Sublime Drama: British Theatre of the 1990s

Rather than use the term offered by Sierz, however, the study proposes a different concept to account for the dynamics of communication within the particular theatre of the 1990s, namely the aesthetic category of the sublime. Coupled with elements of Reader Response Theory, the sublime proves to be a more fruitful term, as it provides more precise tools for the analysis of the audience’s aesthetic response than does in-yer-face theatre. With the help of four representative plays by four key playwrights of that time, by Patrick Marber, by Anthony Neilson, by Mark Ravenhill and by Sarah Kane, the book details the consecutive stages in the process of the plays’ reception that the members of the audience go through while forming their aesthetic response to them. Looking through the prism of the sublime, the study not only offers a detailed analysis of each play but also suggests an entirely new approach to British drama of the 1990s.