Wye Plays: The Back of Beyond and The Battle of the Crows (Intellect Books - Play Text)

A first volume of plays by a startlingly ambitious and inventive dramatist. THE BACK OF BEYOND takes, as its starting point, the route of a sequel to KING LEAR, in which the surviving Shakespearean characters set out on an odyssey through a perilous, blasted landscape, and encounter new agents of cruelty, desire and magic. Wildly humorous and fiercely shocking, the play charts a series of remorseless exposures, interrogating the idealisms and brutal repressions that have informed Anglo-Welsh relations whilst subverting Shakespearean motifs; tragically humorous poetic language and nightmarish visual imagery contribute to the sense of a land where the signposts have been smashed. A sequel to THE BACK OF BEYOND, THE BATTLE OF THE CROWS extends and concludes the stories of three characters - a maverick witch, a renegade knight, and an abuse victim made empress - in a harrowing and humorous exploration of border warfare, witchcraft, massacre, bitchery, hilarity and heartbreak. THE BATTLE OF THE CROWS is partly a dramatic speculation about desire as magic, partly a sad reckless laugh at internecine hostilities and the passionate and disastrous transformations which spring up in the face of Death itself. Contents 4 Acknowledgements 5 The Back of Beyond 6 On Being a Shakespearian Dramatist: An Approach to The Back of Beyond 8 PROLOGUE 22 ACT ONE, SCENE ONE 22 SCENE TWO 27 ACT TWO, SCENE ONE 32 SCENE TWO 36 SCENE THREE 39 SCENE FOUR 42 ACT THREE, SCENE ONE 44 SCENE TWO 46 ACT FOUR, SCENE ONE 49 SCENE TWO 52 SCENE THREE 55 SCENE FOUR 58 ACT FIVE, SCENE ONE 64 SCENE TWO 67 SCENE THREE 70 The Battle of the Crows 80 Hatched in Emptiness, Over Emptiness, But Flying: An Introduction to The Battle of the Crows 82 PROLOGUE 88 ACT ONE, SCENE ONE 88 SCENE TWO 90 SCENE THREE 96 ACT TWO, SCENE ONE 98 SCENE TWO 103 SCENE THREE 105 SCENE FOUR 111 ACT THREE, SCENE ONE 115 SCENE TWO 119 SCENE THREE 120 ACT FOUR, SCENE ONE 124 SCENE TWO 126 SCENE THREE 126 SCENE FOUR 129 SCENE FIVE 130 SCENE SIX 131 SCENE SEVEN 134 ACT FIVE, SCENE ONE 136 SCENE TWO 140 SCENE THREE 140 SCENE FOUR 147 Afterword: Grace and Havoc: Shape- Shifting and the Imaginative Landscape of The Wye Plays 150 About the Author 154 Further Reading 155 Lurking Truth/Gwir sy’n Llechu Theatre Company 156 'the Back Of Beyond' Takes As Its Starting Point Characters From Shakespeare's 'king Lear'; 'the Battle Of The Crows' Is Its Sequel. The Back Of Beyond -- The Battle Of The Crows. David Ian Rabey. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 150).