Howard Barker: Plays Eleven

Howard Barker: Plays Eleven

Author: Howard Barker

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-09-24

Total Pages: 458

ISBN-13: 1786829703

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The latest collection of plays from one of the most celebrated, influential and studied playwrights in the English-speaking world. Howard Barker's plays continue to challenge, unsettle and expose. Barker's theatre has never sought to reproduce the real world on stage, but 1870 is the first of his plays to be set in Hell. An executed traitor, whose passion for betrayal is akin to a faith, meets other victims of that terrible year in a sordid room. Inevitably they are inspected by God, but in a shape none could have predicted and only he can delight in. In Dans Le Palais Je, Barker's nihilistic landowner at once establishes a different tone as she survives waves of social unrest and outbids the cruel with her own cruelty. In this chaos, she relies on the delivery of obscure but meaningful words which arrive in sealed envelopes to prepare her for a succession of ordeals. Deep Wives and Knowledge and a Girl are short pieces, firmly established in the European theatre repertoire. In the first, a revolutionary movement called the Alterations puts a rich woman in the hands of her servants. The body, and its political meanings, is at the heart of this uncanny work, written for two actresses and a mechanical dog. In Knowledge and a Girl, Barker reinterprets the Snow White fable from the perspective of the Stepmother.


Book Synopsis Howard Barker: Plays Eleven by : Howard Barker

Download or read book Howard Barker: Plays Eleven written by Howard Barker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-24 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The latest collection of plays from one of the most celebrated, influential and studied playwrights in the English-speaking world. Howard Barker's plays continue to challenge, unsettle and expose. Barker's theatre has never sought to reproduce the real world on stage, but 1870 is the first of his plays to be set in Hell. An executed traitor, whose passion for betrayal is akin to a faith, meets other victims of that terrible year in a sordid room. Inevitably they are inspected by God, but in a shape none could have predicted and only he can delight in. In Dans Le Palais Je, Barker's nihilistic landowner at once establishes a different tone as she survives waves of social unrest and outbids the cruel with her own cruelty. In this chaos, she relies on the delivery of obscure but meaningful words which arrive in sealed envelopes to prepare her for a succession of ordeals. Deep Wives and Knowledge and a Girl are short pieces, firmly established in the European theatre repertoire. In the first, a revolutionary movement called the Alterations puts a rich woman in the hands of her servants. The body, and its political meanings, is at the heart of this uncanny work, written for two actresses and a mechanical dog. In Knowledge and a Girl, Barker reinterprets the Snow White fable from the perspective of the Stepmother.

Howard Barker: Plays Two

Howard Barker: Plays Two

Author: Howard Barker

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2012-05-03

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 184943347X

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Includes the plays The Castle, Gertrude - The Cry, Animals in Paradise and 13 Objects. Howard Barker is one of the most significant and controversial dramatists of his time. His plays challenge, unsettle and expose. The plays in this volume examine collisions of culture, gender and creed at moments of turmoil, developing the tragic form Barker defines as Theatre of Catastrophe. The Castle is set at the end of Crusades and describes the clashes that occur when returning soldiers bring an Arab architect home with them as a prisoner. Barker's abiding interest in interrogating the great classics for their 'silences' is shown in Gertrude - The Cry, his re-writing of the Hamlet story. Scarcely examined in Shakespeare, the passion of Gertrude for Claudius is made the centre of this harrowing tragedy, casting new light on the personality of Hamlet himself. Animals in Paradise was commissioned by the Swedish and Danish governments to celebrate their connection by bridge, a symbolic finish to centuries of antagonism. Barker's unexpected treatment of the theme provoked unrest on its first showing. 13 Objects movingly reveals the investment we make in inanimate things, their power to unsettle us, and how their talismanic qualities license new ways of seeing the world.


Book Synopsis Howard Barker: Plays Two by : Howard Barker

Download or read book Howard Barker: Plays Two written by Howard Barker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-05-03 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes the plays The Castle, Gertrude - The Cry, Animals in Paradise and 13 Objects. Howard Barker is one of the most significant and controversial dramatists of his time. His plays challenge, unsettle and expose. The plays in this volume examine collisions of culture, gender and creed at moments of turmoil, developing the tragic form Barker defines as Theatre of Catastrophe. The Castle is set at the end of Crusades and describes the clashes that occur when returning soldiers bring an Arab architect home with them as a prisoner. Barker's abiding interest in interrogating the great classics for their 'silences' is shown in Gertrude - The Cry, his re-writing of the Hamlet story. Scarcely examined in Shakespeare, the passion of Gertrude for Claudius is made the centre of this harrowing tragedy, casting new light on the personality of Hamlet himself. Animals in Paradise was commissioned by the Swedish and Danish governments to celebrate their connection by bridge, a symbolic finish to centuries of antagonism. Barker's unexpected treatment of the theme provoked unrest on its first showing. 13 Objects movingly reveals the investment we make in inanimate things, their power to unsettle us, and how their talismanic qualities license new ways of seeing the world.

Howard Barker's art of theatre

Howard Barker's art of theatre

Author: David I Rabey

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2016-05-16

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 1526111225

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Director-dramatist Howard Barker is a restlessly prolific, compulsively controversial and provocative multi-media artist. Beyond his internationally performed and acclaimed theatrical productions, and his award-winning theatre company The Wrestling School, he is also a poet, a painter whose work has been exhibited internationally, and a philosophical essayist cognisant of the unique power of art to provoke moral speculation, and of the distinctive theatricality of the human being in times of crisis. This collection of essays provides international perspectives on the full range of Barker’s achievements, theatrical and otherwise, and argues for their unique importance and urgency at the forefront of several genres of provocative modern art. It includes an interview with the artist and an essay by Barker himself.


Book Synopsis Howard Barker's art of theatre by : David I Rabey

Download or read book Howard Barker's art of theatre written by David I Rabey and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-16 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Director-dramatist Howard Barker is a restlessly prolific, compulsively controversial and provocative multi-media artist. Beyond his internationally performed and acclaimed theatrical productions, and his award-winning theatre company The Wrestling School, he is also a poet, a painter whose work has been exhibited internationally, and a philosophical essayist cognisant of the unique power of art to provoke moral speculation, and of the distinctive theatricality of the human being in times of crisis. This collection of essays provides international perspectives on the full range of Barker’s achievements, theatrical and otherwise, and argues for their unique importance and urgency at the forefront of several genres of provocative modern art. It includes an interview with the artist and an essay by Barker himself.

Barker: Plays Eight

Barker: Plays Eight

Author: Howard Barker

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-01-08

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 178319586X

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The Trojan legend and the character of Helen form the basis for The Bite of the Night. As with all Barker’s mythical and historical works, it is overlaid and undermined by a contemporary narrative, in this instance the search for the origin of the erotic undertaken by the redundant university teacher Dr Savage and his nihilistic student, Hogbin. Through all twelve Troys, Savage and Helen struggle with a passion both intellectual and physical, and the idea of beauty is refined to a terrifying degree. In Brutopia Barker’s controversial portrait of the humanist Thomas More is shaped around his strained relationship with his daughter Cecilia, here discovered to be the author of a counter-text to her parent’s infamous Utopia. Cecilia’s wit and cruelty mark her out as one of Barker’s least compromising and heroic young women. The Forty is a significant departure from Barker’s dramatic practice, his investment in language reduced to a few phrases which punctuate detailed scenes of conflict and solitude. Physical movement, and intense concentration on gesture show the author’s flair for visuality in a new and surprising way. The theme of sacrifice features increasingly in Barker’s theatre, and in Wonder and Worship in the Dying Ward it is a mother’s refusal to apologize for an act of passion – notwithstanding the dire consequence for her own child – that is at the heart of the argument. Set in a home for terminally-ill patients, many of whom create a hilarious chorus around the protagonists, Wonder and Worship in the Dying Ward shows Barker’s imagination in its most startling form.


Book Synopsis Barker: Plays Eight by : Howard Barker

Download or read book Barker: Plays Eight written by Howard Barker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-01-08 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Trojan legend and the character of Helen form the basis for The Bite of the Night. As with all Barker’s mythical and historical works, it is overlaid and undermined by a contemporary narrative, in this instance the search for the origin of the erotic undertaken by the redundant university teacher Dr Savage and his nihilistic student, Hogbin. Through all twelve Troys, Savage and Helen struggle with a passion both intellectual and physical, and the idea of beauty is refined to a terrifying degree. In Brutopia Barker’s controversial portrait of the humanist Thomas More is shaped around his strained relationship with his daughter Cecilia, here discovered to be the author of a counter-text to her parent’s infamous Utopia. Cecilia’s wit and cruelty mark her out as one of Barker’s least compromising and heroic young women. The Forty is a significant departure from Barker’s dramatic practice, his investment in language reduced to a few phrases which punctuate detailed scenes of conflict and solitude. Physical movement, and intense concentration on gesture show the author’s flair for visuality in a new and surprising way. The theme of sacrifice features increasingly in Barker’s theatre, and in Wonder and Worship in the Dying Ward it is a mother’s refusal to apologize for an act of passion – notwithstanding the dire consequence for her own child – that is at the heart of the argument. Set in a home for terminally-ill patients, many of whom create a hilarious chorus around the protagonists, Wonder and Worship in the Dying Ward shows Barker’s imagination in its most startling form.

Barker: Plays Eight

Barker: Plays Eight

Author: Howard Barker

Publisher: Oberon Books

Published: 2015-03-10

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 9781783190874

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The Trojan legend and the character of Helen form the basis for The Bite of the Night. As with all Barker’s mythical and historical works, it is overlaid and undermined by a contemporary narrative, in this instance the search for the origin of the erotic undertaken by the redundant university teacher Dr Savage and his nihilistic student, Hogbin. Through all twelve Troys, Savage and Helen struggle with a passion both intellectual and physical, and the idea of beauty is refined to a terrifying degree. In Brutopia Barker’s controversial portrait of the humanist Thomas More is shaped around his strained relationship with his daughter Cecilia, here discovered to be the author of a counter-text to her parent’s infamous Utopia. Cecilia’s wit and cruelty mark her out as one of Barker’s least compromising and heroic young women. The Forty is a significant departure from Barker’s dramatic practice, his investment in language reduced to a few phrases which punctuate detailed scenes of conflict and solitude. Physical movement, and intense concentration on gesture show the author’s flair for visuality in a new and surprising way. The theme of sacrifice features increasingly in Barker’s theatre, and in Wonder and Worship in the Dying Ward it is a mother’s refusal to apologize for an act of passion – notwithstanding the dire consequence for her own child – that is at the heart of the argument. Set in a home for terminally-ill patients, many of whom create a hilarious chorus around the protagonists, Wonder and Worship in the Dying Ward shows Barker’s imagination in its most startling form.


Book Synopsis Barker: Plays Eight by : Howard Barker

Download or read book Barker: Plays Eight written by Howard Barker and published by Oberon Books. This book was released on 2015-03-10 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Trojan legend and the character of Helen form the basis for The Bite of the Night. As with all Barker’s mythical and historical works, it is overlaid and undermined by a contemporary narrative, in this instance the search for the origin of the erotic undertaken by the redundant university teacher Dr Savage and his nihilistic student, Hogbin. Through all twelve Troys, Savage and Helen struggle with a passion both intellectual and physical, and the idea of beauty is refined to a terrifying degree. In Brutopia Barker’s controversial portrait of the humanist Thomas More is shaped around his strained relationship with his daughter Cecilia, here discovered to be the author of a counter-text to her parent’s infamous Utopia. Cecilia’s wit and cruelty mark her out as one of Barker’s least compromising and heroic young women. The Forty is a significant departure from Barker’s dramatic practice, his investment in language reduced to a few phrases which punctuate detailed scenes of conflict and solitude. Physical movement, and intense concentration on gesture show the author’s flair for visuality in a new and surprising way. The theme of sacrifice features increasingly in Barker’s theatre, and in Wonder and Worship in the Dying Ward it is a mother’s refusal to apologize for an act of passion – notwithstanding the dire consequence for her own child – that is at the heart of the argument. Set in a home for terminally-ill patients, many of whom create a hilarious chorus around the protagonists, Wonder and Worship in the Dying Ward shows Barker’s imagination in its most startling form.

Barker: Plays Three

Barker: Plays Three

Author: Howard Barker

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2012-05-03

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 1849433631

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Includes the plays Claw, Ursula, He Stumbled and The Love of a Good Man The plays in this volume range over twenty years, beginning with Barker's first major work for the stage, Claw, a study of urban discontent and political impotence, developed over three stylistically contrasting acts. Its terrible conclusion marked the debut of a vivid dramatic imagination. In Ursula Barker's engagement with the pains of the past, and his way of reinvigorating ancient arguments reaches a high point in his treatment of the legend of St Ursula and the martyrdom of 11,000 virgins, where the virtues of celibacy and marriage are set against the catastrophic passion of a woman described as a 'perfect liar'. Barker's scrutiny of the body and its complex meanings is never more intense than in He Stumbled, the tragedy of a celebrated anatomist whose last dissection becomes his own. The body as a site of political and personal investment is also at the heart of The Love of a Good Man, an early work set on the empty battlefields of the Great War, where the burial of the dead becomes a pretext for private ambition as well as national grief.


Book Synopsis Barker: Plays Three by : Howard Barker

Download or read book Barker: Plays Three written by Howard Barker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-05-03 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes the plays Claw, Ursula, He Stumbled and The Love of a Good Man The plays in this volume range over twenty years, beginning with Barker's first major work for the stage, Claw, a study of urban discontent and political impotence, developed over three stylistically contrasting acts. Its terrible conclusion marked the debut of a vivid dramatic imagination. In Ursula Barker's engagement with the pains of the past, and his way of reinvigorating ancient arguments reaches a high point in his treatment of the legend of St Ursula and the martyrdom of 11,000 virgins, where the virtues of celibacy and marriage are set against the catastrophic passion of a woman described as a 'perfect liar'. Barker's scrutiny of the body and its complex meanings is never more intense than in He Stumbled, the tragedy of a celebrated anatomist whose last dissection becomes his own. The body as a site of political and personal investment is also at the heart of The Love of a Good Man, an early work set on the empty battlefields of the Great War, where the burial of the dead becomes a pretext for private ambition as well as national grief.

Collected Plays

Collected Plays

Author: Howard Barker

Publisher:

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13:

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Book Synopsis Collected Plays by : Howard Barker

Download or read book Collected Plays written by Howard Barker and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Howard Barker: Ecstasy and Death

Howard Barker: Ecstasy and Death

Author: D. Rabey

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2009-04-17

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0230582036

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Barker has been acclaimed as 'England's greatest living dramatist' in The Times and as 'the Shakespeare of our age' by Sarah Kane. His uniquely stylish work brings together startlingly original forms of classical discipline, moral ruthlessness and catastrophic eroticism. This study considers the full range of his theatrical achievements.


Book Synopsis Howard Barker: Ecstasy and Death by : D. Rabey

Download or read book Howard Barker: Ecstasy and Death written by D. Rabey and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-04-17 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Barker has been acclaimed as 'England's greatest living dramatist' in The Times and as 'the Shakespeare of our age' by Sarah Kane. His uniquely stylish work brings together startlingly original forms of classical discipline, moral ruthlessness and catastrophic eroticism. This study considers the full range of his theatrical achievements.

Howard Barker: Politics and Desire

Howard Barker: Politics and Desire

Author: D. Rabey

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Published: 2009-01-30

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780230577404

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This is a new, revised and updated paperback edition of the critically acclaimed first full-length critical assessment of this most individual, challenging, conceptually energetic of British dramatists, whose recognition and influence have extended to a position of international eminence.


Book Synopsis Howard Barker: Politics and Desire by : D. Rabey

Download or read book Howard Barker: Politics and Desire written by D. Rabey and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-01-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a new, revised and updated paperback edition of the critically acclaimed first full-length critical assessment of this most individual, challenging, conceptually energetic of British dramatists, whose recognition and influence have extended to a position of international eminence.

Contemporary British Theatre

Contemporary British Theatre

Author: T. Shank

Publisher: Springer

Published: 1996-11-04

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1349250910

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Contemporary British Theatre surveys the complex and dynamic theatre of the eighties and early nineties reflecting a country that is multicultural, multiethnic and multinational. The contributors - artists, scholars and critics - offer insights into the unique forms of theatre performance devised to express the tensions and pressures of our time. For the paperback edition a new preface has been written, including several updating pieces from individual contributors.


Book Synopsis Contemporary British Theatre by : T. Shank

Download or read book Contemporary British Theatre written by T. Shank and published by Springer. This book was released on 1996-11-04 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary British Theatre surveys the complex and dynamic theatre of the eighties and early nineties reflecting a country that is multicultural, multiethnic and multinational. The contributors - artists, scholars and critics - offer insights into the unique forms of theatre performance devised to express the tensions and pressures of our time. For the paperback edition a new preface has been written, including several updating pieces from individual contributors.