The Hamburg Plays

This volume presents two plays written for Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg and not yet staged in English. The Rest Will Be Familiar to You from Cinema rewrites Euripides' Phoenician Women. As Thebes braces itself for civil war, a group of terrifying young women wrest control of the action from the power-players of Greek myth. 'A brilliant new interpretation of Euripides' ancient drama.' Süddeutsche Zeitung 'Innovative and gripping theatre.' Hamburger Abendblatt The Rest Will Be Familiar to You from Cinema was voted Best Foreign Play 2013 by Theatre heute magazine. In Men Asleep, the late-night arrival of a younger couple at Julia and Paul's tasteful townhouse apartment exposes the fault line between generations and probes our assumptions about gender and power. 'A mysterious and disquieting 'nocturne' about human relationships.' Die Welt 'Martin Crimp is less interested in deconstructing the bourgeoisie than in investigating the altered relations between men and women . . . The ending of his intelligent and entertaining play is ambiguous and potentially terrifying.' Der Freitag

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.