Plays
by Tony Harrison

Name: Plays
Brand: Tony Harrison
SKU: 9780571179664
Rating: 2.5 (2 reviews)

Highlights

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Room for ExtrasBritish

What readers are saying

Readers feel that the play may have a greater impact when experienced live. The sentiments suggest a possible disconnect when reading the script compared to its intended performance.

Strong potential in live performanceLess effective on paper

Synopsis

This third collection of Tony Harrison's theatre work contains three plays, all of which were written to be performed in specific places in the world.

Poetry or Bust, performed in September 1993, is about the Airedale poet John Nicholson (1790-1843) and devised for the former wool-combing shed at Salts Mill, Saltaire, not a hundred yards from where Nicholson drowned.

The Kaisers of Carnuntum was performed on 2 June 1995 in the Roman amphitheatre of Petronell/Carnuntum in Austria and has the bloody Commodus, a Roman Emperor (180-192 AD) and son of the philosopher Marcus Aurelius, returning to the former Roman frontier town.

The Labourers of Herakles, using a chorus of nine cement mixers, was performed on an excavated site intended for the new theatre of the European Cultural Centre of Delphi, Greece, on 23 August 1995.

The volume also contains photographs, a selection of the music and an introductory essay by Michael Kustow.