Plays 2: The Romans in Britain / Thirteenth Night / The Genius / Bloody Poetry / Greenland

by Howard Brenton

Howard Brenton is one of Britain's best-known and most controversial dramatists





The Romans in Britain was the play that brought calls to bring back censorship when it was first staged at the National in 1980. It conjures up "an era that is culturally as well as historically remote which is a notoriously difficult task, but Mr Brenton acheives it with great skill and effect. . .a very good play indeed." In The Thirteenth "He sets the characters of Shakespeare to find the elements in the British character which could transform an Englishman into a Stalin, and closes in on his creation with an overall wit to match his horror" (The Times). The Genius "is teeming with memorable stage pictures, and bristling with Brenton's very best flinty, impassioned, explosive" (Financial Times).

In Bloody Poetry "Brenton is doing something markedly ambitious in this phantasmagoric play. He is celebrating the idea of the committed artist who seeks to stir and provoke sullen, defeated bourgeois England. At the same time, with clear-eyed honesty, he shows how difficult it is to upset the moral order" (The Guardian). Greenland is "on the one hand a cry of disillusionment with established political forms, on the other it is full of typically lively Brentonesque satire and lampoons. . .Brenton's message is a welcome antidote to the madness in which we all now seem to be living and a sharp blast against patriarchy as well as other attendant woes" (City Limits).

Genres: Plays, 20th Century, Drama

Paperback

First published January 25, 1990

Reviews

[Salli · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have only read the Romans in Britain from the selection.

We have come a long way from the prosecution in the 1980s and what we now see regularily on TV pretty much matches what we see in this play. Perhaps it's real point of contention is pointing out that we Brits are not the good guys we think we are, that our forefathers survived by compromise, sometimes sheer cowardice and sometimes by brutality. Brenton asks us to face this and I can see that could be shocking in the same way that the realisation that Mum can't make everything better and save you from all things comes to a child.

[Jack Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review is for Greenland

[Ariel Francoeur · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only read "Bloody Poetry", since there's a good monologue for ladies, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I like when plays can give you a little slice of history, even if it is embellished. This one's about Bysshe and Mary Shelley, and Lord Byron.

[Kat Averyheart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brenton has a grasp of the inane airs these people had. amazing lyricism. quotes to be read to be believed. a nice change from chick lit.