Reality and Postmodernism in the Plays of Mark Ravenhill

• Název práce v češtině: Realita a postmodernismus ve hrách Marka Ravenhilla
• Název v anglickém jazyce: Reality and Postmodernism in the Plays of Mark Ravenhill
• Klíčová slova: Ravenhill|realita|postmodernismus|drama|simulace|identita|vyprávění|společnost
• Klíčová slova anglicky: Ravenhill|reality|postmodernism|drama|simulation|identity|storytelling|society
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2017/2018
• Typ práce: diplomová práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Ústav anglofonních literatur a kultur (21-UALK)
• Vedoucí / školitel: doc. Clare Wallace, M.A., Ph.D.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno a potvrzeno stud. odd.
• Datum přihlášení: 18.06.2018
• Datum zadání: 18.06.2018
• Schválení administrátorem: zatím neschvalováno
• Datum potvrzení stud. oddělením: 21.06.2018
• Datum a čas obhajoby: 10.09.2019 00:00
• Datum odevzdání elektronické podoby: 08.07.2019
• Datum proběhlé obhajoby: 10.09.2019
• Odevzdaná/finalizovaná: odevzdaná studentem a finalizovaná
• Oponenti: prof. Mgr. Ondřej Pilný, Ph.D.

Zásady pro vypracování

Throughout Mark Ravenhill’s work there is a perceivable tendency to explore the characters’ attitude to reality and generally to complicate the distinction between the real and the unreal. His characters are sometimes unable to get a good grip on reality, they are threatened with doubt and are forced to question all they know and remember, as it is being blurred in the postmodern flux Ravenhill scrutinizes. While most of Ravenhill’s plays are formally rather conservative, he often employs postmodern experimentation with reality as one of his themes. The characters sometimes fight the indistinctiveness of their realities, at other times they are seduced by it. Some plays (e.g. Ghost Story, The Experiment, Product, Mother Clap’s Molly House) focus on the artistic reality produced by storytelling, narrating and acting. They show the imaginary worlds the characters create and analyse the motives and approaches of the characters, as well as their inability to navigate these worlds. The uncertainty with reality, and the artistic games Ravenhill plays with it culminate in Pool (No Water), which is even marked formally by the experimentation, since the play is a blur of characters/narrators that are collectively attempting to recreate reality from hazy memory. The play enables a debate on the power relations in narration and in artistic creation generally, on memory and on art as appropriation. In other plays (e.g. The Cut, Shoot / Get Treasure / Repeat, Shopping and Fucking, Faust is Dead), Ravenhill uses the same instruments, but extends the discussion to also include how reality operates in a social context. He offers broad political commentaries on the new postmodern age and its society. It could be argued that he utilizes postmodern themes and (to lesser extent) techniques, quite often ironically, to better tackle contemporary issues. This includes the treatment of capitalist consumerism and its effect on the perception of reality by the consumers; but also the critique of western democracy and its foreign policies. Faust is Dead specifically proposes a world where reality has died and simulation has taken over, leaving the characters in a postmodern void with no safe harbor. As delineated, the thesis will group the plays thematically, first concentrating on those that are concerned with artistic reality more generally, which should provide a solid springboard for further discussion of the following plays that have a more specific political aim. Pool (No Water) will warrant a section on its own, as its experiment and the treatment of reality is arguably the most extensive from all Ravenhill’s plays. Mark Ravenhill has been often approached through the label of one of the most prominent in-yer-face theatre writers. The usefulness of the term in-yer-face theatre for this thesis is limited, but some other playwrights associated with in-yer-face theatre, most notably Martin Crimp, explored similar themes in similar ways, and therefore their consideration will prove useful for the elucidation of parts of Ravenhill’s work. From these authors, however, Ravenhill focuses on the problems with reality most consistently; he keeps returning to this focus, combining it with different topics and it is palpable in most of his plays.

Seznam odborné literatury

Primary Sources:
Ravenhill, Mark. Plays 1. London: Methuen, 2001.
Ravenhill, Mark. Plays 2. London: Methuen, 2008.
Ravenhill, Mark. Plays 3. London: Methuen, 2013.
Secondary Sources:
Aragay, Mireia and Enric Monforte eds. Ethical Speculations in Contemporary British Theatre. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Baudrillard, Jean. Selected Writings. Ed. Poster, Mark. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002.
Birringer, Johannes (1991) Theatre, Theory, Postmodernism, Bloomington and Indiana:
Indiana University Press.
Debord, Guy. The Society of Spectacle. Tran. Knabb, Ken. Canberra: Hobgoblin press: 2002.
D'Monté, Rebecca and Graham Saunders. Cool Britannia?: British political drama in the 1990s. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism. N.p.: Taylor & Francis E-Library, 2004. E-book.
Lyotard, Jean-François Lyotard. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: Univestity of Minnesota Press, 1984.
McHale, Brian. Postmodernist Fiction. N.p.: Taylor & Francis E-Library, 2004. E-book.
Sierz, Aleks. In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today. London: Faber and Faber, 2001.
Sierz, Aleks. Modern British Playwriting: the 1990s. London: Methuen, 2012.
Sierz, Aleks. The Theatre of Martin Crimp. London: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Wallace, Clare. “Responsibility and Postmodernity: Mark Ravenhill and 1990s British Drama.” Theory and Practice in English Studies 4: Proceedings from the Eight Conference of British, American and Canadian Studies. Brno: Masarykova Univerzita, 2005.