Strategies of Political Theatre: Post-War British Playwrights

Description

This volume provides a theoretical framework for some of the most important playwriting in Britain in the second half of the twentieth century. Examining representative plays by Arnold Wesker, John Arden, Trevor Griffith, Howard Barker, Howard Brenton, Edward Bond, David Hare, John McGrath and Caryl Churchill, the author analyses their respective strategies for persuading audiences of the need for a radical restructuring of society. The book begins with a discussion of the way that theatre has been used to convey a political message. Each chapter is then devoted to an exploration of the engagement of individual playwrights with left-wing political theatre, including a detailed analysis of one of their major plays. Despite political change since the 1980s, political playwriting continues to be a significant element in contemporary playwriting, but in a very changed form.

Michael Patterson is Professor of Theatre at De Montfort University, Leicester. He is a major British authority on German Theatre, especially twentieth-century political theatre in Germany. He is author of German Theatre Today; The Revolution in German Theatre 1900-1933; Peter Stein; The First German Theatre; German Theatre: A Bibliography and is editor of Georg Buchner: Collected Plays. He has published numerous articles on German Naturalist theatre, Reinhardt, Pirandello, Brecht, concentration camp theatre, Kroetz and East German theatre.

'... an authoritative and challenging addition to the woefully short list of scholarly books on some of our best neglected dramatic assets.' Theatre Notebook 'Now that mainstream British theatre seems to have remembered politics, it is useful to recall, with Michael Patterson's help, that political creeds used to inspire stands on the theatrical barricades, if nowhere else.' The Times Literary Supplement