Howard Barker : ecstasy and death : an expository study of his drama, theory and production work, 1988-2008

Barker has been acclaimed as 'England's greatest living dramatist' in The Times and as 'the Shakespeare of our age' by Sarah Kane. His uniquely stylish work brings together startlingly original forms of classical discipline, moral ruthlessness and catastrophic eroticism. This study considers the full range of his theatrical achievements. Howard Barker2s theatre is uniquely alluring and startlingly original, bringing together classical discipline, moral ruthlessness and transgressive eroticism, in a form and experience Barker terms Theatre of Catastrophe. His uniquely stylish and rigorous work as a director for his theatre company, The Wrestling School, challenges and breaks the limits of conventional theatre, to present haunting speculations on humanity in situations of crisis. He has also emerged as a major theorist on the possibilities of theatre, and on human specificity, and the importantly surprising powers of both. This study considers the full range of Barker2s theatrical and theoretical work in exploring and dramatizing life2s extremity, brevity and intensity, in order to create a moment of knowledge beyond the received terms of history Front Matter....Pages i-xi Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Gifts of Loss: An Introduction to Barker’s Writing and Theatre....Pages 3-17 ‘The ecstasy of vanishing meaning’....Pages 18-30 Front Matter....Pages 31-31 Intimacy with the Unforgivable....Pages 33-50 Cultural Re-Fashionings and Shakespearean Negotiations....Pages 51-71 Separation, Sacrifice and Sainthood....Pages 72-102 Facing the Wound....Pages 103-118 Infinite Reversibility....Pages 119-160 Wrestling with God....Pages 161-195 Servility and Servitude....Pages 196-215 The Boundary and Beyond....Pages 216-249 Inconclusion: Consolations in Extremity....Pages 250-253 Back Matter....Pages 254-289