Attempts on Her Life
EN302: European Theatre
European Theatre
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Hans-Thies Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre:
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‘For centuries a paradigm has dominated European theatre that clearly
distinguishes it from non-European theatre traditions. For example,
Indian Kathakali or Japanese Noh theatre are structured completely
differently and consist essentially of dance, chorus and music, highly
stylized ceremonial procedures, narrative and lyric texts, while theatre in
Europe amounted to the representation, the ‘making present’ of speeches
and deeds on stage through mimetic dramatic play. Bertolt Brecht chose
the term ‘dramatic theatre’ to designate the tradition that his epic ‘theatre
of the scientific age’ intended to put an end to. In a more comprehensive
sense (and also including the majority of Brecht’s own work), however,
this term can be used to designate the core of European theatre tradition
in modern times. (2006: 21)
Plot
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Aristotle’s hamartia, anagnorisis, and peripeteia
Aristotle described structure as the ‘most important of
all’ dramatic elements:
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‘A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by
causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or
comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is that which itself
naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity, or as a
rule, but has nothing following it. A middle is that which
follows something as some other thing follows it. A well
constructed plot, therefore, must neither begin nor end at
haphazard, but conform to these principles.’
Importance of causality (Oresteia, Miss Julie, Galileo)
Recognition
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‘Playwright’ was synonymous with ‘teacher’ in Ancient Greek.
Pursuit of ‘truth’ in Oedipus:
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‘Seeing’ and Teiresias
Moral of Tartuffe:
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‘light’ (p. 187), ‘stubborn’ (p. 188), ‘terror’ (p. 196), ‘both parent and
murderer’ (p. 201), ‘no comfort’ (p. 202)
‘Learn to distinguish between virtue, / Real and feigned.’ (p. 72)
Catharsis:
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‘…the bringing about of affective recognition and solidarity by means of
the drama and the affects represented and transmitted to the audience
within its frame’ (Lehmann 2006: 21).
Imitation
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Mimesis contrasted with diegesis in classical thought
Central to the project of Naturalism
Role of symbolism (Hedda Gabler, Spring Awakening,
Yerma)
Both Zola and Brecht proposed a ‘theatre for the
scientific age’ – what did this mean in each case?
Impact of photography? Film? TV? Internet?
Conflict
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Agon / thesis and antithesis:
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Antigone and Creon are forced to choose between family and
state.
Pentheus must choose between order and chaos: ‘When I
come out, I’ll either be fighting, or I’ll put myself in your
hands.’ (p. 405)
Phèdre is torn between passion and reason. Her mother and
father symbolise two different drives: sexuality and moral
judgement. ‘Reason reigns no longer over me… I have lost
my self-dominion’ (p. 180-1).
Melchior is offered an ambiguous choice at the end of Spring
Awakening; in choosing the Masked Man, perhaps he makes
the opposite choice to the ones made by the protagonists at
the ends of both Hedda Gabler and Yerma.
Unseen forces
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Do dramatic characters have agency, or are they driven
by unseen forces?
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Conflict between gods in classical tragedy;
Revenge / classical gods / Christian God in The Spanish
Tragedy;
God-as-audience and power of prophecy vs. freedom to
‘overcome the stars’ (p. 36) in Life Is A Dream;
Gods and guilt in Phèdre:
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‘Heaven lit in my heart an ill-omened fire’ (p. 213);
‘I know my baseness, and do not belong / To those bold wretches
who with brazen front / Can revel in their crimes unblushingly.’ (p.
184).
Determinism and entrapment: society, heredity, physiology
and psychology in Naturalism and beyond.
Rejections of ‘dramatic theatre’
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Brecht:
We ask you expressly to discover
That what happens all the time is not natural.
For to say that something is natural
In such times of bloody confusion
Of ordained disorder, of systematic arbitrariness
Of inhuman humanity is to
Regard it as unchangeable. (The Exception and the Rule, p. 37)
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‘For art to be “un-political” means only to ally itself
with the “ruling” group.’ (Brecht on Theatre, p. 196).
Rejections of ‘dramatic theatre’
HAMM: We’re not beginning to… to… mean something?
CLOV: Mean something! You and I, mean something!
(Brief laugh.)
Ah that’s a good one!
HAMM: I wonder.
(Pause.)
Imagine if a rational being came back to earth, wouldn’t he be
liable to get ideas into his head if he observed us long
enough.
(Voice of rational being.) Ah, good, now I see what it is, yes, now
I understand what they’re at! (Beckett, p. 108)
Rejections of ‘dramatic theatre’
SKRIKER. … May day, she cries, may pole axed me to
help her. So I spin the sheaves shoves shivers into
golden guild and geld and if she can’t guessing game
and safety match my name then I’ll take her no miss no
me no. Is it William Gwylliam Guillaume? Is it John
Jack the ladder in your stocking is it Joke? Is it
Alexander Sandro Andrew Drewsteignton?
Mephistopheles Toffeenose Tiffany’s Timpany
Timothy Mossycoat? No ’t ain’t, says I, no tainted meat
me after the show me what you’ve got. (Churchill, p. 9)
Rejections of ‘dramatic theatre’
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Mary Luckhurst:
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‘Attempts on her Life … matches Beckett in its interrogation of
theatre as a practice, and drives Brechtian concepts of
alienation to an extreme.’ (2003: 59)
Interestingly, Martin Crimp once named Caryl Churchill
as his favourite living playwright – in part, for her
recognition of the ‘playfulness of play’ (‘The
Playwright’s Playwright, Guardian, 21 September 1998).
Post-structuralism
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Whereas the Structuralist understanding of the relationship
between signifier and signified is something like this:
“COFFEE”
Signified
Signifier
Post-structuralism
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…the Post-structuralist understanding is more like this:
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
“COFFEE”
Signifier
Other
signifiers
Other
Jacques DerridaOthercalled
signifiers
signifiers this the “supplementary”
nature of
Other
language: each sign depends
for its
signifiers
Other
existence on its place in a system
signifiers
Other
of other signs; each sign
therefore
signifiers
Otherbears traces of all the other
Other
signifiers
signifierssigns within that system.
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
Other
signifiers
Post-structuralism
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Derrida, Of Grammatology, 1967:
“From the moment that there is meaning there are
nothing but signs. We think only in signs.”
 “There is nothing outside the text.”
 (Of course, Derrida did not write this at all: he wrote
“Il n’y a pas de hors-texte.”)
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Readerly and writerly texts
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Roland Barthes argued that if cultural signs are always
ideologically ‘contaminated’, then the most interesting
and radical cultural texts are likely to draw attention to
their own sign-systems, rather than take them for
granted.
Barthes’s favourite texts are more interested in
signifiers than signifieds:
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A ‘readerly’ text is ‘like a cupboard where meanings are
shelved, stacked, safeguarded’ (1974: 200-1);
A ‘writerly’ text will encourage its reader to become an active
participant in the creation of its meaning – ‘no longer a
consumer, but a producer of the text’ (1974: 4).
Martin Crimp (1956-)
1956: Born in Dartford, Kent.
1975-8: Read English at St. Catherine’s College, Cambridge.
1978: Moved to London, where he worked (among other jobs) in market
research.
1981: Joined writers group at Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond.
1983: Living Remains (a Beckett-inspired piece about a woman trapped in a
cubicle).
1988: Became writer-in-residence at the Orange Tree.
1990: No One Sees the Video staged at the Royal Court Theatre (‘a post-consumer
play’ about market research and ‘the equation of consumption with
happiness’).
1993: The Treatment staged at the Royal Court (a play about a woman called Anne
whose story is exploited by two film executives). Wins John Whiting Award.
1997: Attempts on Her Life staged at the Royal Court…
Crimp’s mistrust of narrative
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“Whatever I say to you,” he tells me, nervously trawling his
fingers through his hair, “you will go away and make a shape
from it. That shape will be definitive in the way that the
relationship between you and I can never be. […] You will
undertake a shaping process … in which I as a person will be
misrepresented. It’s inevitable.” (O’Mahony 1993)
Crimp described his earlier play The Treatment as being
about ‘what art has to do to life to make a shape out of
it’ (Clapp 1997).
‘Attempts on Her Life’: Suicide? Assassination?
Narration?
Narrative in Attempts on Her Life
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Unseen forces in Attempts on Her Life?
David Edgar:
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‘Crimp’s purpose is not only to question whether we
can truly know another human being, but whether
we can regard other people as existing at all
independent of the models we construct of them.
And he does this not by a bald statement, but by
playing an elaborate and sophisticated game with the
audience’s expectations of how scenes connect
within a narrative.’ (1999: 31)
Narrative in Attempts on Her Life
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Crimp shows narratives in the process of being
constructed (often collaboratively):
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The second answerphone message shows a fictional narrative
being invented (we later hear the full narrative in scenario 3,
and perhaps its continuation in scenario 12)
Scenarios 2 and 3 depict what sound like film executives
inventing narratives; scenario 6 (‘Mum and Dad’) uses similar
language
Scenario 15, ‘The Statement’, explores anxieties over legal
narratives: ‘Well, don’t you consider it accurate?’ (p. 268)
Narrative in Attempts on Her Life
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Often, the play’s narratives unravel and deconstruct
themselves:
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Anne’s lover treats her face like both a ‘precious chalice’ and
a ‘rugby football’ (p. 213)
After an in-depth description of her ashtray, a narrator adds
the following information almost as an afterthought:
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‘…she speaks five languages and with the aid of the new CERN
accelerator in Geneva she has discovered a new elementary particle
which will bear her name and completely change the way we look at
the universe.’ (p. 240)
Scenario 13 narrates Annie as a conduit for an alien invasion.
Narrative in Attempts on Her Life
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Scenario 10, ‘Kinda Funny’ is a monologue.
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It is the most conventional narrative in the play for
this reason, but it deconstructs itself through its
internal incongruity: after constructing a narrative of
optimistic self-determination (the American dream?)
it reveals Annie as a fascist.
Scenario 12, ‘Strangely!’, continues scenario 3.
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It is a much more overtly deconstructed narrative,
using strategies similar to Churchill.
Anne’s inconsistency
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Her name
Her age
‘…all the things that Anne can be’ (p. 223)
‘She’s a pornographic movie star / A killer and a brand
of car’ (p. 263)
Scenario 9, ‘The Threat of International Terrorism™’,
gives us a refrain:
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‘Is this really the same little Anne…?’
Once again, Anne becomes ludicrously inconsistent (p. 244).
‘Tragedy’ in Attempts on Her Life
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Scenario 2 is titled ‘Tragedy of Love and Ideology’:
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The word ‘naturally’ recurs throughout (compare Brecht)
The young woman’s lack of control is fetishised by the writers of the
imagined screenplay.
Scenario 3, ‘Faith in Ourselves’, narrates a woman who ‘breaks
down and scratches her cheeks like something from an ancient
tragedy’ (p. 218):
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This description is then disputed by another co-narrator, who wants
something much less classical (but no less artificial).
‘So it’s a universal thing obviously.’ (p. 219)
According to one speaker, this horrific story ‘strangely restores – I think it
does – yes – our faith in ourselves.’ (p. 220)
‘Tragedy’ in Attempts on Her Life
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Luckhurst compares scenario 16 (‘Pornó’) with Ibsen, esepcially
in relation to Crimp’s use of ‘passionate gypsy violin music’ (p. 274):
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‘The music acts as an ironic counterpoint to the horror that ‘Anne’ must
suppress and to her apparent breakdown, the voices of the oppressors
uniting to drown her out with a repellently euphoric construction of her
as a woman with all-powerful, divinely redemptive qualities…. Crimp may
be borrowing from Ibsen’s use of musical irony in Nora’s tarantella scene
and Hedda’s wild piano playing moments before her suicide, but whereas
Ibsen’s musical notation indicates a space for rebellion and sexual
liberation, (though occupied in desperation and strictly regulated) ‘Anne’
is not permitted even a brief transgressive moment. Unlike Nora and
Hedda ‘Anne’ is not allowed agency.’ (2003: 59)
Postdramatic theatre
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The absence of dramatic characters means there is no ‘agon’ in
the traditional sense – but we do hear conflict in the
simultaneous construction of competing narratives.
The absence of plot allows Crimp to avoid making any assertions
about causality (though he certainly plays with ideas about what
has ‘caused’ Anne’s reported actions).
Though the play is not structured according to Aristotelian
principles, there is still a distinct shape to it, as Aleks Sierz
observes:
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‘Above all, the play’s daring form is symmetrical: two scenarios, both
played in a foreign language with a translation, occur near the beginning
and the end of the play; and there are two rhymed scenes, ‘The Camera
Loves You’ and ‘Girl Next Door’. Two scenarios, ‘Faith in Ourselves’ and
‘Strangely!’ are episodes from the same story.’ (2006: 50)
The media and the hyperreal
The media and the hyperreal
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The play’s epigraph is from postmodernist
philosopher Jean Baudrillard:
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‘No one will have directly experienced the actual
cause of such happenings, but everyone will have
received an image of them.’ (p. 198)
Baudrillard: ‘The real is not only what can be
reproduced, but that which is already always
reproduced: The hyperreal’. (1992: 186)
The media and the hyperreal
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Anne is constantly ‘mediated’: through answerphone messages,
photographs, video, screenplays, a TV advertisement, an art
installation.
The most dominant voices in the play are those of spin doctors,
advertisers and film executives: one scenario is explicitly a
screenplay (‘Later. Night. … Dialogue.’), another a commercial
for a car.
The play explores the role of empathy in an age when so many
narratives either advertise commercial products, or are products
themselves:
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‘We need to empathise / We need to advertise’ (p. 223)
‘…why can’t she be more attractive? Why can’t she be more sympathetic?’
(p. 259)
The media and the hyperreal
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As Baudrillard has suggested, this has
implications for the construction of ‘reality’
itself:
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‘“I feel like a screen.” … “Like a TV screen,” she
says, “where everything from the front looks real
and alive, but round the back there’s just dust and a
few wires.” … She says she’s not a real character,
not a real character like you get in a book or on TV,
but a lack of character, an absence she calls it, doesn’t
she, of character.’ (p. 229)
Meta-critique?
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What is the play’s attitude towards ‘truth’?
Scenario 11, ‘Untitled (100 Words)’, is often
misinterpreted as Crimp’s explanation of how to read
his play:
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‘With respect to you I think she’d find the whole concept of
‘making a point’ ludicrously outmoded. If any point is being
made at all it’s surely the point that the point that’s being made
is not the point and never has in fact been the point. It’s surely
the point that the search for a point is pointless and that the
whole point of the exercise – i.e. these attempts on her own
life – points to that.’ (p. 250-1)
Meta-critique?
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The scenario is, surely, a parody:
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The words used to describe the ‘landmark work’ are empty
clichés: ‘It’s moving. It’s timely. It’s distressing. It’s funny. It’s
sick. It’s sexy. It’s deeply serious. It’s entertaining. It’s
illuminating. It’s dark. It’s highly personal and at the same
time raises vital questions about the world we’re living in.’ (p.
250)
When one of the critics asserts that ‘what we see here is the
work of a girl who quite clearly should’ve been admitted not
to an art school but to a psychiatric unit’ (p. 251-2), Crimp is
alluding fairly directly to Charles Spencer’s review of Sarah
Kane’s Phaedra’s Love: ‘It’s not a theatre critic that’s required
here, it’s a psychiatrist.’ (Daily Telegraph, 21 May 1996).
Meta-critique?
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Are we meant to agree on the critic’s definition of our
own context?
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‘… the context of a post-radical, of a post-human world where
the gestures of radicalism take on new meaning in a society
where the radical gesture is simply one more form of
entertainment i.e. one more product – in this case an artwork
– to be consumed.’ (p. 256)
Paul Taylor seemed to think so, asking: ‘Is it, for all its
extraordinary flights of eloquent writing, a play that is just
cleverly knowing and darkly comic about its own ingenious
futility?’ (Independent, 14 March 1997)
Compare Beckett?
Meta-critique?
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Crimp, argues Heiner Zimmermann, is ‘aware of
the fact that he is part of the culture he satirises’:
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‘His critique does not arrogate a stance of moral
superiority or superior insight. … In short, it
exposes the perversion of current discourses while
openly admitting that it has no alternatives to offer.’
(2003: 84)
Crimp has indeed described himself as ‘antiideological’ (Clapp 1997).
Meta-critique?
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Crimp’s prose piece ‘Four Unwelcome
Thoughts’ suggests something a little more
complex:
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‘The writer… begins to make a mental list of what is
now impossible: the painted portrait (obviously), the
well-made play (hilarious), the radical (oh really?)
gesture, political engagement (ha ha ha!). The more
examples of impossibility and failure he comes up
with, the happier he is.’ (2005: x)
References
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Barthes, R. (1974) S/Z: An Essay, trans. Richard Miller, New York: Hill &
Wang.
Baudrillard, Jean (1992) ‘Simulations’, trans. Paul Beitchman, in Patricia
Waugh, Postmodernism, London: Edward Arnold.
Clapp, Susannah (1997) ‘No plot, no characters, no rules: Martin Crimp takes
the play apart’, New Statesman, 21 March.
Crimp, Martin (2005) Plays 2, London: Faber & Faber.
Edgar, David (1999) State of Play: Playwrights on Playwriting, London: Faber &
Faber.
Lehmann, Hans-Thies (2006) Postdramatic Theatre, Abingdon: Routledge.
Luckhurst, Mary (2003) ‘Political Point-Scoring: Martin Crimp’s Attempts on
her Life’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 13:1, 47-60.
O’Mahony, John (1993) ‘Writers’ Crimp’, Guardian, 20 April.
Sierz, Aleks (2006) The Theatre of Martin Crimp, London: A & C Black.
Zimmermann, Heiner (2003) ‘Images of Woman in Martin Crimp’s Attempts
On Her Life’, European Journal of English Studies, 7:1, 69-85.