British Drama 1975-1985

British Drama 1975-1985 Peter Buckroyd London The major thrust of contemporary British theatre appears to me to be political in some sense, but whereas the decade began with a good deal of overtly political, "agit-prop" (agitation-propaganda) plays, there has been a shift in many writers from tub-thumping to more open, universal treatment of political issues. Going hand in hand with this is a marked development away from external, quasi-historical, quasiobjective treatments of issues to a much more thorough examination of the internal worlds of the characters presented. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the work of David Edgar. From specific and closely defined plays about political, and often party-political, issues, he moves suddenly in 1979 from a treatment of external socio-political kinds of war to an examination of internal war in the schizophrenia of Mary Barnes. When he turns to the feminist movement in his next play, Teendreams , the examination is far less rigid; instead he presents an extremely complex and internal account of women's struggles. The same tendency can be seen in the work of women writers, writers of comedies, and writers of plays about specific social issues, as well as in the work of Harold Pinter and Simon Gray. There seems to be a consistent and determined move among modern British dramatists to see the ills of the world as no longer solvable externally; we must look inside first. Political Plays John Bull's excellent New British Political Dramatists places what he calls socialist and agit-prop plays in the context of what was happening in Britain politically. The book deals with Howard Brenton, David Hare, Trevor Griffiths, and David Edgar, and rightly, I think, places Trevor Griffiths' Comedians at the center of developments in modern political plays. Most political plays consist of writing or rewriting history by using a recognizable historical and geographical setting, or by mixing up different but still recognizable times and places, or thirdly, by presenting events in an unrecognizable and undefined place and time. Authors do not necessarily stay with the same method, choosing what seems appropriate for a particular piece, but what most of the political plays have in common is a rather external view of events. It is rare for an overtly political play to engage our attention because of the power of the portrayal of an individual's internal world, although many plays during these ten years move in this direction. 49 50Rocky Mountain Review Trevor Griffiths does engage us by his presentation of character and it is primarily this technique which makes us aware of the complexities of political standpoints and judgments. Comedians is set in an evening class for aspiring comics. Issues of class, ideologies, race, and sexism are therefore dealt with obliquely through the central exploration of what a joke is, what comedy is. It is the relationship between the joke itself and the teller which gives rise to the dynamism of the political exploration . Like so many of the important political plays during this period the ending is open: what use the central character, Gethin Price, will make of his insights into the coldness of the world we are not sure; we are only sure of his commitment. It is the openness of the ending of Brian Friel's Translations, too, which ensures the audience's involvement with the issues rather than with a particular view of the issues. Translations is also set very particularly , in a hedge-school in County Donegal in 1833. The play is about identity: personal, internal, community, and national, brought about by the arrival of the British making their Ordnance Survey maps and changing the local place-names. There are some marvelous misunderstandings brought about by confusion over who speaks what language (the audience hears it all in English, apart from the Greek which the unwashed peasant Jimmy Jack Castle recites and the Latin which is urged upon the pupils) and by what meaning and significance becomes attached to which words for what reason. Friel goes further, however, in his examination of the nature of meaning by presenting us with Sarah, who has a speech defect so bad that she has been...