John Arden

Margaretta D'Arcy

DramaOnline

'The Business of Good Government' was written for and first performed in 1960 in the village of Brent Knoll, Somerset. Telling the traditional story of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, it focuses less on the divine and miraculous, and more on the geopolitical forces at play in Herod's kingdom. Under threat of Roman invasion from the west and Persian invasion from the East, Herod is disconcerted to receive a party of Persian delegates, wise men, whom he fears are spies for his neighbour. Realising the threat that might come from a child born which might match and ancient prophecy, he issues an edict to slaughter all males aged under two-years-old. In spite of this heinous crime, the play presents a not altogether unsympathetic portrait of that infamous king, in whom echoes of calculated government policy in modern times can perhaps be seen.

The Business of Good Government

A Christmas Play

A Romantic Melodrama

The Hero Rises Up

This collection brings together some of the best and most frequently performed plays by John Arden and Margaretta D'Arcy whose collaboration stems from the political years of the Sixties The Business of Good Government is a nativity play which develops a sense of a disappearing community; Ars Longa Vita Brevis is composed out of children's games and The Royal Pardon tells the story of the adventures of a group of strolling players who fall in with a deserter from the war in Flanders. Other plays in this collection such as Little Gray Home in the West and The Vandaleur's Folly arise from the highly charged political arena of the 1970s in Ireland. Arden and D'Arcy have been consistently interested in using drama to extend the very boundaries of national identity and human freedom.

Margaretta D'Arcy

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