Playgroup #4 Ebbi & The Cock Tavern
Monday 20 February 2017, 7-9pm
Playgroup have been meeting every few months to see plays currently showing in London. During this session at Res., we will be reading and discussing Max Beckmann’s 1923 play “Ebbi – A Comedy” alongside Ben Westley Clarke’s recent writing about The Cock Tavern. “Ebbi” tells the story of a well-to-do family man who runs away with a female artist, in order to pursue a Nietzschean calling. Ebbi soon realizes that he prefers the tedious predictability of married, bourgeois life to the tense precarity of bohemia. Ben Westley Clarke’s writing documents and embellishes the goings-on at a working-class, Irish pub in Somers Town, North London. We aim to discuss both pieces of writing in relation to the visual art made by their authors; the lineage of expressionism, encompassing painting and written drama, and the notions of objectivity and “matter-of-factness” which underpin much of the Neue Sachlichkeit. Feel free to bring along any references you would like to share on the day, electronic or analogue formats.
There will be free soup and a donation bar. Email contact@beingres.org for readings.
playgroup has been initiated by M J Harding and Helen Kaplinsky