, London, where he became writer-in-residence in 1997. His plays are now frequently performed in Europe. He has also been an assiduous translator of European texts.
Possibly his most highly-regarded, and certainly his boldest and most innovative play is Attempts on Her Life, first performed at the Royal Court in 1997 and subsequently translated into twenty languages.
In this work, none of the lines are assigned to a particular character, nor does Crimp specify how many actors should perform the piece. In seventeen apparently disconnected scenes, groups of people give mutually contradictory descriptions of an absent protagonist, a woman talked of as if she were, variously, a terrorist, the daughter of grieving parents, an artist and a new car. This deliberately fragmented work challenges an audience to re-define its notion of what constitutes a "play" and might seem to question whether someone has any existence beyond the models we construct.
Martin Crimp's career is examined in the Reputations strand on TheatreVoice.
Sometimes described as a practitioner of the "in-yer-face
In-yer-face theatre
In-yer-face theatre describes drama that emerged in Great Britain in the 1990s. This category coined by British theatre critic Aleks Sierz is the title of his book, In-Yer-Face Theatre, first published by Faber and Faber in March 2001...
" school of contemporary British drama, Crimp though rejects the label. He is notable for the astringency of his dialogue, a tone of emotional detachment, a bleak view of human relationships – none of his characters experience love or joy – and latterly, a concern for theatrical form and language rather than an interest in narrative.
Career
The son of John Crimp, a British RailBritish Rail
British Railways , which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was the operator of most of the rail transport in Great Britain between 1948 and 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the "Big Four" British railway companies and lasted until the gradual privatisation of British Rail, in stages...
signalling engineer, and his wife Jennie, Crimp's family moved in 1960 to Streatham
Streatham
Streatham is a district in Surrey, England, located in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-History:...
where he attended a local primary school before winning a scholarship to Dulwich College
Dulwich College
Dulwich College is an independent school for boys in Dulwich, southeast London, England. The college was founded in 1619 by Edward Alleyn, a successful Elizabethan actor, with the original purpose of educating 12 poor scholars as the foundation of "God's Gift". It currently has about 1,600 boys,...
. But when his father was transferred to York, he went to the nearby Pocklington School
Pocklington School
Pocklington School, is an independent school in Pocklington, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1514 by John Dolman. The school is situated in of land, on the outskirts of a small market town, from York and from Hull. It is an Anglican foundation and Friday morning church is...
, where he showed an aptitude for languages, music, English literature and theatre. He read English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge
St Catharine's College, Cambridge
St. Catharine’s College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1473, the college is often referred to informally by the nickname "Catz".-History:...
1975–78, where his first play Clang was staged by fellow student Roger Michell
Roger Michell
Roger Michell is an English theatre, television and film director.-Personal life:He was born in Pretoria, South Africa but spent significant parts of his childhood in Beirut, Damascus and Prague as his father was a diplomat. He was educated at Clifton College where he became a member of Brown's...
. Before establishing himself as a playwright, he put together An Anatomy, a collection of short stories, and also wrote a novel Still Early Days.
His first six plays were performed at the Orange Tree Theatre
Orange Tree Theatre
The Orange Tree Theatre is a 172-seat theatre at 1 Clarence Street, Richmond in south west London, built specifically as a theatre in the round....
in Richmond. As he told Marsha Hanlon in an interview for the Orange Tree appeal brochure in 1991: "When the Orange Tree ran a workshop for local writers [in September 1981], I was invited to take part, The carrot was the chance of a lunchtime production, so I wrote Living Remains and the Orange Tree staged it — my first-ever produced play! I was so excited that I didn't think about the space where it was performed [then a room above a pub], but now I realise that the Orange Tree's intimacy and simplicity provided an extra layer of excitement."
Seven of his plays, and his second Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
translation have also been presented at the Royal Court Theatre
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
, London, where he became writer-in-residence in 1997. His plays are now frequently performed in Europe. He has also been an assiduous translator of European texts.
Possibly his most highly-regarded, and certainly his boldest and most innovative play is Attempts on Her Life, first performed at the Royal Court in 1997 and subsequently translated into twenty languages.
In this work, none of the lines are assigned to a particular character, nor does Crimp specify how many actors should perform the piece. In seventeen apparently disconnected scenes, groups of people give mutually contradictory descriptions of an absent protagonist, a woman talked of as if she were, variously, a terrorist, the daughter of grieving parents, an artist and a new car. This deliberately fragmented work challenges an audience to re-define its notion of what constitutes a "play" and might seem to question whether someone has any existence beyond the models we construct.
Martin Crimp's career is examined in the Reputations strand on TheatreVoice.
Plays
- Love Games (co-written with Howard Curtis, Orange Tree TheatreOrange Tree TheatreThe Orange Tree Theatre is a 172-seat theatre at 1 Clarence Street, Richmond in south west London, built specifically as a theatre in the round....
lunchtime, 9 April – 1 May 1982) - Living Remains (Orange Tree lunchtime, 9–25 July 1982)
- Four Attempted Acts (Orange Tree 1984)
- A Variety of Death-Defying Acts (Orange Tree 1985)
- Definitely the Bahamas, "a group of three plays for consecutive performance" also including A Kind of Arden and The Spanish Girls (Orange Tree 1987)
- Dealing with Clair (Orange Tree 1988)
- Play with Repeats (Orange Tree 1989)
- No One Sees the Video (Royal CourtRoyal Court TheatreThe Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
, Theatre Upstairs 1990) - Getting Attention (Royal Court, Theatre Upstairs 1991)
- The Treatment (Royal Court 1993)
- Attempts on Her Life (Royal Court 1997; National Theatre, Lyttelton, March 2007) http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/16235/attempts-on-her-life
- The Country (Royal Court 2000, revived at the Tabard TheatreTabard TheatreThe Tabard Theatre is an intimate, 80 seat theatre located in Chiswick in the London Borough of Hounslow. Close to Turnham Green Underground station, it is situated above the Tabard public house which was built in 1880 by the architect Norman Shaw for the Bedford Park Estate...
May 2008) http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/20855/the-country - Face to the Wall (Royal Court 2002)
- Cruel and Tender (Young Vic 2004) http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/2181
- Fewer Emergencies (Royal Court, Theatre Upstairs 2005) http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/feweremergencies-rev.htm
- The City (Royal Court, Jerwood Theatre Downstairs 2008) http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/20563/the-city
Translations
- The MisanthropeThe MisanthropeThe Misanthrope is the first EP from metal band Darkest Hour. It was released in 1996 on the defunct label Death Truck Records. It is much more hardcore orientated metalcore unlike their later releases.- Track listing :# "Vise" - 5:30...
(MolièreMolièreJean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
) (Young Vic 1996) - The Chairs (IonescoEugène IonescoEugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
) (Theatre Royal Bath 1997) - Roberto Zucco (Bernard-Marie Koltes) (RSC The Other Place, Stratford 1997)
- The MaidsThe MaidsThe Maids is a play by the French dramatist Jean Genet. It was first performed at the Théâtre de l'Athénée in Paris in a production that opened on 17 April 1947, which Louis Jouvet directed...
(GenetJean GenetJean Genet was a prominent and controversial French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing...
) (Young Vic 1999) - The Triumph of Love (Marivaux) (Almeida 1999)
- The False Servant (Marivaux) (National Theatre 2004)
- The SeagullThe SeagullThe Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...
(ChekhovAnton ChekhovAnton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
) (National Theatre 2006) - RhinocerosRhinoceros (play)Rhinoceros is a play by Eugène Ionesco, written in 1959. The play belongs to the school of drama known as the Theatre of the Absurd...
(Ionesco) (Royal Court 2007) - The Misanthrope (MolièreMolièreJean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
) (Comedy Theatre 2009) The Misanthrope - Pains of Youth (Ferdinand BrucknerFerdinand BrucknerFerdinand Bruckner was an Austrian-German writer and theater manager.-Life:...
) (National Theatre 2009) - Big and Small (Gross und klein by Botho StraußBotho StraußBotho Strauss is a German playwright, novelist and essayist.-Biography:Botho Strauss's father was a chemist. After finishing his secondary education, Strauss studied German, History of the Theatre and Sociology in Cologne and Munich, but never finished his dissertation on Thomas Mann und das Theater...
), a 2011 Sydney Theatre CompanySydney Theatre CompanyThe Sydney Theatre Company is one of Australia's best-known theatre companies operating from The Wharf Theatre near The Rocks area of Sydney, as well as the Sydney Theatre and the Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre....
production, co-commissioned by the Barbican CentreBarbican CentreThe Barbican Centre is the largest performing arts centre in Europe. Located in the City of London, England, the Centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions. It also houses a library, three restaurants, and a conservatory...
, London 2012 Festival, Théâtre de la VilleThéâtre de la VilleThe Théâtre de la Ville is one of the two theatres built in the 19th century by Baron Haussmann at Place du Châtelet, Paris; the other being the Théâtre du Châtelet...
, Paris, Vienna FestivalVienna FestivalThe Wiener Festwochen is a cultural festival in Vienna that takes place every year for five or six weeks in May and June.The Wiener Festwochen was established in 1951, when Vienna was still occupied by the four Allies...
and Ruhrfestspiele RecklinghausenRecklinghausenRecklinghausen is the northernmost city in the Ruhr-Area and the capital of the Recklinghausen district. It borders the rural Münsterland and is characterized by large fields and farms in the north and industry in the south...
; Cate BlanchettCate BlanchettCatherine Élise "Cate" Blanchett is an Australian actress. She came to international attention for her role as Elizabeth I of England in the 1998 biopic film Elizabeth, for which she won British Academy of Film and Television Arts and Golden Globe Awards, and earned her first Academy Award...
as Lotte.