"(Uncle) Vanya," Barker's radical rewriting of Chekhov's classic, brought him more controversy than most of his other works put together. Interrogating not so much Chekhov's text as the use to which society has put it, Barker turns Vanya's defeat into victory and converts a play of sadness into a tragedy of desire. "A House of Correction" is a meditation on cause and effect. Set on the eve of a war which may destroy a society, the seemingly arbitrary arrival of a messenger with a vital communication sets off an agonizing train of events in the lives of three desperate women. Few works of drama can have plumbed the depths of solitude and rage that characterize "Let Me," a nightmare set on the frontiers of the Roman Empire during the barbarian invasions. Biblical narratives serve as the origin of two shorter works, of which "Judith" is a contemporary classic of cultural conflict, a reinterpretation of the status of the heroine in Israel's war of survival against the Assyrians. "In Lot and His God," the imminent destruction of Sodom simultaneously licenses the moral decay of an angel and the erotic epiphany of an adored wife.
- ISBN10 1840029617
- ISBN13 9781840029611
- Publish Date 15 December 2010
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Imprint Oberon Books Ltd
- Format Paperback
- Pages 334
- Language English