Trauma on the Contemporary English Stage

This work closely analyses one in-yer-face play of each of the three most important British playwrights of the 1990s and 2000s under the light of trauma theory: Sarah Kane¿s Blasted, Mark Ravenhill¿s Shopping and F***ing, and Philip Ridley¿s Mercury Fur. These plays engage with the themes of trauma and social breakdown in catastrophic times. This study explores the cultural and personal trauma of the characters in a dystopian world in the context of the historical and cultural background of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century and in-yer-face theatre¿s connection with the past dramatic forms. Under the guidance of Trauma theory and taking into consideration the effects of the historical and cultural background of Britain after World War II, this work attempts to show that in the plays under discussion dystopian and traumatic elements become more and more central.