Arnold Wesker (Writers & Their Work S.) - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

Arnold Wesker belongs to the generation of dramatists who grew up in the 1940s and whose dissatisfaction with the status quo revolutionized the British theatre in the late 1950s. Both in his plays and his other activities, Wesker has shown a more explicit commitment than his fellow dramatists to left-wing political ideals. In the 1960s he was associated with the Committee of One Hundred in its protests against nuclear weapons, and he directed Centre Fortytwo, a trust backed by the Trades Unions, whose aims were to extend the appreciation of the arts to a wider and more democratic public by means of education.

Glenda Leeming's appreciative essay traces the evolution of Wesker's work from the social drama of his early pieces such as The Kitchen and Roots, to the plays on more personal themes such as The Four Seasons and The Friends, which have occupied him in recent years. The two phases are united, she points out, by Wesker's unchanging concern with the choice of the right values, whether in personal life or political conviction. Another dominant theme of Wesker's work has been his ideal of the integration of society, as it is expressed in I'm Talking about Jerusalem (1960), Their Very Own and Golden City (1966) and his book of essays, Fears of Fragmentation(1970). His work, she is at pains to show, has developed a greater depth and a subtler texture than has been generally credited to him on account of his early reputation as a didactic playwright on political subjects.

Glenda Leeming is a lecturer for the Extra-Mural departments of Oxford and London Universities, and a course tutor in the Humanities for the Open University. A graduate of University College, London, she was awarded her Master's degree for a study of the novels of Charlotte Bronté and George Eliot. Her publications include a full-length assessment The Plays of Arnold Wesker (1971).

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