Martin McDonagh's Spatial Narratives and the Reinvention of Theatrical Heterotopias
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Abstract
At the turn of the 21st century, the New Brutalist theatre movement dominated stages in Britain. Despite the large number of playwrights involved in the movement, few had the same large-scale commercial success as Martin McDonagh. Through his enfant terrible public persona, extreme stage violence and a dystopic yet naturalistic depiction of settings, McDonagh became synonymous with the ‘black pastoral’. This thesis interrogates McDonagh’s theatre and film’s cohesive spatial narrative and the violent logic of the New Brutalists. Current criticism of McDonagh’s theatre generally falls into two distinct camps: one relating to his ‘Irish’ plays and the other dealing with his ‘non-Irish’ plays and film. While both camps deal primarily with how McDonagh manipulates the audience’s perception of space, they divide his oeuvre based on the location of setting. This thesis challenges that division and provides a comprehensive analysis of his spatial manipulations on stage and screen.