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Eigengrau
British contemporary playwright. 2m/2w
117 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
29 people want to read
About the author
Penelope Skinner
18 books8 followersPenelope Skinner is a British playwright who came to prominence after her play Fucked was first produced in 2008 at 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 in 2010 was a critical and box office hit and Skinner was nominated for the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright in 2010. Eigengrau was revived at the Fitzpatrick Hall theatre in Cambridge in March 2012.
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 2011.
In 2011 she wrote episodes for the Channel 4 series Fresh Meat. In 2011, 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."
In 2013 Skinner co-wrote the screenplay for the film How I Live Now.
- Wikipedia
See also: her sister, Ginny Skinner with whom she wrote the graphic novel Briony Hatch.
Her play Eigengrau staged at the Bush Theatre in 2010 was a critical and box office hit and Skinner was nominated for the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright in 2010. Eigengrau was revived at the Fitzpatrick Hall theatre in Cambridge in March 2012.
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 2011.
In 2011 she wrote episodes for the Channel 4 series Fresh Meat. In 2011, 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."
In 2013 Skinner co-wrote the screenplay for the film How I Live Now.
- Wikipedia
See also: her sister, Ginny Skinner with whom she wrote the graphic novel Briony Hatch.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 6, 2021
Update: 11/21 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 g-d for GR reviews!). On a reread, I was probably a bit overly generous with the initial four stars - it's more like a 3.5, or even a 3.
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.
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.
December 16, 2015
I am trying to like Penelope Skinner—to extend my sensibility to encompass critically recognized plays that critique gender politics. In January, I have tickets to see Skinner’s LINDA at the Royal Court Theatre in London. I have not yet read LINDA, which will waft onto my Kindle on December 18th. In preparation, I’m reading Skinner’s other plays available in print. Thus far, I have read EIGENGRAU and FRED’S DINER.
In EIGENGRAU, two men and two women in their mid-twenties navigate a present-day London’s social scene, reminiscent of T.S. Eliot’s WASTELAND in its dearth of meaningful human connections: flat-mates brought together by Gumtree, the British equivalent of Craig’s 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 Cassie’s flat mate, Rose. After what he obviously considers a one-night stand, Mark tells Cassie that he is “in marketing,” currently working on “a campaign for a new men’s razor” (13). As the play progresses, Mark reveals himself to be a predatory bully, with a professional ad-man’s skill at intuiting and pretending to share the ruling passion of would-be 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 (545).
Rose tells Cassie that Mark initiated a friendship on Facebook through their mutual interest in numerology. On their first date, “He’d actually looked up our numbers online which I’d already done of course but I hadn’t told him and he said we’re eighty-eight per cent compatible” (72-73). (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 Mark’s 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 don’t want you to need me. OK? Get I don’t even know you. Off.” (90). Rose goes to a karaoke bar and gouges out both eyes.
Tim Muffin is “a fat bloke,” so grief-stricken and lacking in self-esteem that he accepts uncomplainingly Mark’s 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 Mark’s charity and a job at Cheap ‘N’ Chicken. Having cared for Nan before her death, Tim carries around Nan’s ash tray: “a large porcelain cat, with a removable head” (90). At the end, we learn that “Nan” is not Tim’s wife, but his mother. (In Skinner’s play, FRED’S DINER, Melissa, an appealing young woman, is bullied by her father into an incestuous relationship.)
Oddly, EIGENGRAU ends positively for all three of Mark’s 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. Mark’s last lines are: “I’ve got a fucking presentation at twelve and I’m running late as it is so if you don’t mind, ladies?” (113). 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 like--though, personally, I would not want to witness either Rose’s humiliating oral sex with Mark nor her subsequent self-blinding. (Of course, Gloucester’s equally grizzly blinding occurs on stage in KING LEAR.) Audiences would probably laugh at Cassie’s 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!” 27). Similarly, in Rose’s 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 over-the-top way, 21st 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):
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2010...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/th...
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ent...
And at the Factory Theatre in Toronto:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/t...
In EIGENGRAU, two men and two women in their mid-twenties navigate a present-day London’s social scene, reminiscent of T.S. Eliot’s WASTELAND in its dearth of meaningful human connections: flat-mates brought together by Gumtree, the British equivalent of Craig’s 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 Cassie’s flat mate, Rose. After what he obviously considers a one-night stand, Mark tells Cassie that he is “in marketing,” currently working on “a campaign for a new men’s razor” (13). As the play progresses, Mark reveals himself to be a predatory bully, with a professional ad-man’s skill at intuiting and pretending to share the ruling passion of would-be 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 (545).
Rose tells Cassie that Mark initiated a friendship on Facebook through their mutual interest in numerology. On their first date, “He’d actually looked up our numbers online which I’d already done of course but I hadn’t told him and he said we’re eighty-eight per cent compatible” (72-73). (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 Mark’s 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 don’t want you to need me. OK? Get I don’t even know you. Off.” (90). Rose goes to a karaoke bar and gouges out both eyes.
Tim Muffin is “a fat bloke,” so grief-stricken and lacking in self-esteem that he accepts uncomplainingly Mark’s 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 Mark’s charity and a job at Cheap ‘N’ Chicken. Having cared for Nan before her death, Tim carries around Nan’s ash tray: “a large porcelain cat, with a removable head” (90). At the end, we learn that “Nan” is not Tim’s wife, but his mother. (In Skinner’s play, FRED’S DINER, Melissa, an appealing young woman, is bullied by her father into an incestuous relationship.)
Oddly, EIGENGRAU ends positively for all three of Mark’s 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. Mark’s last lines are: “I’ve got a fucking presentation at twelve and I’m running late as it is so if you don’t mind, ladies?” (113). 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 like--though, personally, I would not want to witness either Rose’s humiliating oral sex with Mark nor her subsequent self-blinding. (Of course, Gloucester’s equally grizzly blinding occurs on stage in KING LEAR.) Audiences would probably laugh at Cassie’s 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!” 27). Similarly, in Rose’s 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 over-the-top way, 21st 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):
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2010...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/th...
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ent...
And at the Factory Theatre in Toronto:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/t...
November 21, 2025
This show definitely has some great monologues in it! It is a contemporary show that leaves you wondering what could possibly happen next. It explores ideas of feminism, love, lust and what happens when you let your emotions control you. I enjoyed this show and would definitely recommend for anyone looking for a chilling story with lots of drama.
November 20, 2024
yay, enjoyed the read, gonna be playing Rose in a few weeks time yay i love drama school
December 10, 2023
I found this play very interesting. Firstly I liked how there were only four characters and the writer managed to find ways for them all to be connected somehow and all interact separately.
I think the characters are all very individual in the way they act and think, specifically Mark and Rose. Mark is the embodiment of toxic masculinity in seducing women and then ignoring them, believing men should fight and kill and you have to be successful. But he also shows an almost performative side to his personality, which even though he does terrible things makes him less one dimensional. Rose is a spiritual human and that gives her a comedic edge in the way she talks to people, but even that is lined with a past sadness from what she is struggling with.
I think the play could have added a few more scenes for more context, even if the writer intended for mystery but I liked that Tim starts and ends the play. Tom’s grief is a present and sad thing throughout the play, but his character feels slightly underdeveloped and I wanted more explanation for his love for Rose and his characteristics.
I also really enjoyed Cassie’s character in the way of her feminist ideas and how she gives them up to sleep with Mark, the writer gives good representation to how women can feel wanting to fight for what they deserve but also be desired, even if it’s not in the way they want.
Rose blinding herself is the elephant in the room of the play, totally like greek mythology grotesque dramatic event in the middle of a play about peoples quite normal lives. It’s hard to understand but I think it adds more stakes to the play and the effect of what happens to her and she goes through.
Overall, really enjoyed.
I think the characters are all very individual in the way they act and think, specifically Mark and Rose. Mark is the embodiment of toxic masculinity in seducing women and then ignoring them, believing men should fight and kill and you have to be successful. But he also shows an almost performative side to his personality, which even though he does terrible things makes him less one dimensional. Rose is a spiritual human and that gives her a comedic edge in the way she talks to people, but even that is lined with a past sadness from what she is struggling with.
I think the play could have added a few more scenes for more context, even if the writer intended for mystery but I liked that Tim starts and ends the play. Tom’s grief is a present and sad thing throughout the play, but his character feels slightly underdeveloped and I wanted more explanation for his love for Rose and his characteristics.
I also really enjoyed Cassie’s character in the way of her feminist ideas and how she gives them up to sleep with Mark, the writer gives good representation to how women can feel wanting to fight for what they deserve but also be desired, even if it’s not in the way they want.
Rose blinding herself is the elephant in the room of the play, totally like greek mythology grotesque dramatic event in the middle of a play about peoples quite normal lives. It’s hard to understand but I think it adds more stakes to the play and the effect of what happens to her and she goes through.
Overall, really enjoyed.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 8, 2021
Really really enjoyed this play! The way the characters lives mingled with each other and the way their relationships grew was really captivating; they all formed connections with one another in some way and I found that really brilliant. The intermittent dialogue of the ‘voices’ throughout was fantastic too, and I loved how raw and explicit it was (for example the scene when Rose gives Mark a blowjob) - it wasn’t sugar coasted and Skinner didn’t try to avoid any awkwardness or anything which could be considered TMI which I loved!! The way the play started and ended was wonderful too, all the scenes were sandwiched together by the opening and closing scenes in a really lovely and unique way. Plus, the scene when Rose stabbed her eyes with her stiletto took me MASSIVELY by surprise; I physically opened my mouth and gasped because I’d got so immersed in the fast paced dialogue of the ‘voices’ in the scene so when that came I was like WHAT?!! As well as all this, the feminist quality and political awareness Skinner brings to this play is just fantastic. Overall this is a really brilliant, quite short and snappy play which I very much enjoyed!!
October 10, 2020
This play is so, so good mostly because of the characters rather than the story, I had a really fun time reading this.
February 16, 2021
“Short and sweet”. Really funny!
November 1, 2023
Very interesting play and I loved some scenes but over all I thought it was trying to get its point across too much.
It insisted upon itself.
It insisted upon itself.
February 26, 2024
Madness. 3.5/5
December 18, 2021
I’m studying this play as part of my acting class for SB Acting Studios.
I must say, this has been one of my favourite plays I’ve 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 about 4 unique 20-somethings 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 doesn’t 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 must say, this has been one of my favourite plays I’ve 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 about 4 unique 20-somethings 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 doesn’t shy away from any awkwardness, giving the reader a delightful and intriguing read.
A great play with a roller coaster of emotions.
Highly recommended.
April 28, 2023
i'm studying this for my a-level 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 play
December 8, 2011
2m/2w. Contemporary British. Some surprising scenes towards the end.
February 23, 2018
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.
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.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews