Overview

A first volume of plays by a startlingly ambitious and inventive dramatist. The Back of Beyond takes, as its starting point, the route of a sequel to King Lear, in which the surviving Shakespearean characters set out on an odyssey through a perilous, blasted landscape, and encounter new agents of cruelty, desire and magic. Wildly humorous and fiercely shocking, the play charts a series of remorseless exposures, interrogating the idealisms and brutal repressions that have informed Anglo-Welsh relations whilst subverting Shakespearean motifs; tragically humorous poetic language and nightmarish visual imagery contribute to the sense of a land where the signposts have been smashed. A sequel to The Back of Beyond, The Battle of the Crows extends and concludes the stories of three characters - a maverick witch, a renegade knight, and an abuse victim made empress - in a harrowing and humorous exploration of border warfare, witchcraft, massacre, bitchery, hilarity and heartbreak. The Battle of the Crows is partly a dramatic speculation about desire as magic, partly a sad reckless laugh at internecine hostilities and the passionate and disastrous transformations which spring up in the face of Death itself.

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9781841501154

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Reviews

"""Fierce, muscular texts in the spirit of Artaud and John Clare."" - Iain Sinclair ""This book is a welcome opportunity to see the plays in print. The plays are complemented by Rabey's enlightening essay ""On being A Shakespearian dramatist"" and a short but incisive ""Afterword"" by Mick Mangan. The plays were written to be performed live in a theatre and the scripts leave that in no doubt...But relishing the ""Wye Plays"" as written texts has considerable rewards."" - Richard J. Hand, CYFRWNG MEDIA WALES JOURNAL (Vol. 2, 2005) Praise for THE BACK OF BEYOND: ""This is large-scale epic drama that sets out to subvert the grand literary tradition as a group of sort-of Shakespearean characters roam around discovering imperialism in a cruel land ... I found myself intrigued by the ambition of the project, mesmerised by the richness of the language and impressed by the energy ... Aberystwyth company Lurking Truth has taken on a mammoth task with evangelical enthusiasm."" - David Adams, THE WESTERN MAIL"

Fierce, muscular texts in the spirit of Artaud and John Clare. - Iain Sinclair This book is a welcome opportunity to see the plays in print. The plays are complemented by Rabey's enlightening essay On being A Shakespearian dramatist and a short but incisive Afterword by Mick Mangan. The plays were written to be performed live in a theatre and the scripts leave that in no doubt...But relishing the Wye Plays as written texts has considerable rewards. - Richard J. Hand, CYFRWNG MEDIA WALES JOURNAL (Vol. 2, 2005) Praise for THE BACK OF BEYOND: This is large-scale epic drama that sets out to subvert the grand literary tradition as a group of sort-of Shakespearean characters roam around discovering imperialism in a cruel land ... I found myself intrigued by the ambition of the project, mesmerised by the richness of the language and impressed by the energy ... Aberystwyth company Lurking Truth has taken on a mammoth task with evangelical enthusiasm. - David Adams, THE WESTERN MAIL

""Fierce, muscular texts in the spirit of Artaud and John Clare."" - Iain Sinclair ""This book is a welcome opportunity to see the plays in print. The plays are complemented by Rabey's enlightening essay ""On being A Shakespearian dramatist"" and a short but incisive ""Afterword"" by Mick Mangan. The plays were written to be performed live in a theatre and the scripts leave that in no doubt...But relishing the ""Wye Plays"" as written texts has considerable rewards."" - Richard J. Hand, CYFRWNG MEDIA WALES JOURNAL (Vol. 2, 2005) Praise for THE BACK OF BEYOND: ""This is large-scale epic drama that sets out to subvert the grand literary tradition as a group of sort-of Shakespearean characters roam around discovering imperialism in a cruel land ... I found myself intrigued by the ambition of the project, mesmerised by the richness of the language and impressed by the energy ... Aberystwyth company Lurking Truth has taken on a mammoth task with evangelical enthusiasm."" - David Adams, THE WESTERN MAIL

Author Information

David Ian Rabey is Professor of Drama and Subject Leader of Theatre Studies at The University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

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