Patrick Marber: CloserBurdová, Mach

Contemporary British literature

• Jim Cartwright – The Rise and Fall of Little Voice • April De Angelis – Catch 1)

• Hanif Kureishi1 – The Mother • Sarah Kane2 – Cleansed • Tom Stoppard – Arcadia • Alan Ayckbourn – Henceforward…2)

• David Hare – Pravda • Harold Pinter – The Homecoming

Our choice

• We found the book cover elegant

• One of us had seen the film adaptation and found it interesting

• Closer is a drama, which is generally a well-structured and easy-to-follow genre

Patrick Marber• Marber is a British playwright,

director and screen writer

• Screenplays: Asylum, The Tourist

• Plays: Dealer's Choice, Don Juan in Soho

• Closer opened in 1997 at the National Theatre and was internationally successful

• In 2004, a screen adaptation featuring stars like Julia Roberts or Jude Law was released

Quotation

“You’re not trusting me. I’m in love with you. If you fucked him you fucked him, I just want the truth.“

- page 107 -

Main characters …

• Dan – writer of obituaries

• Alice – stripper

• Ann – photographer

• Larry – doctor

…and how they get along with each other

• Dan had been dating Alice when he met his old love Ann • Dan arranged a meeting of Ann and Larry who then

started seeing each other and got married• After a certain time, the couples started to cheat on each

other – Ann was with Dan, Alice was with Larry• Eventually, the partners were switched back again• However, these new relations didn’t last for long• In the end, Alice died and the others split their paths

What we didn´t know before we read

“Closer“ • that men already pretended to be women in

internet chat rooms in 1990s

• that swaping the same two partners over and over again was actually possible

• that the film and the book were quite similar

Conclusion• Closer is about modern relationships in which

people are selfish and don’t care about others’ feelings but only about their own

• The importance of sex, infidelity and betrayal in relationships

Resources• Closer by Patrick Marber, Grove press, 1999

• http://www.k-state.edu/english/westmank/-literary/contempbrit_resources.html (30/11/08)

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Marber (30/09/08)

• http://www.tobyyoung.co.uk/359/whats-wrong-with-british-theatre.html (29/11/08)

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_-playwrights_since_1950 (29/11/08)