The Contrasts Of The Pillowman Drama English Literature Essay

The Contrasts Of The Pillowman Drama English Literature EssayThe apology for the existence of late twentieth atomic number 6 drama cosmos single of majestic an consultation come forth of their complacency is quite a generalisation, header in mind that the ii productions in question were almost a 40 years apart. The interim period sure enough saw interpret productions with developing themes of violence, sex, drugs and rock n roll as with the latest cut down of In Yer Face champaign which are non only boxing in their cognitive content to a greater extentover as well fly in the aspect of common decency and political correctness.By the end of World War II in 1945, the world had suffered many years of aggression and the violence that goes with it. The lives of every wizard intricate were affected. It affected the way mountain lived, the way stack worked and even how planetary dwelling house crooks were written. Pinters The Homecoming (1963) and McDonaghs The Pillo wman (2003) provide an arena where hostility and aggression can no longer be ignored as a social issue. Whether or non there is good reason to say that late 20th vitamin C plain identify appear to purposefully shock references pop of their comfortable nests is debatable when one takes into account the relaxation of censorship in 1968 replaced by a form of self-censorship which gave individual playwrights the opportunity to express a to a greater extent realistic and dramatic antenna to everyday issues and concerns that had been festering off underneath societys complacency such as poverty, morality, family values etcetera in that respect was a progression of theatre productions rather than a rebellion against reliable standards. The content of plays may confound been shocking to auditions merely to some extent were not unexpected given the way the theatre productions and indeed the audiences were developing.Pre-war critics and theatre audiences had previously been apply to turn overing plays, which were mostly London based and provided a sense of occasion offering the upper and middle classes a run into to dress form tout ensembley and sit in splendid surroundings to see and be seen. The content of plays delivered an uncomplicated message whether educational or mirthful such as a Shakespearean comedy or J.M. Barries dick Pan, the main theme being one of entertainment rather than a thought provoking spectacle and many playwrights complied with this condition. This is not to say that no argumentative issues were placed in the theatrical arena, for example, George Bernard Shaw wrote a series of plays that amused and challenged his audiences with his Plays painful (1898) relating to prostitution and philandering. Shaw was an entertainer and viewed the theatre as a means to make people think and that it had a serious purpose rather than offering the audience a more radical approach to his undecided matter. His plays tended to show the acce pted attitude, and thus demolished that attitude while showing his own solutions. Shaw used familiar forms of melodrama, romance and history with unexpected twists, he shocked his audiences nevertheless in more of a surprising way as fence to a more emotionally disturbing, offensive or indecent approach.Eric Bentley verbalize If you wish to attract the audiences attention, be violent if you wish to hold it, be violent again.1This may be interpreted and approached in two ways, all physical violence or verbal violence as a means of not only shocking an audience with either the content of conversations or the stage actions provided also to keep their interest in what is going to happen next. A case of more of the same if the audience responds.As a reaction to World War II Absurdist theatre evolved, depicting the absurdity of the modern human state and related to a new genre of drama that could not be interpreted in a logical way. What do I know round mans mass? I could tell you more well-nigh radishes.2(Beckett). Absurdist theatre openly rebelled against conventional theatre. One of the most important aspects of absurd drama is its scepticism of phraseology as a means of communication. Dr. Culik explains that the Theatre of the Absurd tries to make people aware of the possibility of going beyond everyday speech conventions and communicating more authentically3. In Pinters The Homecoming and McDonaghs The Pillowman we are faced with two different dimensions of absurdist theatre in that, both playwrights have created milieus which are uncontrollable for audiences to come to terms with. In Pinters The Homecoming we have a climb within one room in a comfortable national household in which the use of crude language with violent undertones is at the forefront. The torrent of vulgar and repugnant language shocked audiences to the extent that it could not be rationalised. Hints of violence are demonstrated when Max tells the audience that he was once one of the toughest men in East London and that all men go awayd out of his way in the street. There is also the direct and brutal threat when Max says to his son Lenny Listen stricken chop your spine off if you talk to me like thatPinter exploits claustrophobic federal agency of everyday language in enclosed theatrical space. There is certainly a lack of harmony throughout the play based on the disjointed conversations, lack of continuity and the constant non- sensical verbiage, compounded by the unexpected, e.g. commiseration becoming a whore and Sam dropping dead etc. There is a disjunctive split between how the actors react to situations in the play and what the audience expect and perceive. Apart from the offensive language, for example, when Max refers to condolence in a derogatory way, Weve had a smelly scrubber in my house all night. Weve had a stinking pox-ridden slut in my house all night, one of the most disconcerting elements of the Homecoming to the audience would have be en the constant long pauses Pinter used thus raising the anxiety of the audience by not knowing what was coming next. One of the most referred to of Pinters comments on his own plays was made during a lecture to students in 1962,4concerning his stage worry trademark in the adoption of the two silences, the use of what became known as the Pinter Pause, when on the one hand, no actor is speaking and secondly, when there is a torrent of non-sensical abuse which has no relevance as to what has just been tell and is technically a pause in the proceedings until the return of the bailiwick of conversation.These silences proved perturbing and uncomfortable, even edgy to some audiences. The Homecoming appears to move from naturalism to absurdism, which is profoundly unsettling. Instead of finding a situation which emphasizes the power of the environment upon the characters we are drawn into a state where the characters existence becomes monstrous and meaningless. Whilst the circumstance s are naturalistic the dialogue is absurd, employing disjointed, repetitious, and meaningless dialogue, purposeless and misidentify situations and plots that lack realistic or logical development. This was not so overmuch a shocking concept but more of a bewildering set of circumstances designed to be thought provoking and perplexing to an audience.McDonaghs The Pillowman on the other hand provides theatre goers with a more subtle approach to absurdist theatre with the actual setting and circumstances being absurd and not necessarily the dialogue. The horrific stories within the play with their explicitly violent subject matter helped to push the boundaries of what was acceptable to a new level and more in the form of brutalist or In Yer Face5theatre as exemplified by Sarah Kanes in Blasted (1995) which exhibits abject horror and atrocities, for example Ian being raped, having his eyes bitten out and being compelled to consume a dead ball up as he starves, alone, in the dark., wa s shocking and seemed unreal, as Kieron Quirke of the Evening quantity said It moves beyond shock theatre to become a in good order reminder that people are capable of anything. I rate it, but I hope it never becomes heresy to dislike it.6The Daily charge denounced the play as this disgusting feast of filth, the Sunday Telegraph verbalise scathingly against its gratuitous welter of carnage7and the Spectator called it a niggardly little travesty of a play8.McDonagh, having been influenced by Pinter and indeed the celluloid director Quentin Tarantino presents a twisted psychological horror and dark interrogative of a storytellers (Katurian) hold over an audience by the use of on-stage communicatory to explore the power of the stories themselves to shock. The Pillowman is not just an apparent political play it is a play with the artist sacrificing his life in order to protect his art for the future. Artistic freedom was at the core of this play and the office that goes with i t. Set in an unknown totalitarian state, this was an opportunity for a playwright to decry the evil and unjust way that dictatorships subdued freedom of speech which we were anticipating however McDonagh turns this presumption on its head. Katurian is actually being interrogated by a couple of comical, brutal cops not because his stories are subversive to the totalitarian regime, but because they are almost entirely near the brutal torture and mangle of children.Kturins stories read like exact plans for some recent murders of children. Katurian is questioned about the gruesome subject matter of his short stories and their similarities to a number of contrasted child murders that have recently occurred. Kturins short stories are relentless and horrific eg. 101 ways to skewer 5-yer-old. Michael Billington, of the Guardian said in the end, you sense that McDonagh is playing with big issues to do with literatures power to outlast dictatorship rather than writing from any kind of e xperience.9Robert Isenberg commented that The Pillowman is a test of will, qualified only for the gutsiest theatregoer10.The Pillowman is more of discomforting experience, shocking in its content but one containing wonderfully dark humour almost akin to the sprite tales of our youth with lurid and fantastical themes, the Brothers Grimm springs to mind.The Pillowman is a very unsettling and thought-provoking play, a review in the Financial Times referred to the play as A complex tale about life and art, about fact and illusion, about politics, society, cruelty and creativity.11Whether or not McDonaghs intention was to set out to shock audiences rather than provide intriguing subjects for debate is open to conjecture.Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.12(BrechtWas the raison detre of late twentieth century drama to shock audiences out of their complacency? Did Pinters The Homecoming and McDonaghs The Pillowman set out to shock audiences? Or wa s the relaxation of censorship in 1968 to prove the gas for more adventurous playwrights to buck the system and take on the more established theatrical styles? Was the avant garde approach by Pinter in 1963 just a starter for things to come? Richard Drain remarked once again the actor stands out as the main transmitter of the invigorating shock. But what must we do to make this shock effective, to help the actor transmit to the audience?13The stake on Sunday referred to The Pillowman as an extraordinary play, Kafkaesque, Pinteresque, but more then anything absolutely McDonaghesque14It would appear that anything unusual, out of the ordinary or quirky in its theatrical content obtained a name associated with the playwright. McDonagh even parodied this in The Pillowman when one of the interrogators paraphrases one of Kturins stories to him, to which the writer replies, Thats a good story. Thats something-esque. What kind of esque is it? I cant remember. I dont really go in for that e sque sort of lunge anyway, but theres nothing wrong with the story. I believe that rather than nerve-racking to shock people out of their complacent sense of security about how the world and other people work that late 20th Century drama was more of an evolution than a revolution. As aptly ready by Brian Cliff. Grotesque excess reduces shock value.152,087 words