The Methuen Drama Book of Plays from the Sixties : Roots; Serjeant Musgrave's Dance; Loot; Early Morning; the Ruling Class
Language: English
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2009
- Softcover
- Used

Seller: Better World Books Ltd, Dunfermline, United KingdomBetter World Books Ltd
AbeBooks seller since October 13, 2008
Condition: Used - Good
£ 4.83
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Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.
Seller Inventory # GRP74216945
- Title
- The Methuen Drama Book of Plays from the Sixties : Roots; Serjeant Musgrave's Dance; Loot; Early Morning; the Ruling Class
- Author
- Orton, Joe, Wesker, Arnold, Bond, Edward, Barnes, Peter, Arden, John
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Publication year
- 2009
- Condition
- Good
- Binding
- Soft cover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 1408105888
- ISBN 13
- 9781408105887
- Item weight
- 1.162 pounds
- Dimensions
- N/A
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Joe Orton (1933-1967) was an English playwright noted for his black comedies, which combine genteel dialogue with violent and shocking action. Orton left home at 16 to train as an actor. His subversive style of humour first revealed itself in a bizarre incident in 1962, when he and his lover, Kenneth Halliwell were jailed for defacing library books. The two had carefully removed jacket blurbs from middle-brow novels and substituted their own, mostly scatological, counterfeits.
Orton delighted in shocking audiences by breaking taboos surrounding sexuality and death in conventionally structured 'black' farces involving epigrammatic dialogue and frenetic, convoluted plots. Thus, in Entertaining Mr Sloane (1964), a young lodger attempts to lure a woman and her brother into providing him with all he needs, only to find he has become each one's sexual plaything; Loot (1965) is a parody of a detective story involving much comic business with a coffin and a corpse; and What the Butler Saw (1969) stylishly turns farce on its head.
Orton was a homosexual in a period before the liberalization of British law, and this side of his life is described in detail in his posthumously published diaries. He was battered to death by Halliwell (who subsequently committed suicide) during a domestic argument at their home in Islington, North London.
John Arden (1930-2012) was a British dramatist, noted for his politically challenging and linguistically rich plays in the tradition of Brecht; he has written for radio and television as well as for the stage. After 1965 he collaborated on many works with his wife, the Irish playwright Margaretta D'Arcy.
Arden's first professionally produced play was a radio drama, The Life of Mars, broadcast in 1956. In the late 1950s Arden was associated with the Royal Court Theatre, where his stark anti-war play Serjeant Musgrave's Dance opened in 1959. The play was something of a commercial failure at the time, but has been frequently revived since. It was during the 1960s that Arden produced most of his major stage works; these include The Happy Haven (1960), The Workhouse Donkey (1963), which concerns municipal corruption in Arden's native Barnsley, Armstrong's Last Goodnight (1964), which drew parallels between contemporary political events in the Congo and machinations in medieval Scotland, and Left-Handed Liberty (1965).
In 1972 Arden and D'Arcy had a major argument with the RSC about the staging of their Arthurian play The Island of the Mighty. The argument culminated in Arden picketing the theatre and vowing that he would not write for the British stage again.
He settled in Galway, Ireland, in 1971. He was elected to Aosdána in 2011, a year before his death.
Peter Barnes (1931-2004) was a British writer and director whose work includes The Ruling Class (Nottingham and Piccadilly Theatre, London, 1968), Leonardo's Last Supper and Noonday Demons (Open Space Theatre, London, 1969), The Bewitched (RSC, Aldwych Theatre, London, 1974), Laughter! (Royal Court Theatre, 1978), Red Noses (RSC, Barbican, 1985) and Sunsets and Glories (West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, 1990). Over the course of his career he won many awards including the Evening Standard Award, 1969; the John Whiting Award, 1969; the Sony Best Play Award, 1981; the Laurence Olivier Award, 1985; the Royal Television society Award for Best TV Play, 1987; and was nominated for an Oscar in 1993.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Better World Books Ltd
Dunfermline, United Kingdom
AbeBooks seller since October 13, 2008
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