Martin Crimp’s In the Republic of Happiness: Reinventing the Musical?

Abstract

Is Martin Crimp offering a new kind of Musical with his last play In the Republic of Happiness or does he content himself with offering his audience an ‘entertainment in three acts’, as the subtitle ironically suggests? The play’s contemporariness will be examined, as well as its use of popular music, relying on didactic counterpoint rather than ‘anempathetic’ effect, as Michel Chion puts it. The songs do not arouse emotion in Dominic Cook’s production of the play at the Royal Court Theatre but create on the contrary a Brechtian alienation effect whose innovative nature shall be questioned.

Keywords

• anempathetic effect
• audience response
• contemporariness
• didactic counterpoint
• empathetic effect
• genre