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Howard Barker, the Wrestling School, and the Cult of the Author

Robert Shaughnessy

New Theatre Quarterly / Volume 5 / Issue 19 / August 1989, pp 264 - 271 DOI: 10.1017/S0266464X0000333X, Published online: 15 January 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0266464X0000333X

How to cite this article: Robert Shaughnessy (1989). Howard Barker, the Wrestling School, and the Cult of the Author. New Theatre Quarterly, 5, pp 264-271 doi:10.1017/S0266464X0000333X

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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/NTQ, IP address: 128.122.253.212 on 05 May 2015 Robert Shaughnessy

Howard Barker, the Wrestling School, and the Cult of the Author

Howard Barker was the last playwright to be interviewed in the original Theatre Quarterly - in TQ40 (1981) -and a subsequent interview was included in NTQ8 (1986). Yet he has also been accused of encouraging a credo of 'engagement but confusion' which serves the cult of Thatcherism which it claims to oppose: and certainly he is unique among his generation of British dramatists in having achieved both a large cult following, and a considerable body of opposition to his theoretical position. Robert Shaughnessy, who teaches in the Roehampton Institute, here analyzes not so much Barker's work as the Barker phenomenon -the process by which a self- effacing writer has been packaged into a personality, to the extent that, with the creation of The Wrestling School, he even has a theatre company devoted exclusively to the production of his work. Shaughnessy concludes that - as Barker perhaps fore- shadows in The Last Supper- it may now be necessary for the cult-figure to 'die' if the writer is to survive and flourish.

THERE ARE a number of signs which indicate Royal Shakespeare Company, which featured a that a dramatist is beginning to be thought of as full production of The Possibilities and rehearsed a 'major' figure, but few could be more readings of the television film The Blow conclusive than the formation of a theatre (commissioned but not produced by the BBC), company exclusively dedicated to performing the stage play The Bite of the Night (com- his or her work. In Britain, at least, the only missioned but not performed by the Royal Court), writers to have experienced this treatment have showings of the Channel Four documentary been Gilbert and Sullivan - even Shakespeare, about Barker, Refuse to Dance, and performances in the theatrical marketplace of the 1980s, has of his poetry. to give house room to musical adaptations of best-selling horror novels. A Reaction to Neglect It is possible to point to the Comedie Franchise, with its emphasis on Moliere, the On one level, the formation of the Wrestling Berliner Ensemble's concentration on Brecht, School and this sudden proliferation and and the Moscow Art Theatre's focus on celebration of Howard Barker's work can be Chekhov as parallel instances: in each case, seen as a reaction to a history of neglect and, in though, the house dramatist is performed some instances, deliberate suppression. But there alongside and in the context of other work. In is, clearly, more to it than that. The assumption March 1988, however, a group of actors underlying both these projects is that the announced the formation of a company to be work in question constitutes a clearly defined, devoted entirely to the work of one con- strongly individual oeuvre - an assumption temporary writer: the company is The Wrestling which is inseparable from a specific sense of the School, and the writer Howard Barker. author as a unique figure, as the originator and Its first production was a play especially mediator of textual meaning and value, even as written for the company, The Last Supper, which a sort of secular oracle or visionary. opened at the Royal Court Theatre in March Given that these are the usual terms in which before going on tour. During the same month, literary and dramatic 'value' and importance are a 'festival' of Barker's work was staged at the perceived and discussed, this is in itself hardly Almeida Theatre, mainly by actors from the surprising. On another level, though, the

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http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 05 May 2015 IP address: 128.122.253.212 emphatic promotion of Barker as an absolutely His most loyal supporters and promoters unique voice can be seen as a major redefinition have, in fact, been individual actors rather of the significance and potential theatrical than institutions — foremost among them, Ian impact of the plays themselves. In particular, it McDiarmid, who has demonstrated a con- has serious implications for their potentiality siderable involvement in and commitment to as theatrically and politically radical texts. In Barker's work throughout his career. Over the this essay I wish to suggest some of the last ten years he has taken major roles in six reasons why this state of affairs should have premiere productions, directed a rehearsed come about, and to consider some of these reading of Crimes in Hot Countries at the implications. Almeida as well as The Possibilities, and, with his That a permanent company dedicated to performances of the poem 'Don't Exaggerate' Barker would be eventually created could, (which was written for him and is, among other perhaps, have been envisaged from the pro- things, an authorial political and artistic 'state- duction history of his work. Despite its fierce ment'), even come to function as a sort of promotion by his supporters, the dominant spokesman for the author: institutions of British theatre have shown little enthusiasm for it. The National Theatre has / shall be erudite but never staged any, although it has been offered Long live the expletive most of his recent work. And the BBC has either I come not to educate you delayed or scrapped altogether the production I alone come not to educate you of most of the dozen or so commissioned I come not to educate you but to abuse you3 television plays. Barker's record with the Royal Shakespeare Company has been somewhat better: but it has The Appeal for Actors still been almost in spite of company policy rather than because of it. The first three plays In the Channel Four documentary about Barker, - That Good Between Us in 1977, The Hang of the Refuse to Dance (a title taken from another of his Gaol in 1978, and The Loud Boy's Life in 1980 - poems), which was first screened in 1986, were staged in The Warehouse, a branch of the McDiarmid was as frequently called upon to RSC notable for the extent to which it managed 'explain' the work and its concerns (mostly by to mount a programme largely independent of means of extracts from 'Don't Exaggerate') as the company's mainstream work. The remainder the author himself. For the rehearsed reading of {Crimes in Hot Countries, Downchild, and The The Bite of the Night at the Almeida, it was Castle) were presented as a Barker season at The inevitable that he should have taken the part of Pit in 1985, but even this apparent gesture of the choric figure of MacLuby - and given a confidence on the company's part came about performance that at times verged on self- primarily as a result of the pressure exerted by parody. individual actors and directors - as Barker McDiarmid is in a sense a living emblem of described them, 'young Turks pushing through Barker in performance - almost in the way that the power structure'.1 certain classical actors can be seen as the symbol The Royal Court has staged a number of and embodiment of traditional 'Shakespearean' Barker's plays: Cheek and No One Was Saved in acting. He has also attempted to explain the the Theatre Upstairs in 1970, Stripwell (1975), appeal that Barker has for actors. Partly, he and Fair Slaughter (1977); and hosted visiting suggests, it is connected with the 'humanism' productions of others from the Oxford Play- of his writing. Barker should not be 'narrowly' house, Joint Stock and, of course, The Wrestling defined in terms of the 'socialist writer': School. But even that theatre is seen by the author as merely a 'glorified landlord'- Barker's political views naturally inform his work, presumably because he is unsympathetic to a but the work is not necessarily conditioned by them. policy which he describes as an 'obsession with They are, in any case, based on perceptions about social realism'.2 human beings, rather than the belief in a dialectic. 265

http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 05 May 2015 IP address: 128.122.253.212 As he has stated, his initial impulses come from hisostentatious alliteration, the metonymy, the characters. The full-blooded and contradictory natureinversion of conventional syntax, the juxta- of these creations, the intensity of their feelings, position of 'heightened' and idiomatic speech: together with the colour and pulse of their words all these techniques generate an intense linguistic expressed through fast-moving dramatic narrative self-consciousness. are Howard Barker's identifying marks.* In one way this might appear to be an ostentatious bid for the status of 'art'-an A crucial element in this is Barker's unique use attempt to be 'poetic' which could from another of language. Using a 'calculated poetic syntax, perspective be regarded as pretentious and self- with particular cadences of its own', Barker indulgent. In this respect, the connection that creates a discourse in which 'each word is an McDiarmid makes with 'classical' texts is a action. He writes with performance energy at statement of artistic and cultural value as well as the forefront of his consciousness. He is an a technical comparison. But although Barker's actor's writer.'5 writing can be seen as manifesting elements of The sense is that no other contemporary this, it is also a discourse that contains a radical, writer invites j the actor to indulge in and relish disruptive potential — a potential that is perhaps language in the same manner, just as no other present in most modernist 'poetic' dramatic makes comparable demands on technique: writing. McDiarmid suggests that its 'dislocation of Every syllable, every punctuation point counts, so expected form is a literally arresting technique' precise is its rhythmic composition, and sloppy - that is, it foregrounds the contradictions in elisions will obscure structure and meaning. It is nocharacter that are effaced in naturalistic dia- surprise that actors who are used to performing logue.8 Instead of the illusion of access to the classical texts are particularly attracted to his plays.essential, unified self of the speaking subject Barker may not write in strict verse, but the that is offered in transparently 'expressive' demands are not dissimilar.6 realist discourse, it shifts across a plurality of voices and modes of address. The actor is Actors, then, enjoy performing Barker's work required, as in this passage, constantly to because it presents them with the opportunity modulate between semi-'choric' commentary, consciously and ostentatiously to display their the conscious display of technique, and more skills as performers. At the same time, the 'personalized' forms of utterance. verbal discourse which is the vital element in The result is that the character thereby this becomes in itself a focus of attention: it is constructed is contradictory, discontinuous, language which self-reflexively draws attention open-ended. Indeed, Barker himself has focused to itself as language. The opening lines of The on the radical possibilities of language as a Castle are characteristic: means of confronting and subverting formal expectations: 'If language is restored to the Thinking, this is a puddle, this is. This is a wet and actor he ruptures the imaginative blockade of bone-wrecking corner of Almightly negligence. the culture. If he speaks banality, he piles up Thinking, oh, these sheets of dropping damp, Christservitude. '9 I did wrong to, or Mohammed, is it 1 Oh, my sun, Paradoxically, though, it is perhaps the very my date trees, you poor bugger, out of hot brickeduniqueness of Barker's language that operates as yards and cool mosaics, YOU HAVE TO BE A a means of containing its disruptive energies; GREAT HAIRY ENGLISH BASTARD TO and it is here that the repressive implications of WEAR THIS! OI! England, you great frozen paw, the author-figure can first be seen to manifest OI! You are looking on my meadow. On my themselves. Because only Howard Barker uti- meadow which - NO CUNT HAS MOWN!7 lizes language in this unmistakable manner, the discourse can actually be seen to be naturalized by being defined, and defining itself, as a The 'Disruptive Potential' personal style or idiolect - and the more the The short, staccato sentences, the repetition, the work is constructed as a canonical unity, the 266

http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 05 May 2015 IP address: 128.122.253.212 more that Barker's uniqueness is promoted, the significance that his publisher is John Calder, a more persuasive is this effect. house with a traditional reputation for the What is happening here is simply a specific radical and avant-garde (until recently, it was instance of a more general process, in which the also subsidized by the Arts Council, which figure of 'the author' is adduced to define, limit, distanced it to an extent from the concerns of and control the potential meanings of a text; commercial publishing). whereby the writing is ultimately seen as This effectively locates Barker outside the expressive of the personal 'vision' of a uniquely mainstream of contemporary British drama gifted artistic individual. If, however, 'the publishing (which is perhaps exemplified more author' is approached as an ideological construct by the Methuen drama list). And this identity, rather than a self-evidently given quantity, the combined with the restricted distribution and nature of this process becomes apparent. Its comparatively high cost of Calder publications, effects have been described by Michel Foucault tends to define them as destined for a relatively in the essay 'What Is anjAuthor?', in which he small, possibly elite corner of the market. argues that the author Even within the context of such a proprietory publishing relationship, Barker is isolated and explains the presence of certain events within a text, privileged as a unique and special writer. Up as well as their transformations, distortions, and until the publication of Victory in 1983, the their various modifications The author also Calder editions of Barker's plays shared the constitutes a principle of unity in writing where any publisher's standard 'Playscript' format, which unevenness of production is ascribed to changes clearly designated individual playtexts as being caused by evolution, maturation, or outside influence. part of a numbered series: the lettering (both In addition, the author serves to neutralize the title and author's name in lower case, and the contradictions that are found in a series of texts. title in inverted commas) and the layout were Governing this function is the belief that there must the same for Barker as for Steven Berkoff, be- at a particular level of an author's thought, of Heathcote Williams, and so on. The effect of his conscious or unconscious desire — a point where this (as with the 'Methuen Modern Dramatists') contradictions can be resolved, where the incom- is to suggest links and similarities between the patible elements can be shown to relate to one various Calder authors, which may be more another or to cohere around a fundamental and important than their individual qualities. originating contradiction.10 From Victory onwards, though, the editions of Barker's plays have become increasingly Obviously, the stronger and more coherent the removed from this format, and more and more image of the author as a controlling and strongly individualized. The numbering of the mediating presence is, then the more readily texts as part of the 'Playscript' series has been may these strategies of containment be effected. removed from the previous prominent position As I have already suggested, the peculiarities of on the front cover and unobtrusively confined the plays' theatrical production have (partly to the back. The style and format of the fortuitously and partly through conscious lettering on the front covers has been de- design) strongly contributed to the indivi- standardized. Most noticeably, the practice of dualization of their author. incorporating photographs from stage pro- ductions of the plays into the front cover design has been dropped, to be replaced by black and Being a 'Calder Author' white paintings or drawings - so that the cover We can also see this general principle operating of The Last Supper, for example, features one of through the other channels whereby authors Barker's drawings, and that of The Possibilities a and texts are constructed and mediated - the detail from Goya's 'Bien Tirada Esta'. circumstances of publication of an author's This last change is particularly significant, for work, for example, which are often an important it represents an important shift in the way in means of defining the status and identity of which the text is being defined and mediated in both. In Barker's case it is not without terms of its cultural status. One effect is to

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http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 05 May 2015 IP address: 128.122.253.212 suggest that the work is 'important' and Howard Barker as a 'poet' or as a 'writer' rather 'serious' in that its text is located within the than as a playwright. It is worth noting the discourse of 'culture' and 'art' (the use of Goya irony in the fact that all this construction of the on the cover of The Possibilities being a author is the work of publishers, copy-editors, particularly obvious example). Moreover, the and so on: the greater the degree of commodity removal of the traces of the text's theatrical production, the more the emphasis is placed on inscription can be seen as a means of placing it the unique individual voice. more securely within the category of literature, with all the associations of authority, cultural Barker and the 'Critical Apparatus' value, and permanence that this shift implies. This is also reflected in the reduced emphasis Another of the major ways in which the image on the fact that the texts are plays in the titles of the author may be defined is, of course, the and authorial credits on the back covers: so that critical apparatus that mediates both him and whereas, for example, No End of Blame (published his work. It is noticeable that Barker's work has in 1982) is designated as 'A Play by Howard been the subject of surprisingly little academic Barker', the edition of The Last Supper simply attention. It is discussed in a number of general places the title alongside the author's name. surveys of contemporary British political This work, moreover, is introduced as 'Barker's drama,13 but very little criticism exists which is speculation on the death of the prophet Lvov ... a concerned with Barker alone. meditation on the story of the Last Supper The Apart from an essay by Anthony Dawson Last Supper is both a religious play and a which (somewhat peripherally) mentions Bar- densely imagined tour of the human will to self- ker's version of Women Beware Women in the denial and submission.'11 course of a discussion which largely centres on Compare this with the copy found on the Middleton's play,14 the only substantial analysis back of the volume containing That Good of Barker's work is to be found in the four Between Us. and Credentials of a Sympathiser essays which comprise (together with an ('Two Plays by Howard Barker'): 'The plays of interview with the author and the text of the Howard Barker are a unique blend of heightened television play Pity in History) a 'Howard Barker realism... and a dramatic technique close to Special Issue' of Gambit magazine, published by caricature and expressionist theatre For some John Calder in 1984.15 years his plays have been seen in British non- It will hardly be surprising to learn that both commercial theatres to great effect and he is the form and the content of these essays, and, increasingly recognized as one of the most perhaps most crucially, the context in which outstanding members of a brilliant generation they are placed, both confirm and contribute to of British playwrights.' the authorial myth. Each writer offers a Even here, though, the value of the texts as paradigmatic analysis of Barker's work. Eric literature is stressed: 'Howard Barker's use of Mottram discusses what he calls 'The Vital dialogue is highly individualistic and his use of Language of Impotence'; Tony Dunn gives an dialogue stretches everyday vernacular into account of 'Howard Barker: Socialist Playwright dramatic speech ... creating new baroque pat- for Our Times'; Ruth Shade tackles sex and terns This gives them a literary quality that sexual politics in 'All Passion Is a Risk'; and Ian readers will find rewarding.'12 These are texts McDiarmid offers a 'personal view' of the intended for reading rather than for performance: author. the edition of Victory even^has a 'Contents' In all of the essays the slide from text to page, and starts each new"scene on a separate author is recurrent. Eric Mottram tells us that page, as if they were the chapters of a novel. 'this is the very theme of Victory, it displays Again, the mediation of Barker's work as again the belief that Barker shares with Bur- 'literature' is both a means of reifying the roughs and Bunuel'.16 Tony Dunn suggests that author and of rationalizing and containing the 'we can be confident that Howard Barker's radical theatrical potentiality of the texts. choices will be informed by the acute political Connected with this is the redefinition of intelligence of his work to date'.17 Ruth Shade

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http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 05 May 2015 IP address: 128.122.253.212 concludes that 'Barker can be accused of Unlike writers such as Edward Bond and misanthropy but not of sexual bias in his use of David Edgar, who have used the press in the it on stage'.18 And Ian McDiarmid combines past to argue a cultural—political position (as textual analysis with autobiographical remi- Bond did at the time of the Romans in Britain niscence : fiasco in 1980), Barker uses the opportunity to offer his opinions in the form of witty, gnomic I first met Howard Barker at the Open Space Theatre epigrams: in the early 'seventies and was struck at once, as many have been, by the seeming contradiction The time for satire is ended. Nothing can be satirized between this quiet man — at that time unassuming in the authoritarian state. It is culture reduced to to the point of diffidence — and the abrasive style of playing the spoons. The stockbroker laughs, and the his writing This affinity, I now realize, has satirist plays the spoons.21 probably contributed in some measure to my response The new writer should be shown that the stage is a to his work.19 relentless space and never a room. If the new writer is taught economy the theatre will itself shrink to the It may be the case that the critical use of the size of an attic. It is probably time to shut the studio term 'Howard Barker' is intended to be theatres in the interests of the theatre.22 understood as designating the text rather than the author, but the cumulative effect of its What is significant here is the form of these repeated invocation is powerfully to suggest propositions: they are absolutely characteristic that the real subject of the critical discourse is in their deliberate, provocative avoidance of the controlling intelligence and personality rational, structured argument - one of the behind and revealed through the texts under author's current dramaturgic principles (in the discussion. Prologue to The Last Supper, for example, the This is confirmed by the structure of the audience is warned that 'The play contains no collection: not only do the individual essays information'). feed off each other, but the authorial emphasis that is inscribed into the ' special issue' format is Establishing a Unique Voice even more persuasive. In this respect, the central items in the collection could be said to Barker's determination to establish a unique be the text of Pity in History and the interview voice is once again in evidence - and again it is with Howard Barker conducted by Tony Dunn. that uniqueness that personalizes the arguments. Along with McDiarmid's testimony, this last The inescapable sense generated by both these item is probably that which most effectively 'manifestoes', despite their gesturing towards validates the whole, in that it provides the space wider theatrical significance, is that they are for the author conclusively to explain his beliefs primarily intended as a commentary on Barker's and the significance of his work (which are, of own work (as if to confirm this, the Guardian course, seen as coterminous). article adds a trailer for Women Beware Women It is the case, in fact, that the vast bulk of at the Royal Court, while the City Limits piece existing commentary on Barker's work derives does likewise for The Possibilities and The Last directly from Barker himself, either in the form Supper). of interviews (in Theatre Quarterly and New Yet another form of authorial intervention is Theatre Quarterly as well as in this collection),20 the imaginary conversation between Barker and or through personal statements, such as the Middleton that appeared in The Times to '49 Asides for a Tragic Theatre' which were coincide with the opening of Women Beware published together with an essay by Tony Women, in which each writer confronts the Dunn as a 'Joint Manifesto for the Left on other with his own ideological and aesthetic Cultural Politics in the Post-Thatcher Era' in position: ' I always insist people can be saved', The Guardian in 1986, and the piece 'Honour says Barker. 'And I insist they are lost', retorts Thy Audience', which appeared in City Limits in 'Middleton'.23 One passage of 'Middleton's' is February 1988. particularly striking:

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http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 05 May 2015 IP address: 128.122.253.212 May I congratulate you on assembling such a audience, and not by the actor.'26 Nor, it might distinguished company of actors to perform this be added, by the author. monstrous assault on the canon of English literature? In a sense, all that is needed is a recognition It suggests to me that now, as in my time, the more of the decentring of the author that is already ferocious the imagination, the more loyalty it endemic to the theatrical medium itself - where commands.2* the writer is, or should be, just one part of a collective and pluralistic enterprise. Interes- In an essay printed in the Royal Court tingly, Barker has worked with Joint Stock — a programme for its production of Women Beware company which more than most embodies Women, Jonathan Dollimore describes Barker's these ensemble values — but clearly was dis- intervention in the text as ' Creative Vandalism', satisfied with the experience, in that, as he saw and argues that this strategy produces a radical it, its methods 'sanctified research and the historical rereading of the text. The problem is, collective, emphasized "relevance" as socially of course, that the insistent direction of the useful, and diminshed the authorial identity. audience's attention towards the perpetrator of The writer remained the chief constructor of the the act of vandalism (by describing his in- play, but the onus was upon him to employ volvement as 'collaboration' with Middleton, experience gained in collective work by the Barker explicitly reminds the audience of his company.'27 authorial role) may ultimately be a way of With the formation of The Wrestling School, undermining and obscuring the radical project it appears that there has been a reversal of Ian of the act itself. McDiarmid's description of Barker as 'an actor's Thus, the combined programme and text for writer', with the company members becoming a the Royal Court production contains a series of writer's actors. As Michael Ratcliffe wrote in comments by Barker on Middleton which start The Observer, 'Barker is beginning to look like a with 'They call me a pessimist, but I have only prophet to whom people are turning for a sense of impossibility. Middleton's pessimism gestures of judgement and inspiration'.28 But is a pessimism of the soul... '.25 Instead of the there is a twist: he adds, ominously, that Barker dialectical interplay of opposing ideologies and 'may not like that'. discourses, of historical difference, the audience Indeed, it may well be that Barker himself has is presented with a simple antithesis of authorial slyly anticipated the need for his own Barthesian viewpoints and techniques. This mere difference authorial 'death'. It is perhaps not accidental of opinion can be resolved by deciding which that these comments form part of a review of writer is individually 'better' than the other — The Last Supper, a play which depicts the killing which, of course, most of the reviewers of the and subsequent consumption of the prophet production proceeded to judge. Lvov by his eager disciples. As one character puts it, 'It's even possible, Lvov is an im- pediment to Lvov and to our - adoration of him. I think, now, we own Lvov, and Lvov is in To Realize the Radical Potential danger of becoming an embarrassment... \29 It would appear, then, that the genuinely radical Perhaps there is a rather poignant echo here of potential that is present in Howard Barker's the writer's situation. Perhaps also it reflects the work actually needs the obliteration of 'Howard possibility that the stranglehold that The Barker' as a controlling, mediating, and ulti- Wrestling School threatens to exert on Barker's mately explanatory presence in order for it to texts may be broken after all. be fully realized. Barker has himself stated that 'A new theatre will put its faith in the will to knowledge, not knowledge given by the Notes and References knowing, but the individual will to knowledge which is elicited by the experience of con- 1. Howard Barker, quoted by Steve Grant in 'Barker's Bite', tradiction in the theatre.... We need a theatre of Time Out, 17 February 1988. 2. Barker, ibid. Anti-Parable, in which the moral is made by the 3. Howard Barker, 'Don't Exaggerate: a Political Statement in

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http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 05 May 2015 IP address: 128.122.253.212 the Form of Hysteria', in Don't Exaggerate {Desire and Abuse) publish a full-length study of Barker's work, Barker: Politics and (London: Calder, 1985), p. 1-23; p. 1. Desire, in 1988. 4. Ian McDiarmid, 'Howard Barker: a Personal View', in 16. Eric Mottram, 'The Vital Language of Impotence', Gambit, Gambit, No. 41 (Howard Barker Special Issue), p. 93-8; p. 94. No. 41, p. 47-57; p. 47. 5. McDiarmid, ibid., p. 94-6. 17. Tony Dunn,' Howard Barker: Socialist Playwright for Our 6. McDiarmid, ibid., p. 95. Times', Gambit, No. 41, p. 59-91; p. 90. 7. Howard Barker, The Castle (with Scenes from an Execution) 18. Ruth Shade, 'All Passion Is a Risk: Sex and Sexual Polities', (London: Calder, 1985), p. 3. Gambit, No. 41, p. 101-9; p. 109. 8. McDiarmid, op. cit., p. 95. 19. McDiarmid, op. cit., p. 93-4. 9. Howard Barker, '49 Asides for a Tragic Theatre', The 20. See 'Energy —and the Small Discovery of Dignity: Guardian, 10 February 1986. Howard Barker interviewed by Malcolm Hay and Simon Trussler', 10. Michel Foucault, 'What Is an Author?', in Language, Theatre Quarterly, X (1981), p. 3-14; 'Oppression, Resistance and Counter-Memory, Practice, ed. D. F. Bouchard (New York: Cornell the Writer's Testament: Howard Barker interviewed by Finlay University Press, 1977), p. 113-38; p. 128. Donesky', New Theatre Quarterly, II (1986), p. 336-44. 11. Howard Barker, The Last Supper (London: Calder, 1988), 21. '49 Asides for a Tragic Theatre', The Guardian, 6 February italics added. 1986. 12. Howard Barker, That Good Between Us (with Credentials of 22. 'Honour Thy Audience', City Limits, 25 February 1988. a Sympathiser), (London: Calder, 1980). 23. 'The Redemptive Power of Desire', The Times, 6 February 13. See, for example, Catherine Itzin, Stages in the Revolution: 1986. Political Theatre in Britain since 1968 (Methuen, 1980), p. 249-58; 24. Barker, ibid. John Bull, New British Political Dramatists (Macmillan, 1984); 25. Women Beware Women (London: Calder/Royal Court, David Ian Rabey, British and Irish Political Drama in the Twentieth 1986). Century (Macmillan, 1986), p. 153-62. 26. 'Honour Thy Audience', op. cit. 14. Anthony Dawson, 'Women Beware Women and the 27. Howard Barker, 'The Possibilities', Plays and Players, Economy of Rape', Studies in English Literature, XXVII (1987), March 1988. p. 303-20. 28. 77K Observer, 13 March 1988. 15. Since writing this I have learnt that Macmillan are to 29. The Last Supper (London: Calder, 1988), p. 51.

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