Arnold Wesker

A mysterious old man with magical powers reveals his secrets to a family that has befriended him on a ship.

217 p.

"This volume is a collection of essays by one of Britain's most well-known, prolific and controversial writers, which explores his thoughts on drama and the theatre gained from a writing career that spans fifty years. Wesker brings together for the first time an assortment of theatre pieces exploring such subjects as The DNA of a Play; The Nature of Dialogue; The Nature of Development; Can Playwrights be Taught to Write Plays; Interpretation - To Explain or Impose, and many others that attempt to elucidate the shifts of thought he has negotiated throughout his long career."--Publisher.

Mattie Beancourt, a 61-year-old woman, reads the autobiography of Mark Gorman, a famous painter. Having grown up in the same East End streets she writes to him. A correspondence develops. She visits him unannounced, and discovers he lives in near poverty and neglect. Her personality is sunny, his is curmudgeonly. Their impact upon each other is startling.

"In The Friends (1970), Esther is diagnosed with leukemia, causing her friends to reassess their working-class identity, their imagined achievements as well as their own mortality. Bluey (1993) is a play about repressed memory resurfacing and three imagined futures that the protagonist cannot muster the courage to confront. In Men Die Women Survive (1990) a trio of estranged wives gather around the dinner table. As they conduct a post-mortem on their failed relationships a tale of betrayal and revenge emerges. Telling the story of a 44-year-old actress Gertie and her influence on Sam, a black teenager working as a car-park attendant, Wild Spring (1992) explores acting as a metaphor for the false images of ourselves with which we fall in love."--Back Cover.

392 p. ; 21 cm