TY - JOUR T1 - Suffering and Grotesque Parody in Howard Barker’s (Uncle) Vanya AU - Kavak, Enes PY - 2025 DA - August Y2 - 2025 DO - 10.26650/LITERA2024-1505931 JF - Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies JO - Litera PB - İstanbul Üniversitesi WT - DergiPark SN - 2602-2117 SP - 40 EP - 50 VL - 35 IS - Special Issue LA - en AB - Howard Barker is a playwright known for his unconventional approach to the theatre with his own dramatic concept, the Theatre of Catastrophe, which challenges the traditional boundaries of reality and aesthetics. Barker’s plays delve into various subjects such as longing, mortality, sexuality, suffering and existential crises, aiming to provoke and shock the audience. His parodic adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya exemplifies this by transforming the sense of ennui and mental suffering into a manifestation of revolt and self-determination. In The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Nietzsche posits that tragedy ascends from a profound understanding and approval of the conditions of one’s own existence, viewing inherent pessimism and suffering in life not as a hindrance but as a vital constituent of human resilience and resolve. Barker advocates art to be challenging and provoking, thus forcing audiences to confront the inherent complexities and contradictions of life. Deliberately or not, Barker appears to align with Nietzsche in his deconstruction of Vanya by emphasising the place of suffering in tragic human life. Barker’s adaptation (Uncle) Vanya (1991) upholds Nietzschean reasoning in transforming the characters’ existential struggles into an exploration of human agency, questioning, and a quest for meaning. This article thus explores the representation of suffering and grotesque aspects in countering the characters’ existential crises by looking at Barker’s dramatic strategies in a parodic attack on the Chekhovian world. KW - Howard Barker KW - (Uncle) Vanya KW - Suffering KW - Nietzsche KW - Chekhov CR - Agada, A. (2021). Nietzsche and Ramose on being and becoming: an exercise in cross-cultural philosophising. Journal of World Philosophies, 6(1), 1–12. https:doi.org/10.2979/jourworlphil.6.1.01 google scholar CR - Barker, H. (2016). Arguments for a Theatre. Bloomsbury Publishing. google scholar CR - Barker, H. (2011). (Uncle) Vanya, in Howard Barker: Plays Six. Oberon Books. google scholar CR - Barker, H. (2007). On Naturalism and its pretensions. Studies in Theatre and Performance, 27(3), 289–293. https://doi.org/10.1386/stap. 27.3.289_3 google scholar CR - Barker, H. (2004). Death, the One and the Art of Theatre. Routledge. google scholar CR - Chekhov, A. (1922). Uncle Vanya, Brentanos. Digitised: 18 April 2008. google scholar CR - Cornforth, A. (2018). Kissing Holes for the Bullets: Consciousness in Directing and Playing Barker’s Uncle Vanya. In Performance and Consciousness (pp. 25–45). Routledge. google scholar CR - Dienstag, J. F. (2001). Nietzsche’s Dionysian pessimism. American Political Science Review, 95(5), 923–937. https://www.jstor.org/stable/ 3117722. google scholar CR - Gritzner, K., & Rabey, D. I. (Eds.). (2016). Theatre of catastrophe: new essays on Howard Barker. Bloomsbury Publishing. google scholar CR - Nietzsche, F. (1968). The Will to Power (W. Kaufmann, Ed. & Trans.; R. J. Hollingdale, Trans.). Vintage Books. google scholar CR - Nietzsche, F. (2000). The Birth of Tragedy (D. Smith, Trans.). Oxford University Press. google scholar CR - Pilný, O. (2016). The Grotesque in Contemporary Anglophone Drama. Springer. google scholar CR - Pippin, R. (Ed.). (2006). Nietzsche: Thus, Spoke Zarathustra. Cambridge University Press. google scholar CR - Rabey, David Ian. (2009). Howard Barker: Ecstasy and Death. Palgrave Macmillan. google scholar CR - Roberts, M. (2014). From Pain, Poetry: Howard Barker’s “Blok/Eko” and the Poetics of Plethoric Theater. Comparative Drama, 48(3), 261– 276. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/cdr.2014.0022. google scholar CR - Shaughnessy, R. (1989). Howard Barker, The Wrestling School, and the cult of the author. New Theatre Quarterly, 5(19), 264–271. https:// doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X0000333X. google scholar UR - https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2024-1505931 L1 - https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/4026384 ER -