HOWARD BARKER (1946 - )
| Nationality: | British |
| Literary Agent: *: | |
| Email: | n/a |
| Website: | n/a |
* If shown, click on the literary agent's name for full contact details and links to all the Playwrights they represent.
Plays by Howard Barker
13 Objects |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | 2006 | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: A spade. A cup and saucer. A medal. A pair of shoes. A rattle. A camera. A ring. A painting. A pair of spectacles. An urn. A postcard. A bucket. A drum. 13 objects. Everyday. Dull. Mundane. But what if one was capable of inspiring tears? Or a great passion? Even a war. The play explores the intimate connection we often make with everyday objects. Although familiar and mundane in themselves, they can resonate with intense memories or extreme feelings. Here a series of simple items inspire a moment of great sorrow, joy, pain, anger, even a substitute for the identity of a human being. Powerful poetic language, provocative ideas and rich, dark humour build a compelling and fascinating exploration of the secret lives of everyday objects. | ||||
Actress With An Unloved Child |
| 1st Produced: | - | 2007 | ||
| Company: | ||||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Work in Progress | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: The funeral of a great artist ... The mourners bicker and pay their respects at the same time ... His mistress appears naked with a child ... But why? As events unfold a growing sense infects the mourners that they are being manipulated from beyond the grave ... | ||||
All He Fears |
| 1st Produced: | Theatre Barge, London | 1994 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Alpha Alpha |
| 1st Produced: | Open Space, London | 1972 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: The Kray twins entertain an English peer to an exhibition of matricide | ||||
Animals In Paradise |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | 2006 | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | large cast | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: - | ||||
Bang |
| 1st Produced: | London | 1973 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Birth On A Hard Shoulder |
| 1st Produced: | Stockholm | 1980 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | in Two Plays for the Right", Calder | 1982 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Bite Of The Night, The |
| 1st Produced: | The Pit, London | 1988 | ||
| Company: | ||||
| 1st Published: | Calder & Boyers, London | 1988 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Brutopia: Secret Life In Old Chelsea |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | in "Barker, Howard, Collected Plays Vol.2" Calder & Boyers, London | 1993 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | Historiacal drama | - | Parts: | Male | 12 | Female | 5 |
| Parts Other: | extras | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: a riposte to the conventional image of Thomas More, this play takes as its starting point the alienation of the least favoured of his daughters and her secret composition of a counter text to her father's classic Utopia | ||||
Castle, The |
| 1st Produced: | The Pit, London | 1985 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Calder & Boyers, London | 1985 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | Triumph | - | Parts: | Male | 10 | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | extras | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: The return of Crusading males to a feminised feudal demesne provides the central theme as conflict breeds confusion | ||||
Cheek |
| 1st Produced: | 1970 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | in "New Short Plays 3", Eyre Methuen, London | 1972 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 5 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: An unemployed youth seeks salvation through personal philosophy | ||||
Claw |
| 1st Produced: | London | 1975 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Calder & Boyers, London | 1977 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 10 | Female | 4 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: A deprived youth catches a glimpse of the ruling class | ||||
Crimes In Hot Countries |
| 1st Produced: | 1982 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Calder & Boyers, London | 1984 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 13 | Female | 4 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: a British profiteer who sets up shop in a remote colonial outpost along with three prostitutes arriving to relieve the frustration of garrisoned troops | ||||
Dead Hands |
| 1st Produced: | 2004 | |||
| Company: | ||||
| 1st Published: | Oberon, London | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: A young man rushes to reach the bedside of his dying father, but arrives too late. His younger brother was present at the death, but his attitude is strangely ambiguous, and the elder brother becomes suspicious. The intentions of the dead man's mistress are also unclear. The mourners become increasingly consumed by feverish imagining, building a powerfully tense atmosphere as their characters start to disintegrate. | ||||
Don't Exaggerate |
| 1st Produced: | London | 1984 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Calder & Boyers, London | 1985 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Downchild |
| 1st Produced: | The Pit, London | 1985 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Calder & Boyers, London | 1985 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Dumb Woman's Ecstasy, The |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | in "Barker, Howard, Collected Plays Vol.2" Calder & Boyers, London | 1993 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | - | Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Early Hours of a Reviled Man |
| 1st Produced: | 1999 | |||
| Company: | Rhyme And Reason | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Ecstatic Bible, The |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Oberon, London | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: A testament to the millienium, Howard Barker's Ecstatic Bible sweeps through a landscape shaped by the European political and social experience of the twentieth century. A series of interlocking narratives negotiate a strange landscape - streets, a chateau, a hospital ward of war wounded - inhabited by amoral and passionate characters. Provocative imagery and poetic language are suffused with a rich, dark humour. This intriguing collection of parables without morality carries within it the profound echoes of past pain and comic contradiction. | ||||
Edward : The Final Days |
| 1st Produced: | Open Space, London | 1972 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: Edward heath, a mischievous biography | ||||
Europeans, The |
| 1st Produced: | Greenwich, London | 1993 | ||
| Company: | ||||
| 1st Published: | in "Playscript 118" Calder & Boyers, London | 1990 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: set in the liberated Vienna of 1683 is a play of contrasting freedoms, takes one of the great eruptions of Islamic imperialism as the background for a young woman's insistence on her right to her own identity | ||||
Faceache |
| 1st Produced: | London | 1971 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Fair Slaughter |
| 1st Produced: | 1977 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Playscript 82, Calder and Boyars, London | 1978 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 8 | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: a veteran communist and oldest living murderer in England, lies in a prison hospital planning his escape | ||||
Fence, The: In It's Thousandth Year |
| 1st Produced: | 2005 | |||
| Company: | ||||
| 1st Published: | Oberon, London | 2005 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 4 |
| Parts Other: | extras | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: inspired by the long distance fence under construction in the Gaza to separate the Palestinian and Jewish communities. Set in a world of rising frontiers and illegal immigration, The Fence uses powerful poetic language, provocative ideas and rich, dark humour to build a compelling epic about scandal in a ruling monarchy and its subsequent downfall. At the heart of this tale is the intensely personal story of a blind boy's struggle to discover his true identity in a world where nothing is what it seems | ||||
Gary the Thief / Gary Upright |
| 1st Produced: | 1990 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: From Poems By Howard Barker | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Gertrude - The Cry |
| 1st Produced: | 2002 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | 2006 | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: Barker's abiding interest in interrogating the great classics for their 'silences' is shown in Gertrude - The Cry, his re-writing of the Hamlet story. Scarcely examined in Shakespeare, the passion of Gertrude for Claudius is made the centre of this harrowing tragedy, casting new light on the personality of Hamlet himself. | ||||
Golgo: Sermons On Pain And Privilege |
| 1st Produced: | Leicester | 1989 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Calder & Boyers, London | 1990 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Hang Of The Goal, The |
| 1st Produced: | 1978 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | in "Playscript 94" Calder & Boyers, London | 1982 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 10 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: it takes the lid off one of the most enclosed institutions in this or any society - the prison | ||||
Hard Heart, A |
| 1st Produced: | 1992 | |||
| Company: | ||||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 4 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: explores the ways we protect our political and human borders. Barkers prophetic drama imagines a country facing invasion. 'Praxis' the Queen enlists the Genius 'Riddler' to devise a strategy to protect their threatened culture, but is the sacrifice too much? | ||||
Hated Nightfall |
| 1st Produced: | 1994 | |||
| Company: | ||||
| 1st Published: | in "Playscript 120" Calder & Boyers, London | 1994 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | Historical Tragedy | - | Parts: | Male | 8 | Female | 4 |
| Parts Other: | extras | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: speculation on what occurred on the last night in the lives of the Russian Imperial family | ||||
He Stumbled |
| 1st Produced: | 2000 | |||
| Company: | ||||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: Doja, an anatomist whose reputation for embalming dead monarchs is second to none, is summoned by an obscure kingdom where the king is on his deathbed. But no sooner has Doja put the first incision into the body than he is besieged by the queen, the young prince and others in the kingdom who all want to seduce him.. He senses that he is in extreme danger but is powerless to escape and avoid his doom. He is forced to collude in his own assassination. Lyn Gardner, Guardian | ||||
Heaven |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | in "Playscript 94" Calder & Boyers, London | 1982 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | Screenplay | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |