Barker: Plays Six

by Howard Barker

(Uncle) Vanya , Barker’s radical rewriting of Chekhov’s classic, brought him more controversy than most of his other works put together. Interrogating not so much Chekhov’s text as the use to which society has put it, Barker turns Vanya’s defeat into victory and converts a play of sadness into a tragedy of desire.

A House of Correction is a meditation on cause and effect. Set on the eve of a war which may destroy a society, the seemingly arbitrary arrival of a messenger with a vital communication sets off an agonizing train of events in the lives of three desperate women.

Few works of drama can have plumbed the depths of solitude and rage that characterize Let Me , a nightmare set on the frontiers of the Roman Empire during the barbarian invasions.

Biblical narratives serve as the origin of two shorter works, of which Judith is a contemporary classic of cultural conflict, a reinterpretation of the status of the heroine in Israel’s war of survival against the Assyrians. In Lot and His God , the imminent destruction of Sodom simultaneously licenses the moral decay of an angel and the erotic epiphany of an adored wife.

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2010

About the author

Howard Barker is an English playwright. His plays have been produced at the Royal Court, the RSC and the National Theatre, throughout Europe and the USA and by his own company, The Wrestling School. He is best known as the exponent of the Theatre of Catastrophe. He is a theatre theorist, a poet and a painter. His work has been the subject of a number of book-length studies and academic conferences.

Reviews

[Wazzra · Rating 5 out of 5]

"To stay can also be a journey." -Howard Barker, in Let Me.

[Lucien · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Uncle) Vanya ***
A House of Correction ****
Let Me ****
Judith *****
Lot and his God ***