Stitching

by Anthony Neilson

We will fix it.
We will mend it...



In the light of a pregnancy, a faithless couple pick apart their relationship, stitch by painful stitch. Can it be mended? Anthony Neilson's dark and intimate new play is a love story set at the extremes of brutality, banality and tenderness.

Stitching opened at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, on 2 August 2002 and transferred to the Bush Theatre, London, on 12 September 2002."Explodes with power, discipline, integrity and sheer cruel psychological accuracy ... Neilson's writing has a terrible beauty" Sunday Times

"Startlingly rich and challenging, Neilson depicts with aching precision a relationship in which love is undermined by distrust" Time Out
"Shattering, shocking...a serious, persuasive account of the blind alleys love can lead us down" Daily Telegraph

"A characteristically brave and brutal offering" Independent

"A deeply mesmerising, if shocking, experience as a couple smashes through taboo after taboo in a harrowing sexual tug of war" Evening Standard

Genres: Plays

80 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2002

About the author

Anthony Neilson (born 1967) is a Scottish playwright and director. He is known for his collabo rative way of writing and workshopping his plays. Much of his work is characterised by the exploration of sex and violence.

Neilson has been cited as a key figure of In-yer-face theatre, a term used to characterise new plays with a confrontational style and sensibility that emerged in British theatre during the 1990s. He has been credited with coining the phrase "in-your-face theatre" but has rejected the label and instead describes his work as “'experiential' theatre”.

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Update 5/21: Having just read an entire anthology of Neilson's more recent plays, I thought I'd revisit this early two-hander, which put him on the theatre map when it was banned in Malta (of all places). It holds up very well, and makes an interesting juxtaposition with 'The Prudes', which is another two hander about sex and relationships.

Original 2015 review: If Edward Albee and Harold Pinter had a love child together, it would be Anthony Neilson (... with perhaps Strindberg as godfather). This is a brutally uncompromising two-hander, of a damaged couple attempting against all odds to make sense of their relationship, a possible past tragedy, and their uncertain future. Would love to see this performed sometime, although it would require two virtuoso and very brave performers to pull it off.

[Kostas]

[not so much a review, let's call it notes: ]

I LOVE the dialogue style in in-yer-face plays.

Usually, the characters in such plays are either archetypes or stripped to their most basic characteristics so that you emphasize more on the (shocking) action and the play's message.
Shocking action is definitely here, but the characters are more responsible in a way. They are the ones taking the action, not passive receivers. This makes them more present and fully fleshed.

I had wild expectations from this play after reading that it was banned in Malta and the reasons the government provided for banning the performance. It did not meet them. It felt more aesthetic than perverted. Even though perversion is highlighted in two scenes, the rest of the play seems more dreamy in a way, making me wonder if what I'm reading is a memory, a role play or random dialogues that I shouldn't try to connect. The act that gives the play its title is justified but doesn't seem important enough.

[Charlie Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Anthony Neilson's work, but this sadly missed the mark for me. For once, it feels like he's maybe being overly provocative. Lacks the dark comedy of his other work which often helps provide a much needed contrast. Still, I don't regret reading it. I probably won't read it again though.

[Isabelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful and hard hitting. I always remember this play.

[Samuel Wharton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very important play, very powerful. Gripping read.

[let the fruit rot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unhinged

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A philandering couple act out games of degradation and violence. They seem to be moving towards a healthier resolution to their relationship until one of them takes the games too far.

The female character's need for humiliation and brutality was at first off-putting. I've seen way too much Hollywood fare in which the woman is either willing to put up with anything to get her man, or is put into perilous positions in order that the hero can be, well, heroic. That, thankfully, turned out to not be the case here.

This piece examines society's influence on the individual's penchant for unhealthy interpersonal dealings. The struggle to find a better way to relate and the fianl negation of that fight mirrors the reality of these brutal relationships.

[Noha]

It's a bit too pornographic at the beginning, but later it gives way to an undercurrent of loss, grief and the subsequent need to hold on to one another. Can't quite rate it yet.
I also believe the references to Auschwitz and the Moor murders are way out of line. I believe he deliberately included them to mock his contemporaries' need for shock value, and the "in-yer-face" label which he rejects.