Don't Exaggerate: Desire and Abuse - Softcover

Barker, Howard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0714540765 ISBN 13: 9780714540764

Publisher: Calder Publications Ltd, 1985

Synopsis

Howard Barker's first published book of verse had a dramatic
quality sufficient enough to cross over into theatrical performance.
Polemical, touching and political, perennial themes of poetry which offer
an introduction to one of Britain's most brilliant and original current
writers. This collection of poetry reveals further aspects of the complex
dramatist. A painful sensibility to the European experience and a trenchant
analysis of masquerade and decay make many of these poems, whose subjects
range from Hungary, France, Cuba and Japan, a mode of public statement,
exploring the failure of failure of democratic idealism and outraged
torture, blackmail and deception. Yet they remain deeply personal in tone,
whether reflecting the poet's own sense of the dilemma of the artist in
society, expressing the agony of coming to terms with childhood, the
necessity for desire, or love lost and found. The transigent longing for
truth.

About this title

Review

`There is no such thing as a minor Howard Barker play. He packs
more into the slenderest dramas than most playwrights manage in an epic.' -- Lyn Gardner, The Guardian

About the Author

Currently among the most controversial of British Playwrights,
Barker emerged in the early 70s as one of the Royal Court school of writers
but soon abandoned social realism, social satire and fantasy in favour of
the unique fusion of surrealism and Greek tragedy. He is a prolific writer,
with a large theatrical output complimented by many volumes of poetry as
well as essay anthologies.

Barker has broadly followed the line of theatre created by Brecht and Bond,
yet he is an individual whose style shows a different development from his
contemporaries, characterised by his vivacity and linguistic verve.
Barker's plays explore power, sexuality and human behaviour with a poetic
and compelling language that overflows with ideas, beauty, violence and
rich, dark comedy.

In his more recent work, Barker has moved further into a world of
alternative history and myth. His brand of theatre - `The Theatre of
Catastrophe' - echos the concerns and anxieties of modern life; it is
catastrophe, either collective or individual, that looms over all of us.
The power of his writing, the fertility of his imagination, and the depth
of his dramatic invention and stage-craft make Barker, without question,
one of the major voices of the modern theatre.

There have been numerous productions of his work in the major national
theatres of Europe, Australia and North America. In Britain, aside from
productions by the Royal Court, Royal Shakespeare Company and some regional
and experimental theatres such as The Almeida in London, Barker's plays are
also toured by a specialised theatre company called 'The Wrestling School'
- a company dedicated solely to the work of Barker whose productions are
often directed by the playwright himself.

Barker is the prototypal literary figure for the new millennium - a
myth-maker of the highest order who probes the past to speculate on the
future, presenting the world in new forms and imprinting in the memory
unforgettable images and metaphors.

Edition details

• Publisher: Calder Publications Ltd
• Publication date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0714540765
• ISBN 13: 9780714540764
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 76