In-yer-face theatre describes drama that emerged in Great Britain in the 1990s. This category coined by British theatre critic Aleks Sierz is the title of his book, In-Yer-Face Theatre, first published by Faber and Faber in March 2001. An adjunct faculty member in Boston University's London graduate journalism program, and co-editor of TheatreVoice, Sierz uses in-yer-face theatre to describe work by young playwrights who present vulgar, shocking, and confrontational material on stage as a means of involving and affecting their audiences. According to Sierz, "The big three of in-yer-face theatre are Sarah Kane, Mark Ravenhill and Anthony Neilson"; in listing 14 "Other hot shots" in "Who?" on his website, Sierz adds the following qualification: "Of course, some writers wrote one or two in-yer-face plays and then moved on. Like all categories, this one can't hope to completely grasp the ever-changing reality of the explosive new writing scene."
Read more about In-yer-face Theatre: Etymology of The Phrase "in Your Face" ("in Yer Face"), Literary-cultural Origins, Process of Critical Categorising, 2002 Conference On "in-yer-face Theatre", Notable People Associated With in-yer-face Theatre
Famous quotes containing the word theatre:
“The poem of the mind in the act of finding
What will suffice. It has not always had
To find: the scene was set; it repeated what
Was in the script.
Then the theatre was changed
To something else. Its past was a souvenir.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)