Critical Stages (Jun 2020)
Musicality in Simon Stephens’ Plays
Abstract
This article deals with Simon Stephens’ use of music in his plays to enhance the narrative structure and as an underscoring emotive musical subtext, highlighting the playwrights’ musical skills in addition to his already acknowledged talent as a writer. The main focus will be on Carmen Disruption, a play inspired by Bizet’s opera Carmen, which twists the opera into a fragmented text about urban breakdown and globalization while incorporating and reimagining the music and elements of the original story.
