Exploring “Crimpland”: “A Play is a Game. At the End of Each Dialogue There is a Winner and a Loser”

• Main Author: Dilek İNAN
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: Ankara University 2017-01-01
• Series: Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi
• Subjects: Çağdaş İngiliz Tiyatrosu; Martin Crimp; Kır Hayatı; Oyun; Oyun Teorisi
• Online Access: http://dtcfdergisi.ankara.edu.tr/index.php/dtcf/article/view/673

This paper intends to interpret Martin Crimp’s theatrical territory whose characters consist of lonely and mysterious occupants trapped together in the British suburbs. Crimp has written innovative plays in which he explores a symbolic and absurdist landscape of cruel personal relationships and psychological disorders. He employs various theatrical possibilities where incidents are reflected and refracted through multiple perspectives. The diversity of form and styles he employs in his plays makes Crimp one of the most innovative and original playwrights of new writing in Britain. He has structured The Country (2000) in the form of the children’s game of rock-paper-scissors in order to highlight the power games among adults; hence empowering his innovative style once more. The play’s five scenes unfold the plot through a series of evasive stories that consist of shapeless dialogues, hesitations, interruptions and repetitions. The Country exemplifies domestic space in which modern marriages have become prisons. The contrasts in suburban life and the unknowability of the other are depicted through a game of question and negation, and tricks of language which will be evaluated by the vocabulary of Game Theory.