Table of Contents:

1.  Introduction  1

2.  The Narrative Situation in Midsummer  1

2.1.  Authorial Narration in Midsummer  2

2.1.1.  The Temporal Structure  4

2.2.  First-Person Narrative Situation in Midsummer  5

2.2.1.  The Narrative Situation in the Songs of Midsummer  7

2.3.  The Function of the Narrative Situations in Midsummer  8

3.  Conclusion  9

4.  Bibliography  11

1. Introduction

In his article “Voice and Narration in Postmodern Drama” Brian Richardson complains of the lack of “critical literature on narration in drama”, as it is only recently that narratologists have even started to even acknowledge the existence of “narratorial mediation” (Richardson, Voice and Narration 682). Considering Midsummer (a play with songs) by David Greig and Gordon McIntyre, this recent development in narratology is indispensable for an appropriate analysis. This drama for two actors was first performed at the Traverse Theatre in October 2008, and being first published in 2009. Within this drama, a large amount of the text consists of “narrated dialogue” (Greig 4). Not only does Midsummer employ narration to a - for drama - rather great extend, but it also depicts different types of narrative mediation, and comments on the difference between the story told by people and that of reality. Thus, this paper will show that Midsummer is not only a play with narration, but also a play on narration.

First, I will point out the different narrative situations that can be found in Midsummer, their characteristics, and what functions they have in the course of the play. The analysis of the narrative situation is based on Pfister's typological cycle (cf. Nünning 111). In the course of the analysis of the authorial narrator that is employed in most of the drama, an analysis of the temporal structure of the play is also relevant. It follows Genette's “account of the categories of order, duration, and frequency” (Richardson, Drama and Narrative 147). For the analysis of the first-person narrator, it is necessary to look separately at the narrative situation in the songs.

Finally, I will show how the different narrative situations work together and in what way the drama shows how storytelling works.

2. The Narrative Situation in Midsummer

For the analysis of the narrative situation in David Greig's Midsummer it is necessary to distinguish several parts of the play, in which different narrative situations are employed. An authorial narrator can be found in most parts of the play, but the story of the “legendary lost weekend” in “Eleven” (Greig 47-57) is told by Bob and Helena as first-person narrators. The songs are also written in first-person narrative situation.

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2.1. Authorial Narration in Midsummer

Taking a look at the narrator of Midsummer, leaving “Eleven” and the songs aside for now, he or she shows all characteristics of an authorial narrator according to Stanzel (cf. Nünning 112). To begin with, he or she refers to the characters of the play in the third person: “Helena's trying to make it from Marchmond to St. Mary's Cathedral in just under twenty minutes” (Greig 29). He or she is also clearly no part of the world Helena and Bob live in. This is apparent, for instance, when he or she follows Helena into her bathroom with Helena having a hangover. In this scene, the narrator appears to be a part of the audience that is watching Helena vomit: “We find Helena in her fourth-floor flat vomiting” (Greig 23). Due to his omniscience and omnipresence Vera and Ansgar Nünning describe Stanzel's authorial narrator as being endowed with certain privileges, namely the “psychological privilege”, the “spatial privilege” and the “temporal privilege” (cf. Nünning 113). Considering the narrator in Midsummer (apart from “Eleven” and the songs), all these characteristics can be found. Firstly, the narrator describes what Helena and Bob think and feel, for example when Helena prepares to go on a date to “Whighams Wine Cellars”: “Helena […] thinks to herself - OK - she thinks - if I was him and I saw […] me - I would think - ‘yes’” (Greig 10), or when Bob holds the weeping Helena in his arms. The narrator tells us, that “Bob has found that he feels surprisingly OK” (Greig 20). These examples illustrate that the narrator has insight into Bob's and Helena's psyche.

Considering space and time, the narrator is always able to switch from Helena's to Bob's story and vice versa, although they are not in the same place: “So you imagine Helena running […] furious. Now you imagine Bob running” (Greig 29). He or she can even move into Bob's head (cf. Greig 39). However, he or she is not bound to the chronology of the story, but rather, the story is interrupted several times by ‘flashbacks’: “And there's these two people having sex - Bob and Helena. They've only just met. They met a couple of hours ago in a pub” (Greig 5).

Employing an authorial narrator gives Greig the possibility to use certain stylistic devices such as the direct address to the reader/audience. This device occurs at numerous points of the drama, sometimes even in a question like “Where do you go when there's nowhere left to hide?” (Greig 33). This question animates the reader/audience to think instead of just let the action go on, on its own. The most

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