When is a Play not a Drama? Two Examples of Postdramatic Theatre Texts

Abstract

In this article David Barnett investigates the ways in which plays can be considered ‘postdramatic’. Opening with an exploration of this new paradigm, he then seeks to examine two plays, Attempts on her Life by Martin Crimp and 4:48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane, in a bid to understand how their texts frustrate representation and the structuring of time, and concludes by considering how the restrictions imposed upon the postdramatic performance differ from the interpretive freedom of text in representational, dramatic theatre. David Barnett is senior lecturer and Head of Drama at the University of Sussex. He has published monographs on Heiner Müller (1998) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder (2005), the latter as Research Fellow of the Humboldt Foundation, Germany. He has also published articles on contemporary German, English-language, political, and postdramatic theatre.