Book description
Essential for students of theatre studies, Methuen Drama's Decades of
Modern British Playwriting series provides a comprehensive survey and
study of the theatre produced in each decade from the 1950s to 2009 in
six volumes. Each volume features a critical analysis and reevaluation
of the work of four key playwrights from that decade authored by a team
of experts, together with an extensive commentary on the period . Modern
British Playwriting: The 1950s provides an authoritative and stimulating
reassessment of the theatre of the decade together with a detailed study
of the work of T. S Eliot (by Sarah Bay-Chen) , Terence Rattigan (David
Pattie), John Osborne (Luc Gilleman) and Arnold Wesker (John Bull). The
volume sets the context by providing a chronological survey of the
1950s, a period when Britain was changing rapidly and the very fabric of
an apparently stable society seemed to be under threat. It explores the
crisis in the theatrical climate and activity in the first part of the
decade and the shift as the theatre began to document the unease in
society, before documenting the early life of the four principal
playwrights studied in the volume. Four scholars provide detailed
examinations of the playwrights' work during the decade, combining an
analysis of their plays with a study of other material such as early
play drafts, interviews and the critical receptions of the time. An
Afterword reviews what the writers went on to do and provides a summary
evaluation of their contribution to British theatre from the perspective
of the twenty-first century. David Pattie is Professor of Drama at the
University of Chester, UK. Series editors: Richard Boon, Emeritus
Professor of Drama, the University of Hull, UK, and Philip Roberts,
Emeritus Professor in the School of English, University of Leeds, UK.
