MEMORY PLAYS: HAROLD PINTER’S OLD TIMES AND ANTHONY NEILSON’S PENETRATOR

Öz

As a much-discussed part of the human mind, memory today is an interdisciplinary subject studied by a variety of academic fields such as psychology, sociology, psychiatry, cultural studies and literature. In British drama, it finds a reflection with the term “memory plays” whose representative playwright in the twentieth century is Harold Pinter. On the other hand, it can be observed that Anthony Neilson, emerging as a voice of the British In-Yer-Face drama of the 1990s, makes an emphatic use of memory in his plays like his predecessor. In this sense, this paper argues that Anthony Neilson’s play writing shows resemblances to Harold Pinter’s, which is acknowledged as the Pinteresque, that, more specifically, Pinter’s Old Times (1971) and Neilson’s Penetrator (1993) share much in their use of memory, and analyses the particularities each playwright employs in their utilisation of this concept within their plays.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Memory,Memory Plays,Harold Pinter,Old Times,Anthony Neilson,Penetrator

MEMORY PLAYS: HAROLD PINTER’S OLD TIMES AND ANTHONY NEILSON’S PENETRATOR

Öz

İnsan aklının çokça tartışılan bir bölümü olan bellek günümüzde psikoloji, sosyoloji, psikiyatri, kültürel çalışmalar ve edebiyat gibi çeşitli akademik alanlarda çalışılmakta olan disiplinler arası bir konudur. İngiliz tiyatrosunda, yirminci yüzyılda, Harold Pinter’ın temsilcisi olduğu “bellek oyunları” kavramıyla bir yansıma bulur. Öte yandan İngiltere’de 1990’lı yılların Yüzevurumcu Tiyatro’sunun yükselen sesi Anthony Neilson’ın da belleği selefi Pinter gibi oyunlarının önemli bir unsuru haline getirdiğini gözlemliyoruz. Buradan hareketle bu çalışmamızda, Anthony Neilson’ın oyun yazımının Pintervari diye adlandırılan Harold Pinter’ın oyun yazım üslubuna benzerlikler taşıdığını, daha özelde Pinter’ın Eski Zamanlar (1971) adlı oyunu ile Neilson’ın Delici (1993) adlı oyununun bellek kullanımları bakımından çokça ortak özelliğe sahip olduklarını tartışıyor ve yazarların bu oyunlarında bellek kavramı kullanımlarında ortaya koydukları özellikleri inceliyoruz.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Bellek,Bellek Oyunları,Harold Pinter,Eski Zamanlar,Anthony Neilson,Delici

Kaynakça

1. Austen, J. (2000). Mansfield Park, Wordsworth Editions Limited, Kent.
2. Braunmuller, A. R. (1979). “A World of Words in Pinter’s Old Times”, Modern Language Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 1, pp: 53-74.
3. Bull, J. (2011), “Anthony Neilson”, The Methuen Guide to Contemporary British Playwrights, (Eds: Martin Middeke, Peter Paul Schnierer, et al), Methuen Drama, London.
4. Burgin, V. (1996). In/Different Spaces: Place and Memory in Visual Culture, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
5. Caruth, C. (1995), “Trauma and Experience: Introduction”, Trauma: Explorations in Memory, (Ed: Cathy Caruth), John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
6. Deutsch, D. (1977), “Memory and Attention in Music”, Music and the Brain: Studies in the Neurology of Music, (Eds: Critchley Macdonald and R. A. Henson), William Heinemann Medical Books Limited, London.
7. Favorini, A. (2010), “Memory in Theater: The Scene is Memory”, Memory Process: Neuroscientific and Humanistic Perspectives, (Eds: Suzanne Nalbantian, Paul M. Matthews, James L. McClelland), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
8. Freeman, M. (1993). Rewriting the Self: History, Memory, Narrative, Routledge, New York.

9. Freud, S. (1957), “Childhood Memories and Screen Memories”, Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol 6, (Ed and trans.: James Strachey), Hogarth Press, London.
10. Frow, J. (2007), “From ‘Toute la mémoire du monde: Repetition and Forgetting”, Theories of Memory: A Reader, (Ed: Michael Rossington and Anne Whitehead), Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
11. Kolk, B. A. and Onno Van Der Hart (1995), “The Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of Memory and the Engraving of Trauma”, Trauma: Explorations in Memory, (Ed: Cathy Caruth), John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
12. Kuhn, A. (1999). Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination, Verso, London.
13. Neilson, A. (1998). Plays 1: Normal, Penetrator, Year of the Family, The Night Before Christmas, The Censor, Methuen Drama, London.
14. McClelland, J. L. (2010), “Memory as a Constructive Process: The Parallel Distributed Processing Approach”, Memory Process: Neuroscientific and Humanistic Perspectives, (Eds: Suzanne Nalbantian, Paul M. Matthews, James L. McClelland), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
15. Pinter, H. (1971). Old Times, Methuen Drama, London.
16. Radström, A. (2018), “The Fakhouri File: Traumatic Memory in the Work of Walid Raad”, Constructing the Memory of War in Visual Culture since 1914: The Eye on War, (Ed: Ann Murray), Routledge, New York.
17. Reid, T. (2017). The Theatre of Anthony Neilson, Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, London.
18. Shaw, M. (2009), “Unpacking the Pinteresque in The Dumb Waiter and Beyond”, Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter, (Ed: Mary F. Brewer), Rodopi, New York.
19. The President’s Council on Bioethics. (2003). Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness. (27.1.2020) https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/research/pbc/reports/beyondtherapy/beyond_therapy_final_report_pcb.pdf
20. Winter, A. (2012). Memory: Fragments of a Modern History, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.