Book description
'I am nothing. Nobody. One day I could forget what I have done. Then I
am nothing with no past. My knife is to tell me who I am. It is my
passport to myself.' The Chair Plays are three one-act plays that Edward
Bond has combined into one continuous drama on the state of society
towards the end of the present century. Faced with ecological disaster
and economic chaos, governments have become authoritarian and
repressive. Domestic family life struggles to survive in a world of
fleeing refugees, mass suicides, ruined and deserted suburbs, and
soldiers patrolling the streets. Authority decrees even the exact
placing of furniture in rooms. There is a knock at the door - but it is
not the secret police. It is something even more disturbing. In this
broken world sheer human goodness and vision asserts itself in stubborn
and radiant ways. A master dramatist creates a range of extraordinary
characters, vivid situations and radical theatrical devices to stage the
central problem of modern life. Edward Bond was born and educated in
London. His plays include The Pope's Wedding (Royal Court, 1962); Saved
(Royal Court, 1965); Early Morning (Royal Court, 1968); Lear (Royal
Court, 1971); Bingo (Northcott Theatre, Exeter, 1973); The Sea (Royal
Court, 1973); The Fool (Royal Court, 1975); The Woman (National Theatre,
1978); Restoration (Royal Court, 1981); Summer (National Theatre, 1982);
The War Plays (RSC at the Barbican Pit, 1985); In the Company of Men
(Paris, 1992; RSC at the Barbican Pit, 1996); Coffee (Rational Theatre
Company, Cardiff and London, 1996; Paris, 2000); The Children
(Classworks, Cambridge, 2000); The Crime of the Twentyfirst Century
(Paris, 2001); Born (Avignon, 2006) and nine plays which were toured by
Big Brum Theatre-in-Education: At the Inland Sea (1995); Eleven Vests
(1997); Have I None (2000); The Balancing Act (2003); The Under Room
(2005); Tune (2007) and A Window (2009).
