Includes the plays The Last Supper; Seven Lears; Hated Nightfall and Wounds to the FaceHoward Barker is one of the most significant and controversial dramatists of his time. His plays challenge; unsettle and expose.Both The Last Supper and Seven Lears exemplify Barkers way with great religious and literary stories; the first placing the wilful suicide of a Christ-like prophet; Lvov; in the context of modern chaos; illuminating his moral ambiguities with comic or painful parables; the second taking its inspiration from the significant absence in Shakespeares play; that of Lears wife; the queen whose murder is here discerned as the origin as the great family tragedy.The execution of the Russian royal family remains shrouded in mystery - not least that of the identity of two bodies discovered in the mass grave years after the event. In Hated Nightfall Barkers speculative imagination leads him to identify these as the childrens tutor; Dancer; and a recalcitrant servant; Jane. Dancer is perhaps Barkers archetypal hero; febrile; iconoclastic; yet in search of a self-sacrifice nothing appears to justify. In Wounds to the Face; our complex and sometimes violent relations with our own physiognomy form the psychological link between related scenes of wounding; notoriety; shame and vanity in a play of kaleidoscopic energy and imagery.
#739817 in eBooks 2012-02-29 2012-02-29File Name: B00755MIB2
Review
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful. Essential reading for the acting of ShakespeareBy Robert ResnikoffCicely Berry. Voice Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. has written an exemplary book for actors. particularly those performing works by Shakespeare. She somehow finds the words that express the elusive feel for Shakespeares language that any good Shakespearean actor must develop. Her descriptions. examples and exercises provide a comprehensive training program for actors that recreates the work she has done with some of the worlds great Shakespearean actors of our day: an essential book.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Quality resource in its fieldBy Bible College LibrarianQuality resource in its field1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy 49ergal777For my daughter.
