Abstract
In 1968 Arden and D’Arcy wrote a play about Nelson, The Hero Rises Up. It was performed at the Roundhouse, a theatre which had strong links with the New Wave of the 50s and latterly with the young underground, and did not go on without a certain amount of struggle between the playwrights and their management, the Institute for Contemporary Arts. In 1970 Terence Rattigan, the strongest and most enduring pillar of the established theatre throughout all the changes of the preceding decade, wrote a play about Nelson, A Bequest to the Nation; it was performed at the Haymarket, one of London’s largest and most beautiful commercial theatres. To look at these plays side by side is to see the debate about theatre initiated at
… We are the iron shield
Screwed tight upon the buried face below:
John Arden sees us: we see him: we know.
(John Arden, Here I Come)
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References
Quoted Ewen, Brecht (Calder and Boyars, 1970) p. 211.
J. Whiting, The Art of the Dramatist, ed. Hayman (London Magazine Editions, 1970) pp. 152–3.
J. R. Taylor, Introduction to Three Plays, p. 11.
E. Morgan, Encore, 7 August 1964.
C. Itzin, Stages in the Revolution (Eyre Methuen, 1980) p. 29.
Quoted P. Roberts, Bond (Eyre Methuen, 1980) p. 266.
Itzin, Stages in the Revolution, p. 31.
New Statesman, 13 July 1979.
Arden, ‘What is Theatre For?’, Performance, September–October 1972.
Quoted Itzin, Stages in the Revolution, p. 36.
S. Craig, Dreams and Deconstructions (Amber Lane, 1980) p. 19.
‘What is Theatre For?’
B. Brecht, ‘Theatre for Pleasure or Theatre for Instruction’, trans. Willett, in Brech ton Theatre, p. 73.
J. Arden, M. D’Arcy, ‘A Socialist Hero on the Stage’, To Present the Pretence, p. 96.
Guardian, quoted in full Theatre Quarterly 200, v. (1975–6).
Karl Marx, ‘The Communist Manifesto’, Essential Works of Marxism ed. Mendel (Bantam, New York, 1961) p. 13.
J. Arden, Epilogue, To Present the Pretence, p. 215.
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© 1982 Frances Gray
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Gray, F. (1982). Matter. In: John Arden. Macmillan Modern Dramatists. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16919-1_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16919-1_4
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