Wye Plays: The Back of Beyond and the Battle of the Crows Contributor(s): Rabey, David Ian (Author) |
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ISBN: 1841501158 ISBN-13: 9781841501154 Publisher: Intellect (UK) OUR PRICE: $28.22 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: January 2004 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Performing Arts | Theater - General |
Dewey: 822.92 |
LCCN: 2005273648 |
Series: Playtext |
Physical Information: 0.6" H x 6.7" W x 8.9" (0.95 lbs) 128 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: 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. |
Contributor Bio(s): Rabey, David Ian: - David Ian Rabey is professor of drama and theater studies at Aberystwyth University. |