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Howard Brenton: Romantic Retreats

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Six Contemporary Dramatists

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Abstract

In 1972 Howard Brenton told Peter Ansorge that

The theatre is a dirty place. It’s not a place for a rational analysis of society — it’s there to bait our obsessions, ideas and public figures.1

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Notes and References

  1. Tony Mitchell, File on Brenton (London: Methuen, 1987), p. 86.

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  2. Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and its Double, tr. Victor Corti (London: John Calder, 1977), p. 71.

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  3. ‘Our changing theatre’; Tom Stoppard and Howard Brenton interviewed by John Russell Taylor, BBC Radio, transmitted 23 November 1970.

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  4. Howard Brenton, Plays: One (London: Methuen, 1986), p. 27.

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  5. Among numerous examples see, for instance, Wordsworth, Thirteen-Book Prelude, v, 625-9: Even forms and substances are circumfused By that transparent veil with light divine, And through the turnings intricate of verse Present themselves as objects recognised In flashes, and with a glory scarce their own.

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  6. Plays: One, p. 28.

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  7. Plays: One, p. 29.

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  8. Plays: One, p. 345.

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  9. Plays: One, p. 346.

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  10. Margaretta D’Arcy, File on Brenton, p. 37.

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  11. ‘3 Plays for Utopia’, programme note, Royal Court Theatre, 1988.

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  12. Frankenstein, ed. M. K. Joseph (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), p.100.

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  13. Plays: One, p. 384.

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  14. Plays: One, p. 376.

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  15. Plays: One, p. 378.

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  16. Plays: One, p. 390.

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  17. Howard Brenton, Bloody Poetry (2nd edn, London: Methuen/Royal Court Writers series, 1988), p. 14.

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  18. Bloody Poetry, p. 37.

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  19. Bloody Poetry, p. 43.

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  20. Bloody Poetry, p. 67.

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  21. Bloody Poetry, p. 80.

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  22. Bloody Poetry, p. 12.

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  23. Howard Brenton, Greenland (London: Methuen/Royal Court Writers Series, 1988), p. 51.

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  24. Greenland, p. 52.

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  25. Howard Brenton, Thirteenth Night & A Short Sharp Shock! (London: Methuen, 1981), pp. 10

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  26. File on Brenton, p. 50.

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  27. Howard Brenton, The Genius (London: Methuen/Royal Court Writers Series, 1983), p. 35.

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  28. Bertolt Brecht, The Life of Galileo, tr. Howard Brenton (2nd edn, London: Methuen, 1981), p. 85.

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  29. The Genius, p. 37.

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  30. Howard Brenton, H.I.D. (Hess is Dead) (London: Nick Hern Books, 1989), p. 52.

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  31. H.I.D., p. 53.

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  32. H.I.D., pp. 56-7.

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  33. H.I.D., pp. 59-60.

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  34. Howard Brenton, Diving for Pearls (London: Nick Hern Books), p. 159.

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  35. I have revised the assessment given in my review at the time of the novel’s publication; see ‘Out of the gutter’, New Statesman and Society (16 June 1989), p. 37.

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  36. Diving for Pearls, p. 43.

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  37. V, iii, 311-12.

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  38. Diving for Pearls, p. 223.

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  39. Diving for Pearls, pp. 24-5.

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  40. Diving for Pearls, pp. 26, 202.

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  41. H.I.D., pp. 66-7. It is interesting how closely Brenton’s reflections on human nature in the post-communist era parallel those of Ian McEwan, Black Dogs (London: Jonathan Cape, 1992).

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  42. Tariq Ali and Howard Brenton, Iranian Nights (London: Nick Hem Books, 1989).

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  43. Tariq Ali and Howard Brenton, Moscow Gold (London: Nick Hem Books, 1990), p. 90.

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  44. Moscow Gold, p. 19.

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  45. Moscow Gold, p. 69.

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  46. Moscow Gold, p. 1.

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  47. Moscow Gold, p. 85.

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  48. Moscow Gold, p. 92.

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  49. Moscow Gold, p. 83.

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  50. Moscow Gold, p. 88.

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  51. Howard Brenton, Berlin Bertie (London: Nick Hem Books/Royal Court Programme, 1992), p. 55.

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  52. Plays: One, p. 370.

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  53. Berlin Bertie, p. 31.

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  54. Berlin Bertie, p. 59.

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  55. Berlin Bertie, p. 49.

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  56. Berlin Bertie, p. 66.

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  57. This is a quotation, of course, from The Defence of Poetry.

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  58. Berlin Bertie, p. 67.

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  59. Berlin Bertie, p. 71.

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  60. Berlin Bertie, p. 70.

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  61. Berlin Bertie, p. 53.

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  62. Berlin Bertie, p. 58.

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  63. Berlin Bertie, p. 54.

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  64. D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse (London: Heinemann, 1972), p. 42.

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  65. Quoted by Carole Angier, ‘Defender of the memory’, The Guardian (18 November 1992), G2 Arts 4/5, p. 5.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English Literature, University of Glasgow, UK

    Duncan Wu (Reader)

Authors
  1. Duncan Wu
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Copyright information

© 1996 Duncan Wu

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Cite this chapter

Wu, D. (1996). Howard Brenton: Romantic Retreats. In: Six Contemporary Dramatists. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25231-2_5

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