David Ian Rabey Livres

¿It¿s all real. All of it. Everything bad is real¿ - Moe Alistair McDowall¿s Pomona was first staged in 2014 and won properly startling, and startled, acclaim. Its edgeland setting permits a surrealistic disengagement of linear forms of time, which is both dreamlike and wildly funny; nightmarish and ominously enveloping. The play has as its imaginative springboard a landscape which is both real and surreal. It offers an unforgettable journey into radical uncertainty, alongside unpredictable action that presents and questions the forms by which all too much of British life is lived. Rabey offers us a wild plunge into this modern English urban rabbit hole, a haunting and bewildering high-stakes hunt for meaning and value, set in a gothic noir Manchester, possibly dystopian (or possibly not).

Focusing on the evolution of English dramatic writing since 1940, this book analyzes the works of influential playwrights like Beckett, Pinter, and Churchill, exploring their attempts to challenge traditional notions of power, sexuality, and morality. It highlights how post-war drama serves as a medium for expressing personal feelings with public impact and examines the contributions of Irish, Welsh, and Scottish dramatists. The author redefines key themes and styles from the 1980s to today, providing insightful introductions to over 60 dramatists while advocating for a critical reappraisal of past perspectives.

Jez Butterworth is the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful new British dramatist of the 21st century: his acclaimed play Jerusalem has had extended runs in the West End and on Broadway. This book is the first to examine Butterworth's writings for stage and film and to identify how and why his work appeals so widely and profoundly. It examines the way that he weaves suspenseful stories of eccentric outsiders, whose adventures echo widespread contemporary social anxieties, and involve surprising expressions of both violence and generosity. This book reveals how Butterworth unearths the strange forms of wildness and defiance lurking in the depths and at the edges of England: where unpredictable outbursts of humour highlight the intensity of life, and characters discover links between their haunting past and the uncertainties of the present, to create a meaningful future. Supplemented by essays from James D. Balestrieri and Elisabeth Angel-Perez, this is a clear and detailed source of reference for a new generation of theatre audiences, practitioners and directors who wish to explore the work of this seminal dramatist.