A Hard Heart (Playscripts): The Early Hours of a Reviled Man: No. 119 (Playscripts S.) - Softcover

Barker, Howard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0714542288 ISBN 13: 9780714542287

Publisher: Calder Publications Ltd, 1992

Synopsis

Barker's A Hard Heart is about knowledge, self-knowledge, and the gulf between. Its protagonist, a strategist and innovator, is a culture's last defence against barbarity. During a long siege she provides the intellectual resources that delay a city's fall. But she is herself besieged by a man of infinite patience , her equal in cunning. His persistence, and the relations with the Queen, her patron, and with her only son, provide the distractions which fatally impede her ambitions to become no less than a god. The Early Hours of a Reviled Man takes place over a single night - beginning with the routine stroll of an anti-semitic doctor and novelist, and ending with a nightmare examination of his life and the ambiguities of his persecutors. Its protagonist is defiant, pathetic savage, by turns, an excoriating figure tapping his way down city thoroughfares awash with horror and nostalgia. This is Loius-Ferdinand Celine at bay, reanimated by Sleen, whose simultaneous shamelessness and abjection make him the target of hatred and despairing love.

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Calder Publications Ltd
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0714542288
• ISBN 13: 9780714542287
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112