Abstract
Since his debut as a playwright with An Oak Tree in 2003, Tim Crouch's work has investigated modes of abstraction, performance, and affective engagement. Critical responses to his provocative 2009 play, The Author, largely converged on questions of ethics and responsibility that were sharpened by the use of narrated violence and sexual abuse.
Pivoting upon existing approaches to his work that have prioritized its ethical and relational dimensions, this paper leads from the question what we can learn about Crouch's latest work if we view it through the lens of care? Recent scholarship on theatre, performance and care testifies to a growing desire to adopt vocabularies of care largely imported from the medical and social sciences. And yet, it is worth noting that as with the discourses of aesthetics/politics and aesthetics/ethics, there remains a gap between what constitutes care practices and politics in the 'real' world and what care means in the realm of the art.
Clearly, Crouch's work abounds in entanglements (pace Barad (2007)) - its theatrical, ethical, and affective complexities interweave with its situated, relational, and performative qualities - producing the challenge to think about care in theatre and care for the theatre. The focus of the paper is three recent plays by Tim Crouch: Beginners (2018), Superglue (2022) and Truth's a Dog Must to Kennel (2022).
The first two are works for children, that involve paired adult-child roles. Truth's a Dog Must to Kennel is a monologue performed by Crouch.
The paper considers how in each of these works, Crouch explores states of vulnerability, and co-dependence that are clustered around enduring nodes throughout his work: the child, acting and mortality. Through close attention to Crouch's dramaturgical strategies of plurality and self-reflexivity, the paper aims to open up the care implications of the work and its challenges.