a b Sierz, Aleks (2001). In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today. London: Faber and Faber Limited. pp.39–40. ISBN 978-0-571-20049-8 . Retrieved 12 November 2020. In-Yer-Face? British Drama in the 1990s”. University of the West of England, Bristol.( 6–7 September 2002), Writernet 2003. (Conference report posted on writernet.co.uk, in both HTML and PDF versions). a b c d e f g h i j Sierz, Aleks (2001). In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today. London: Faber and Faber Limited. ISBN 978-0-571-20049-8 . Retrieved 12 November 2020. Ruble, Blair A. (2011). Urals Pathfinder: Theatre in Post-soviet Yekaterinburg (PDF). Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. p.17. ISBN 978-1-933549-77-4.

In 1994 Paul Taylor in his review of Philip Ridley's Ghost from a Perfect Place described the violent girl gang in the play as "the in-yer-face castrating trio". a b c d e Sierz, Aleks (2001). In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today. London: Faber and Faber Limited. p.249. ISBN 978-0-571-20049-8 . Retrieved 12 November 2020. The sanitized phrase 'in-your-face' is defined by the New Oxford English Dictionary (1998) as something 'blatantly aggressive or provocative, impossible to ignore or avoid'. The Collins English Dictionary (1998) adds the adjective 'confrontational'. 'In-your-face' originated in American sports journalism during the mid-1970s as an exclamation of derision or contempt, and gradually seeped into more mainstream slang during the late 1980s and 1990s, meaning 'aggressive, provocative, brash'. It implies being forced to see something close up, having your personal space invaded. It suggests the crossing of normal boundaries. [3] The phrase “in-yer-face theatre” emerged in the 1990s, and while it is often attributed to a critic named Aleks Sierz (who wrote the definitive book on the movement), he himself denies having coined the term.In his lecture entitled Blasted and After: New Writing in British Theatre Today Sierz cites "five mighty moments in the history of the 1990s" that shaped in-yer-face theatre. Outside of this lecture Sierz has gone into greater detail about the importance of these moments: [6] The influence of North American plays and Scottish theatre [ edit ] Sierz, Aleks (2001). In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today. London: Faber and Faber Limited. p.47. ISBN 978-0-571-20049-8 . Retrieved 12 November 2020. Ansorge, Peter (1999). "Really a Golden Age?". In Edgar, David (ed.). State of Play. Faber and Faber Limited. pp.37–38. ISBN 0-571-20096-6.

To answer your question, in yer face theatre did not first originated in sports journalism, but the colloquial expression ‘in your face’ was used for the first time by sports commentators, and that’s when the expression became popular. Later on, this new wave of British playwrights decided to use the term to describe their theatre, but the theatre itself didn’t originate in sports journalims at all! Eldridge, David (2014). 'Serving It Up' & 'A Week With Tony' . Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. p.162. ISBN 978-1-4081-7630-6. Sierz, Aleks (24 May 2012). Modern British Playwriting: The 1990s: Voices, Documents, New Interpretations. Great Britain: Methuen Drama. p.82-84. ISBN 9781408181331.

Notable Works

In 2004 the playwright Mark Ravenhill gave a lecture entitled 'A Tear in the Fabric: the James Bulger Murder and New Theatre Writing in the 1990s'. In this lecture Ravenhill explained how the Bulger murder prompted him to make his "first attempt at writing a play". Ravenhill believes that the murder may have inspired other playwrights from the 1990s: "I wonder if I was alone? I doubt it. I wonder how many other people there were who started to write with that CCTV picture of the boy led away somewhere in their head? […] How many of the young British playwrights of the 1990s — the so-called in-yer-face playwrights — were driven, consciously or unconsciously, by that moment?" Writernet adds: "This problem was reflected in number of papers from all over the world, which primarily explored the works of Sarah Kane and Mark Ravenhill through theoretical lenses of postmodernism, metaphysical theatre, Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, and Lacan. Through no fault of the organizers – this was apparently an accurate reflection of the conference submissions." [50]

a b c d " In-Yer-Face? British Drama in the 1990s", University of the West of England, Bristol, 6–7 September 2002, Writernet 2003. Retrieved 9 June 2008. (Conference report posted on writernet.co.uk, in both HTML and PDF versions).

Article contents

Still In-Yer-Face? Towards a Critique and a Summation". New Theatre Quart. 18.1 (2002): 17–24. Published online by Cambridge University Press, journals.cambridge.org. Retrieved 9 June 2008. (Abstract. Subscription required for full access.) When confronted to the difficult issue of conceptualization and categorisation, a play or a form of theatre can easily find itself crushed under expectations and responsibilities generated by its attribution to a specific genre. The report on the conference published by Writernet stipulates that ‘ it disrupts the artistic integrity through preconceived notions of a play because of a simplified label. Plays and playwrights risk being annexed or ‘ghetto-ised’ when given a superficial monolithic focus.’ Thus critics have contemplated the works of the people associated with in-yer-face theatre through the lenses of different pre-established theories, such as metaphysical theatre, postmodernism, Artaud’s theatre of cruelty and Lacan’s post-structuralism. But in-yer-face theatre desired to claim its own existence outside any previous literary and cultural thesis. Yet Sierz accepted the restrictions of the label and recognized in-yer-face theatrical practices as London-centric and limited in their scope. Thus, it has mainly remained a British experience, and although it has expanded abroad, its international impact is quite narrow, mostly reaching Anglo-Saxon countries. Many well-known places have welcomed in-yer-face plays, such as the Royal Court Theatre, the Bush Theatre, the Hampstead Theatre, the Soho Theatre, the Theatre Royal Stratford East, the Tricycle, the Finborough and the Almeida, all based in London. It spread in other English cities like Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Bolton and West Yorkshire, and widened to Edinburgh and to America. Phaedra’s love by Sarah Kane, Arcola Theatre Sept/Oct 2011. Photo credits: Simon Kane Sierz has stated that "the idea of writing a book about in-yer-face theatre was originally Ian Herbert's" as he originally spoke about the concept to Peggy Butcher, who was the drama editor of Faber and Faber. Herbert also decided to name the book 'In-Yer-Face Theatre' and was asked by Butcher to write an outline for it. However, Herbert was unable to provide an outline, jokingly stating that "I realised that [writing] a book would mean actual work, something to which I am not accustomed." Sierz however states that Herbert "was too busy to embark on a book" due to his many work commitments. As a result Herbert pulled out of writing the book and told Butcher that it should be written by Sierz instead because his "interest in new writing at the time made [him] an obvious candidate for the job". Early during the development of the book Sierz considered renaming it to Cool Britannia but Sierz says that this was vetoed by Butcher "on the grounds that in a couple of years no one would have any respect for that label - and how right she was." Sierz finished writing the book in January 2000, and it was published by Faber and Faber in March 2001 under the title In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today. [5] History [ edit ] Aleks Sierz's 'five mighty moments' [ edit ] Sierz has been mistakenly cited as coining the term "In-yer-face theatre", saying that "Although I certainly was the first to describe, celebrate and theorise this kind of new writing, which emerged decisively in the mid-1990s, I certainly did not invent the phrase." In his piece "A brief history of in-yer-face theatre" Sierz outlines a number of instances where the phrase was used directly or indirectly by others prior to him popularising the label.

Sierz, Aleks (March 2001). In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today. London: Faber and Faber Limited. p.36. ISBN 0-571-20049-4. a b Sierz, Aleks (March 2001). In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today. London: Faber and Faber Limited. pp.90–107. ISBN 0-571-20049-4. In response to Trainspotting being performed at the Bush Theatre, critic Charles Spencer wrote that "You may not like these in-your-face productions; but they are quite impossible to ignore." Later that year when the play transferred to the West End, The Times's Jeremy Kingston remarked that the previous two productions of the play had brought "actors within inches of the audience, and such in-yer-face realism". a b c d e f g h i j David Eldridge, "In-Yer-face and After" [ permanent dead link], Intellect 23.1 (Mar. 2003): 55–58. (Abstract.) Sierz credits three events, which for him "suggested that the tide was turning and that an era of confrontation had come to an end", signalling the decline of in-yer-face theatre: [33]a b c d e f g h i j k l Audio recording of lecture given by Aleks Sierz entitled 'Blasted and After: New Writing in British Theatre Today' at a meeting of the Society for Theatre Research, at the Art Workers Guild, London on 16 February 2010 Sierz, Aleks (24 May 2012). Modern British Playwriting: The 1990s: Voices, Documents, New Interpretations. Great Britain: Methuen Drama. p.233. ISBN 9781408181331.