About the work
Hautnah (original title: Closer) is a play by the British writer Patrick Marber about love, desire and infidelity between two couples in contemporary London. It premiered on 22 May 1997 at the Cottesloe auditorium of the Royal National Theatre, directed by the author himself, and transferred the same year to the theatre's larger Lyttelton stage.
Plot
Obituary writer Dan falls for photographer Anna, who is initially involved with the doctor Larry; young Alice hovers at the edge of this web of relationships. Over several years the four characters fall in and out of love, betray and leave one another in shifting pairings, often mediated by the lies they tell themselves and each other.
Cultural significance
The play is regarded as one of the most influential British relationship dramas of the 1990s; it won the 1997 Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play, and was later adapted into a film by Mike Nichols.