Edward Bond

Saved

Lear

"In this play of shattering power, an authoritarian monarch is overthrown by his daughters who, in turn, find the possession of power to be fatally evil. "I have all the power and yet I am a slave." In a popular insurrection, a peasant woman takes power and becomes even more cruel. As the play ends, another insurrection is in preparation and it's clear that the brutal cycle will endlessly repeat itself."--Publisher's description.

A Full Length Play

Narrow Road to the Deep North

Bond Plays 3 (Contemporary Dramatists)

Described by its author as 'almost irresponsibly optimistic', Saved is a play set in London in the sixties. Its subject is the cultural poverty and frustration of a generation of young people on the dole and living on council estates. The play was first staged privately in November 1965 at the Royal Court Theatre before members of the English Stage Society in a time when plays were still censored. With its scenes of violence, including the stoning of a baby, Saved became a notorious play and a cause célèbre. In a letter to the Observer, Sir Laurence Olivier wrote: 'Saved is not a play for children but it is for grown-ups, and the grown-ups of this country should have the courage to look at it.' Saved has had a marked influence on a whole new generation writing in the 1990s. Edward Bond is "a great playwright - many, particularly in continental Europe, would say the greatest living English playwright" (Independent)

A Comedy

Edward Bond Plays:8 brings together recent work by the writer of the classic stage plays Saved, Lear, The Pope's Wedding, and Early Morning. The volume comprises five new plays and two prose essays: Two Cups: introductory essay Born: the third play in the Colline Tetralogy (the first two of which appear in Edward Bond Plays:7); premiering at the Avignon Festival in July 2006. People: the fourth play in the Colline Tetralogy Chair: first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2000. Existence: first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2002. The Under Room: first staged by Big Brum in October 2005; 'an intricate puzzle that is compelling in both its intellectual and emotional intensity'5 stars (Guardian) Freedom and Drama: an extended disquisition on the relationship of drama to the self and society in which Bond argues that drama alone can create human meaning.

Born; People; Chair; Existence; The Under Room

Bond Plays: 8

Helen Nicholson

What motivates theatre-makers who work in education? How can theatre respond to young people's experiences of living in a globalised world? Theatre & Education provides an insight into the energy, passion and values that have inspired the most inventive theatre-makers who work with young people in educational settings. It charts early debates that motivated twentieth-century radical theatre-makers to work with young people, and offers an analysis of contemporary practices. It argues that the aesthetic principles and educational ideals that inform theatre and education drive at the heart of why theatre matters. Foreword by Edward Bond.

Theatre and Education

This collection of passionate and polemical essays with drama from its origin in the human mind to its use in history and the present.

Notes on Theatre and the State

The Hidden Plot

A young man alone in a room. A stranger enters. Together they journey into a dark forest... Coffee centres around the death of a child and asks disturbing questions about the history of the twentieth century through an examination of what constitutes "acceptable" behaviour towards children in our time.Edward Bond is "a great playwright - many, particularly in continental Europe, would say the greatest living English playwright." (Independent)

Coffee

An important, urgent book of essays from Britain's most challenging dramatist: "...a great playwright - many, particularly in continental Europe, would say the greatest living English playwright." (The Independent) This collection of passionate and polemical essays deals with drama from its origin in the human mind to its use in history and the present. It explains the hidden working of drama behind the state, religion, family, crime and war. It is a revolutionary understanding of the human world with drama at its centre. A ruthless critique of the theatre's present state and its trivialisation as entertainment by the media, it reveals and sees a radical new theatre for the future. Edward Bond is internationally recognised as a major playwright and a leading theoretician of drama. He is the most performed British dramatist abroad. This is his latest and most important account of the meaning and practice of theatre as we start a new millennium.

One of Britain's greatest living contemporary dramatists, Edward Bond is widely studied by schools and colleges. The collection includes a commentary by the author. The twenty-first century. The past has been abolished and geography - even the sky - is changed. A woman lives in the vast desert of white rubble. A tiny group of people come to her seeking a hiding place but instead are exposed to the deepest uncertainties of their own condition.Edward Bond is "a great playwright - many, particularly in continental Europe, would say the greatest living English playwright" (Independent)

The Crime of the Twenty-first Century

Edward Bond Plays:9 brings together recent work by the writer of the classic stage plays Saved, Lear, The Pope's Wedding, and Early Morning. The volume comprises four new plays and a comprehensive introduction by the author exploring theories of writing and theatre. Innocence demonstrates Edward Bond's preoccupation with the violence and ugliness that humans can show to one another after being let

Innocence; Window, Tune, Balancing Act; The Edge

Bond Plays: 9

Edward Bond's version of Lear's story embraces myth and reality, war and politics, to reveal the violence endemic in all unjust societies. He exposes corrupted innocence as the core of social morality, and this false morality as a source of the aggressive tension which must ultimately destroy that society. In a play in which blindness becomes a dramatic metaphor for insight, Bond warns that 'it is so easy to subordinate justice to power, but when this happens power takes on the dynamics and dialectics of aggression, and then nothing is really changed'.

Two new plays from Britain's most challenging dramatist Have I None and The Children are both set in a late-21st-century apocalyptic landscape where human behaviour is monitored, living spaces are designated and where any emotional displays are immediately eradicated. In The Children a teenager's unquestioning loyalty to his mother has fatal consequences, while in Have I None a couple's lives are irreversibly changed by the appearance of a disturbing stranger who questions their existence. Edward Bond is "a great playwright - many, particularly in continental Europe, would say the greatest living English playwright" (Independent)

The Children & Have I None

Bond Plays: 10 brings together recent work by the writer of the classic stage plays Saved, Lear, The Pope's Wedding and Early Morning. The volume comprises four previously unpublished plays, one previously published play and a comprehensive introduction by the author. Dea, a heroine, has committed a terrible act and has been exiled. When she meets someone from her past, she is forcefully confronted by the broken society that drove her to commit her crimes. In this play, Edward Bond takes from the Greek and Jacobean drama the fundamental classical problems of the family and war to vividly picture our collapsing society. Dea received its premiere at Sutton Theatre in 2016. The Testament of this Day is Edward Bond's third original radio drama. A young man embarks on two journeys, though he is in control of only one. He soon discovers there is no going back, from either. The play is an arresting drama about the world today and was first produced by BBC Radio 4 in 2016. The Price of One is set in among city ruins in a war zone. An occupying soldier carries a baby he has rescued from the rubble and dust. He meets a woman carrying a baby of her own. What ensues is a struggle between two enemies demanding justice in the midst of war. A modern tragedy, this play is an exploration of eternity and madness and the supermarket culture. It received its premiere in 2016. The Angry Roads considers how young people today grow up in a world that their parents never knew. In a flat a teenage boy is sorting through play things from his childhood; he is sorting through his past in search of the truth about an accident that destroyed his family. The Angry Roads was commissioned by Big Brum Theatre Company and premiered in 2015. The Broken Bowl is a portrait of a a ghost town. Outside a harsh wind rattles the windows. Inside, people go hungry and start boarding up their homes. When a young girl insists on feeding her imaginary friend, a bitter struggle for a future ensues for the power of the imagination to transform lives. The play is a moving and audacious modern fable that explores the impact of hard times on family life, commissioned by Big Brum and premiered in 2012. The volume features an introduction by the author that looks at theatre and culture in a post-Brexit referendum, post-truth and post-Trump era.

Dea; The Testament of this Day; The Price of One; The Angry Roads; The Hungry Bowl

Bond Plays: 10

To be sane or not to be sane, that is the question – and if not, then be mad and all that follows. Edward Bond takes from the Greek and Jacobean drama the fundamental classical problems of the family and war to vividly picture our collapsing society. The war is raging, Dea, a heroine, has committed a terrible act and has been exiled. When she meets someone from her past, she is forcefully confronted by the broken society that drove her to commit her crimes. Dea received its world premiere at Sutton Theatre on 24 May 2016.

Two plays for young people In Eleven Vests, one person is involved in two events; one at school, another as a soldier in the army. Although separated by years, the incidents bear an uncanny resemblance to each other. Eleven Vests shows how the adult develops from the younger self and looks at how tragedy escalates from seemingly minor confrontations. Tuesday: a young girl sits alone in her bedroom studying when her soldier boyfriend returns unexpectedly from active service. In the action that follows she is confronted with a conflict of love and loyalty between him and her father. Edward Bond "is one of the two or three major playwrights - and arguably the only one - to emerge since the fifties" (Observer)

Edward Bond

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