The Theatre of Catastrophe
Barker has coined the term "Theatre of Catastrophe" to describe his work. His plays often explore violence, sexuality, the desire for power, and human motivation.
Rejecting the widespread notion that an audience should share a single response to the events onstage, Barker works to fragment response, forcing each viewer to wrestle with the play alone. "We must overcome the urge to do things in unison" he writes. "To chant together, to hum banal tunes together, is not collectivity." Where other playwrights might clarify a scene, Barker seeks to render it more complex, ambiguous, and unstable.
Opposing the predominance of comedy in the contemporary culture, which unifies us through the banality of a shared response, he argues for the rebirth of a tragic theatre, which will force us to recognize our differences. Only through a tragic renaissance, Barker argues, will beauty and poetry return to the stage. "Tragedy liberates language from banality" he asserts. "It returns poetry to speech."
Read more about this topic: Howard Barker
Famous quotes containing the words theatre and/or catastrophe:
“I can get dressed earlier in the evening with every intention of going to a dance at midnight, but somehow after the theatre the thing to do seems to be either to go to bed or sit around somewhere. It doesn’t seem possible that somewhere people can be expecting you at an hour like that.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“The delirium and horror of the East. The dusty catastrophe of Asia. Green only on the banner of the Prophet. Nothing grows here except mustaches.”
—Joseph Brodsky (b. 1940)