Not One Of These People

If you think you know what it's like to be me you are seriously deluded. Is it appropriation to invent a voice - or is it an act of empathy? If a playwright's job is to make dialogue, is there a limit to how many characters she / he / they are entitled to invent? Who can these people be? And what if an invented voice says things that even the author would prefer not to hear? With characteristically provocative humour, Martin Crimp's latest work brings 299 unique characters to the stage. Not One of These People, a co-production between the Royal Court Theatre, Carte blanche, and the Carrefour international de théâtre, premiered at Théâtre La Bordée, Québec City, in June 2022, and at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in November 2022.

Martin Crimp was born in 1956. His play Attempts on Her Life (1997) established his international reputation. His other work for theatre includes Not One of These People, When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other, Men Asleep, The Rest Will be Familiar to You from Cinema, In the Republic of Happiness, Play House, The City, Fewer Emergencies, Cruel and Tender, The Country, The Treatment, Getting Attention, No One Sees the Video, Play with Repeats, Dealing with Clair and Definitely the Bahamas. He is also the author of three texts, Into the Little Hill, Written on Skin and Lessons in Love and Violence, for operas by George Benjamin. His many translations of French plays include works by Genet, Ionesco, Koltès, Marivaux and Molière. Writing for Nothing, a collection of fiction, short plays and texts for opera, was published by Faber & Faber in 2019.