David Ian Rabey

‘It’s all real. All of it. Everything bad is real’ - MoeAlistair 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).

‘It’s all real. All of it. Everything bad is real’ - MoeAlistair 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).

English Drama Since 1940 considers the bids of successive post-war dramatists to find language and images of remorseless disclosure, appropriate to the public manifestation of sensed crisis and the interrogation of the ideal of renewal. This book introduces the period and its discourse whilst redefining them, to give proper consideration to developments of themes, styles, concerns and contexts from the 80s to the present. The book offers succinct and analytical introductions to the work of 60 dramatists, whilst arguing for (re)appraisal of many dates critical perspectives, in order to stimulate further argument in the field.

Theatre, Time and Temporality is the first book-length exploration of the subject of temporality within theatre and performance. David Ian Rabey brings in sources ranging from medieval and Renaissance theatre to contemporary performances – in addition to recent writings from physics, philosophy and psychology – to analyse ways that time can be presented, communicated and transformed in the theatre. How do we experience time in theatre, and how can that experience be altered or manipulated? Rabey’s analysis and exploration will spark discussion among students and scholars of drama, as well as among practicing performers and dramatic writers.

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.

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.

David Ian Rabey is one of the most explosive, pioneering, and erotic playwrights ever to emerge from Wales. Lovefuries features three of his performance texts that flaut national and personal pressure to keep silent, committing instead to explore the shocking resurgences of life that break through grief. These plays tackle such issues as the nature of the feminine, surviving sexual abuse, and the boundaries of human language and physicality. This unforgettable collection will introduce American audiences to one of the most gifted contemporary playwrights working in Britain.

This collection of essays is the first to consider the full range of Barker's theatrical objectives and achievements, and reflects his international status as an artistic thinker and practitioner. Contributors from around the world consider key events and themes in Barker's plays such as death, sexuality, performance, blindness, politics, eroticism and cruelty. Overviews of Barker's career explore his rejection of standard dramatic and theatrical techniques and his pursuit of a new tragic form.

A first volume of plays by a startlingly ambitious and inventive dramatist. The Back of Beyond takes, as its starting point, the route of a sequel to King Lear, in which the surviving Shakespearean characters set out on an odyssey through a perilous, blasted landscape, and encounter new agents of cruelty, desire and magic. Wildly humorous and fiercely shocking, the play charts a series of remorseless exposures, interrogating the idealisms and brutal repressions that have informed Anglo-Welsh relations whilst subverting Shakespearean motifs; tragically humorous poetic language and nightmarish visual imagery contribute to the sense of a land where the signposts have been smashed. A sequel to The Back of Beyond, The Battle of the Crows extends and concludes the stories of three characters - a maverick witch, a renegade knight, and an abuse victim made empress - in a harrowing and humorous exploration of border warfare, witchcraft, massacre, bitchery, hilarity and heartbreak. The Battle of the Crows is partly a dramatic speculation about desire as magic, partly a sad reckless laugh at internecine hostilities and the passionate and disastrous transformations which spring up in the face of Death itself.

This is an introductory guide to the themes, styles, concerns and contexts of English drama, from 1940 to the turn of the 21st century.

Dr. Rabey's profound critical study of David Rudkin's drama constitutes an in-depth evaluation of this unique dramatist, re-assessed in the light of his bi-sexuality and Anglo-Irish origins. This key study includes insights from noted performers of Rudkin's work, including Ian Hogg, Peter McEnery, Ian McDiarmid, Gerard Murphy, and Charlotte Cornwell. It is a fully authorized study with exclusive reference to archival material which includes some frank and urgent interview contributions from the dramatist himself, who is usually deemed reclusive. It is enhanced by Dr. Rabey's own experience of Wales, Ireland, and the English Black Country for his exposition of Rudkin's mythic sense of Celtic and Mercian history.

Dr. Rabey's profound critical study of David Rudkin's drama constitutes an in-depth evaluation of this unique dramatist, re-assessed in the light of his bi-sexuality and Anglo-Irish origins. This key study includes insights from noted performers of Rudkin's work, including Ian Hogg, Peter McEnery, Ian McDiarmid, Gerard Murphy, and Charlotte Cornwell. It is a fully authorized study with exclusive reference to archival material which includes some frank and urgent interview contributions from the dramatist himself, who is usually deemed reclusive. It is enhanced by Dr. Rabey's own experience of Wales, Ireland, and the English Black Country for his exposition of Rudkin's mythic sense of Celtic and Mercian history.