Arguments for a Theatre

Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking, considered and entirely engrossing
Review: For a playwright who has built a career on being controversial and elusive, this collection of essays and fragments is surprisingly articulate. While it's occasionally difficult to distinguish between Barker's moments of self-deprecation and self-promotion, what's easier to recognise is that all of these pieces are thought-provoking, considered and entirely engrossing. Barker is particularly insightful on the reception of his own work by a culture which simply does not know what to do with it. "The cult of accessibility and the Theatre of Obscurity" discredits the notions of 'accessibility' and 'obscurity', and provides 'a plan for the fortification of an imaginative work' which goes a long way towards explaining why Barker writes the things he does. Similarly, "On language in drama" explains his strategic use of 'obscene' language in his plays and why it works. Interspersed with such argumentative tracts are many smaller but no less impressive observations on the nature of performance. "The anatomy of a sob" recounts what Barker considers a key moment in Ian McDiarmid's career. "On watching a performance by life prisoners" succinctly describes the liberating power of a performance which trusts the text. Love or hate Barker's work, this is a book worth reading. If nothing else, it will have you thinking about drama and questioning your own assumptions - not just about Barker's work, but about theatre and our culture in general. That's never a bad thing.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, Pretentious, Searing, and Self-Loving
Review: Nobody does it like Howard Barker. One of the fiercest, funniest, most provocative playwrights the English language has ever known, he nonetheless remains little more than obscure in the U.S. This collection of essays are his thoughts on theatre and his own work. Firmly Nietzschean in his thought, Barker gleefully and convincingly rips conventioanl liberal and conserative pieties to shreds. And he exposes the moral and artistic bankruptcy of our current, naturalistic theatre. Barker is convinced he's oppressed (poor baby, he's been scorned by the National Theatre, relegated to those backwaters, the Royal Shakespeare Company and The Royal Court, among others) and that he's a genius. But don't take his word for it. Do yourself and those around you who love theatre a favor and read his plays, starting with his Collected Plays, Volume 1. I started reading Barker eight years ago, and I'm still blown away each time.