Howard Brenton and the Improbable Revival of the Brechtian History Play
Abstract
In 2004 political dramatist David Edgar suggested that the so-called Brechtian history play, “set in foreign countries and/or the past, as a way of looking at the present,” had ceased to be a viable model. However, the mid-2000s also saw the unexpected return to mainstream British stages of Edgar’s contemporary Howard Brenton, with a number of highly popular ‘Brechtian’ history plays, including In Extremis (2006) and Anne Boleyn (2010). This essay explores Brenton’s successful revival of this genre, one of the preferred strategies of radical playwrights in the 1970s, within the sceptical context of recent times. It analyses how the Brechtian model of the history play can be transformed to meet the aesthetic and political demands of the twenty-first century, highlighting in the process the self-transforming powers of the modern project itself against what can now be described as postmodernist orthodoxies. Brechtian historicisation was indeed underpinned by a Marxist belief in historical progress, but its emphasis on alternative courses of action also embraces the non-teleological openness which characterises the survival of political theatre today.
Acknowledgements
Sections of this article have been adapted from my (unpublished) doctoral dissertation: Botham, Paola. “Redefining Political Theatre in Post-Cold War Britain (1990–2005): An Analysis of Contemporary British Political Plays.” PhD Thesis. Coventry University, 2009.
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© 2014 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: Theatre and Politics: Theatre as Cultural Intervention
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- Intervention, Interaction, Insufficiency: Theatre’s Critical Repertoire?
- From Theatre & Everyday Life to Theatre in the Expanded Field: Performance Between Community and Immunity
- Between Homeland and Exile: Witnessing the Homo Sacer at the Heart of Hotel Medea
- Gob Squad’s Act of Rebellion – Revolution Now!
- Remixing Politics: The Case of Headphone-Verbatim Theatre in Britain
- Navigating New Patterns of Power with an Audience
- “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England”: Staging Treatments of Riots in Recent British Theatre
- Bola Agbaje’s Off the Endz. Authentic Voices, Representing the Council Estate: Politics, Authorship and the Ethics of Representation
- Staging the unsayable: debbie tucker green’s political theatre
- (Sub)Versions of the Them/Us Dichotomy in Iraq War Drama
- Going Straight: The Politics of Time and Space in David Eldridge’s Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness
- New Plays of Ideas and an Aesthetics of Reflection and Debate in Contemporary British Political Drama
- Howard Brenton and the Improbable Revival of the Brechtian History Play
- “Surreal and unbelievable and fantastical”
- Reviews
- Elżbieta Baraniecka. Sublime Drama: British Theatre of the 1990s. CDE Studies 23. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2013, x + 270 pp., € 82.95.
- Jeanne Colleran. Theatre and War: Theatrical Responses since 1991. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 241 pp., $ 90.00.
- Astrid Haas. Stages of Agency: The Contributions of American Drama to the AIDS Discourse. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2011, 334 pp., € 38.00.
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- Patrick Duggan. Trauma-Tragedy: Symptoms of Contemporary Performance. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2012, ix + 214 pp., $ 88.00.
- Philip C. Kolin (ed.). Contemporary African American Women Playwrights: A Casebook. London and New York: Routledge, 2012, x + 207 pp., £ 80.00 (hardback, 2007), £ 28.00 (paperback, 2012), £ 28.00 (ebook, 2007).
- Helen H. Lojek. The Spaces of Irish Drama: Stage and Place in Contemporary Plays. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, x + 181 pp., £ 55.00 (hardback).
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: Theatre and Politics: Theatre as Cultural Intervention
- Articles
- Intervention, Interaction, Insufficiency: Theatre’s Critical Repertoire?
- From Theatre & Everyday Life to Theatre in the Expanded Field: Performance Between Community and Immunity
- Between Homeland and Exile: Witnessing the Homo Sacer at the Heart of Hotel Medea
- Gob Squad’s Act of Rebellion – Revolution Now!
- Remixing Politics: The Case of Headphone-Verbatim Theatre in Britain
- Navigating New Patterns of Power with an Audience
- “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England”: Staging Treatments of Riots in Recent British Theatre
- Bola Agbaje’s Off the Endz. Authentic Voices, Representing the Council Estate: Politics, Authorship and the Ethics of Representation
- Staging the unsayable: debbie tucker green’s political theatre
- (Sub)Versions of the Them/Us Dichotomy in Iraq War Drama
- Going Straight: The Politics of Time and Space in David Eldridge’s Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness
- New Plays of Ideas and an Aesthetics of Reflection and Debate in Contemporary British Political Drama
- Howard Brenton and the Improbable Revival of the Brechtian History Play
- “Surreal and unbelievable and fantastical”
- Reviews
- Elżbieta Baraniecka. Sublime Drama: British Theatre of the 1990s. CDE Studies 23. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2013, x + 270 pp., € 82.95.
- Jeanne Colleran. Theatre and War: Theatrical Responses since 1991. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 241 pp., $ 90.00.
- Astrid Haas. Stages of Agency: The Contributions of American Drama to the AIDS Discourse. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2011, 334 pp., € 38.00.
- Barbara Ozieblo and Noelia Hernando-Real (eds.). Performing Gender Violence: Plays by Contemporary American Women Dramatists. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, vi + 198 pp., $ 85.00.
- Patrick Duggan. Trauma-Tragedy: Symptoms of Contemporary Performance. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2012, ix + 214 pp., $ 88.00.
- Philip C. Kolin (ed.). Contemporary African American Women Playwrights: A Casebook. London and New York: Routledge, 2012, x + 207 pp., £ 80.00 (hardback, 2007), £ 28.00 (paperback, 2012), £ 28.00 (ebook, 2007).
- Helen H. Lojek. The Spaces of Irish Drama: Stage and Place in Contemporary Plays. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, x + 181 pp., £ 55.00 (hardback).
