Reading Barker with Lacan: Twenty asides on Woman, the One and the Real

For many critics, Howard Barker’s theatre can be defined by its emphasis on sexual desire. Despite its focus on death and on the sexual individual, however, it is also strongly characterized by an almost exclusive relationship with the One. The twenty aphorisms in this contribution seek to engage with this apparent contradiction on a more poetic level. Five cycles of four asides each set out to uncover Lacan’s statement that ‘there is no sexual relationship’ in the Art of Theatre. Their aim is to poetically define and interrogate the role of Woman and her innate connection to the Real in Barker’s tragedy.