What do you think?
Rate this book
Plays #8
Plays 8: Born / People / Chair / Existence / The Under Room
Edward Bond Plays:8 brings together recent work by the writer of the classic stage plays Saved, Lear, The Pope's Wedding, and Early Morning. The volume comprises five new plays and two prose essays:
Two Cups: introductory essay
Born: the third play in the Colline Tetralogy (the first two of which appear in Edward Bond Plays:7); premiering at the Avignon Festival in July 2006.
People: the fourth play in the Colline Tetralogy
Chair: first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2000.
Existence: first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2002.
The Under Room: first staged by Big Brum in October 2005; 'an intricate puzzle that is compelling in both its intellectual and emotional intensity'5 stars (Guardian)
Freedom and Drama: an extended disquisition on the relationship of drama to the self and society in which Bond argues that drama alone can create human meaning.
People: the fourth play in the Colline Tetralogy
Chair: first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2000.
Existence: first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2002.
The Under Room: first staged by Big Brum in October 2005; 'an intricate puzzle that is compelling in both its intellectual and emotional intensity'5 stars (Guardian)
Freedom and Drama: an extended disquisition on the relationship of drama to the self and society in which Bond argues that drama alone can create human meaning.
240 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2006
10 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 27, 2015
Bond is not an easy author. His plays are interesting to read but only come to life and truly reveal themselves in performance. And on top of this his themes, characters, and what he has to say aren't easy to take (and I mean that as a compliment).
This collection is of some of Bond's most recent work. Of these Chair might be my favorite but the most unusual play for Bond is The Under Room which makes it quite exciting. Existence is probably the one that is hardest to appreciate on the page and I would need to either see it or work on it in performance to know my feelings on it.
Overall a worthwhile collection to read.
This collection is of some of Bond's most recent work. Of these Chair might be my favorite but the most unusual play for Bond is The Under Room which makes it quite exciting. Existence is probably the one that is hardest to appreciate on the page and I would need to either see it or work on it in performance to know my feelings on it.
Overall a worthwhile collection to read.
November 8, 2018
The first two plays in this volume, Born and People, are part of the same series as Coffee and The Crime of the Twenty-First Century, which were collected in the previous volume of Bond's plays. They are similarly hard to gauge from the page, consisting of either very sparse or rambling dialogue, and very specific stage directions, so to be frank they are borderline unreadable as plays. That's not to say they're bad, in fact I'd say it's likely that when performed they're very good, but I think it's unliked many people will get a lot out of experiencing them on the page.
Chair and The Under Room are by far the more accessible in this volume. Not that I think that's something Bond is concerned with, but they were the two where I found it easiest to get some sense of what they were trying to do, and to glean some meaning from them. The device of using the dummy in The Under Room was particularly creative, and I can imagine it working to great effect in performance.
Existence is a curious one, and very short. Over these last two volumes I became a lot more conscious of a particular trope in Bond's plays, which is that of characters having one-sided conversations, where the other party cannot speak. Sometimes this is down to something inherent in the scene - a character who is known to be dumb, asleep, or just steadfastly refusing to talk - but sometimes it's something known only to us. One of my favourite Bond scenes is in Narrow Road to the Deep North, where a character pleads with a group of children to speak up in order to save their lives; the children are represented by a row of dummies, so we know that they will remain silent, and the scene is all the more tragic because of how inevitable its conclusion therefore is. In these plays, characters are often driven mad, or into a rage, or more accurately they drive themselves into it, through trying to get a response where there is clearly none forthcoming. Existence is another example of this, as a robber tries to get a response from his victim, but instead ends up turning his own world inside out.
As usual, the essay at the end is pretty much impenetrable and I gave up after a few pages. If anyone cares to try and explain what he's saying in understandable terms I'd welcome it.
Chair and The Under Room are by far the more accessible in this volume. Not that I think that's something Bond is concerned with, but they were the two where I found it easiest to get some sense of what they were trying to do, and to glean some meaning from them. The device of using the dummy in The Under Room was particularly creative, and I can imagine it working to great effect in performance.
Existence is a curious one, and very short. Over these last two volumes I became a lot more conscious of a particular trope in Bond's plays, which is that of characters having one-sided conversations, where the other party cannot speak. Sometimes this is down to something inherent in the scene - a character who is known to be dumb, asleep, or just steadfastly refusing to talk - but sometimes it's something known only to us. One of my favourite Bond scenes is in Narrow Road to the Deep North, where a character pleads with a group of children to speak up in order to save their lives; the children are represented by a row of dummies, so we know that they will remain silent, and the scene is all the more tragic because of how inevitable its conclusion therefore is. In these plays, characters are often driven mad, or into a rage, or more accurately they drive themselves into it, through trying to get a response where there is clearly none forthcoming. Existence is another example of this, as a robber tries to get a response from his victim, but instead ends up turning his own world inside out.
As usual, the essay at the end is pretty much impenetrable and I gave up after a few pages. If anyone cares to try and explain what he's saying in understandable terms I'd welcome it.
June 10, 2014
Lecture de "les gens" paru aux éditions de l'Arche - version française de "People".
Je n'ose imaginer combien ce doit être ennuyeux en vrai, c'est à dire mis en scène dans un théâtre !
Pièce indigente , écriture affligeante. Comme un mauvais retour au pire de ce que pouvait produire un théâtre d'avant- garde dans les années 60 et 70.
Je n'ose imaginer combien ce doit être ennuyeux en vrai, c'est à dire mis en scène dans un théâtre !
Pièce indigente , écriture affligeante. Comme un mauvais retour au pire de ce que pouvait produire un théâtre d'avant- garde dans les années 60 et 70.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews