Gain Eigengrau Formulated By Penelope Skinner EBook

play is so, so good mostly because of the characters rather than the story, I had a really fun time reading this.
Im studying this play as part of my acting class for SB Acting Studios,

I must say, this has been one of my favourite plays Ive read, Contemporary, funny, witty, and most of all charming,

The characters are written beautifully and so true to life, they actually remind me of a few people I personally know in my social circles not mentioning who.


Penelope Skinner writes an incredibly captivating play aboutuniquesomethings navigating life in the Capital trying to find any meaningful human connection.
The characters lives are all intwined pushing their relationships to the boundaries and the play doesnt shy away from any awkwardness, giving the reader a delightful and intriguing read.


A great play with a roller coaster of emotions,

Highly recommended. i'm studying this for my alevel drama as im doing a monologue from it for my exam and i loved it so much! rose is a bit of a psychopath and i dont like her, but tim is sweet and i really like him.
the voices weirded me out i was confused a lot by them but i did really love the playm/w.
Contemporary British. Some surprising scenes towards the end, I am trying to like Penelope Skinnerto extend my sensibility to encompass critically recognized plays that critique gender politics, In January, I have tickets to see Skinners LINDA at the Royal Court Theatre in London, I have not yet read LINDA, which will waft onto my Kindle on Decemberth, In preparation, Im reading Skinners other plays available in print, Thus far, I have read EIGENGRAU and FREDS DINER,

In EIGENGRAU, two men and two women in their midtwenties navigate a presentday Londons social scene, reminiscent of T.
S. Eliots WASTELAND in its dearth of meaningful human connections: flatmates brought together by Gumtree, the British equivalent of Craigs List men and women seeking casual sexual encounters.
While working on a speech on rape pornography, Cassie, a lobbyist for a feminist organization, meets Mark, leaving after a night with Cassies flat mate, Rose.
After what he obviously considers a onenight stand, Mark tells Cassie that he is “in marketing,” currently working on “a campaign for a new mens razor”.
As the play progresses, Mark reveals himself to be a predatory bully, with a professional admans skill at intuiting and pretending to share the ruling passion of wouldbe sexual partners.


Refusing to believe that Mark is not in love with her, Rose pursues him relentlessly, Without a job, inundated by “brown envelopes” bills, as well as legal threats from a man whose checks she stole, Rose clings to her belief in “positive energy”: if one believes in something intensely enough, it will come to pass.
Rose describes herself as follows:

I believe in
Fairies gnomes elves cyclopses
Leprechauns unicorns
Pixies witches Wizards
Angels dwarves
True love
Love at first sight
And the lost city of Atlantis.


Rose tells Cassie that Mark initiated a friendship on Facebook through their mutual interest in numerology, On their first date, “Hed actually looked up our numbers online which Id already done of course but I hadnt told him and he said were eightyeight per cent compatible”.
There is dramatic irony in this exchange between roommates because Mark, by this time, has seduced Cassie by feigning an interest in feminism.
Believing that if she only sees Mark again, he will realize that he loves her, Rose enlists Marks flat mate, Tim Muffin.
Attracted to Rose, Tim lets her in their flat, Rose performs oral sex on Mark on stage!, after which he humiliatingly dismisses her: “I dont want you to need me.
OK Get I dont even know you, Off. ”. Rose goes to a karaoke bar and gouges out both eyes,
Tim Muffin is “a fat bloke,” so griefstricken and lacking in selfesteem that he accepts uncomplainingly Marks relentless bullying.
A “carer” by profession, Tim is so paralyzed by grief for “Nan,” dead of lung cancer, that he cannot find a job in health care.
He subsists through Marks charity and a job at Cheap N Chicken, Having cared for Nan before her death, Tim carries around Nans ash tray: “a large porcelain cat, with a removable head”.
At the end, we learn that “Nan” is not Tims wife, but his mother, In Skinners play, FREDS DINER, Melissa, an appealing young woman, is bullied by her father into an incestuous relationship,

Oddly, EIGENGRAU ends positively for all three of Marks victims, Pregnant after her liaison with Mark, Cassie joyfully looks forward to being a single mother, Rose, blind, but recovering from her injuries, finds a protector in Tim, Fulfilled by having another invalid to care for, Tim plans to set up housekeeping with Rose somewhere near the sea.
Though neither Tim nor Cassie has any prospect of employment, both look joyfully ahead to the future, Marks last lines are: “Ive got a fucking presentation at twelve and Im running late as it is so if you dont mind, ladies”.
Though miffed that Cassie refuses to acknowledge that he is the father of her baby, Mark, at the end of the play, is neither published nor changed.


What does all this add up to Perhaps if I saw EIGENGRAU on stage, I would find more to likethough, personally, I would not want to witness either Roses humiliating oral sex with Mark nor her subsequent selfblinding.
Of course, Gloucesters equally grizzly blinding occurs on stage in KING LEAR, Audiences would probably laugh at Cassies riffs on rape pornography “Rape Shock dot com: rape porn reviews, Find out what you get before you join! Girls are raped and humiliated in the most extreme ways!”, Similarly, in Roses earnest belief in the power of positive and negative “energy” are comic, . Periodically, the action of the play is interrupted “VOICES”: a confusing jumble of media messages:

I want
average
Asian
articulate
adventurous
eating in
eating out
staying in
going out
a sense of humour is a must
trust

Though Skinner captures, in a deliciously overthetop way,st century brands of rhetoric, I wish I liked or admired her characters more.




Here are links to rather mixed reviews of two productions at the Bush Theatre London:
sitelink theguardian. com/stage/

sitelink telegraph. co. uk/culture/th

sitelink independent. co. uk/artsent

And at the Factory Theatre in Toronto:

sitelink theglobeandmail. com/arts/t
I read this for one of my modules at University and I absolutely loved it, I would go as far as to say that this was one of the best plays I have read, Usually I find when reading plays straight, I do not get anything from them, no connection and I find they go extremely slow.
However, this one was completely different, From the first line I was intrigued mainly to find out who was in the

cat!!! and had me hooked.
I did not want to put it down until it was over, and then I still wanted to be reading about these characters and what was going to happen next in their lives.


I would say that this play is not suitable to a younger audience, due to the themes, language and events that happen throughout.
However, I would thoroughly recommend people to read it,

I felt myself connecting with all four of the characters present within the play, and each one of them brought something different to the storyline.
Like every good narrative I grew to hate some of the characters and love others, whilst still connecting with them all.


Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this play for the first time and would highly recommend it to others.
It has given me a strong desire to pick up the other works of Penelope Skinner and see if those are just as good as this.
“Short and sweet”. Really funny! British contemporary playwright,m/w Update:/Not sure what prompted me to revisit this, other than I discovered it in a pile of ostensibly read books in my 'junk room' and couldn't actually remember having read it thank gd for GR reviews!.
On a reread, I was probably a bit overly generous with the initial four it's more like a,, or even a.

Original review: My third Skinner play, and I think I like this the best, maybe because the humor is more mainstream.
Skinner has a unique talent for simultaneously employing and subverting/critiquing the male/female power dynamic, as well as the feminist agenda, which gets her in a lot of rhetorical hot water, but she manages to swim above her critics so far.
Penelope Skinner is a British playwright who came to prominence after her play Fucked was first produced inat the Old Red Lion Theatre and the Edinburgh Festival to huge critical acclaim and has had successive plays staged in London including at the Bush Theatre, National Theatre and Royal Court Theatre, where she is a member of the Young Writers Programme.
Her play Eigengrau staged at the Bush Theatre inwas a critical and box office hit and Skinner was nominated for the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright in.
Eigengrau was revived at the Fitzpatrick Hall theatre in Cambridge in March, Skinners play The Village Bike was her first play to be staged at the Royal Court Theatre where it had a sell out, twic Penelope Skinner is a British playwright who came to prominence after her play Fucked was first produced inat the Old Red Lion Theatre and the Edinburgh Festival to huge critical acclaim and has had successive plays staged in London including at the Bush Theatre, National Theatre and Royal Court Theatre, where she is a member of the Young Writers Programme.
Her play Eigengrau staged at the Bush Theatre inwas a critical and box office hit and Skinner was nominated for the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright in.
Eigengrau was revived at the Fitzpatrick Hall theatre in Cambridge in March, Skinner's play The Village Bike was her first play to be staged at the Royal Court Theatre where it had a sell out, twice extended run starring Romola Garai and directed by Joe Hill Gibbins, winning her the George Devine Award and the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright in.
Inshe wrote episodes for the Channelseries Fresh Meat, In, her play The Sound of Heavy Rain was produced in Sheffield Theatres before going on tour sponsored by Paines Plough.
Her play Fred's Diner was staged at the Chichester Festival Theatre's pop up stage, following which The Independent newspaper described Skinner as "Our leading young feminist writer.
"InSkinner co wrote the screenplay for the film How I Live Now, WikipediaSee also: her sister, sitelink Ginny Skinner with whom she wrote the graphic novel Briony Hatch, sitelink.