STEPHEN RAPHAEL
| Nationality: | n/a |
| Literary Agent: *: | n/a |
| 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 Stephen Raphael
Becket |
| 1st Produced: | Theatre Royal Haymarket, London | 2004 | ||
| Company: | Stanhope Productions | |||
| 1st Published: | 2004 | |||
| 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: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | large cast | |||
Notes: Original Playwright - Jean Anouilh. Adapted by Frederic and Stephen Raphael | ||||
Synopsis: A charismatic leader is locked into a love-hate relationship with his fiscally prudent chancellor; but, having rashly promoted him, he encourages his loyal entourage to destroy him. Not for nothing does the mind turn to diverting thoughts of Blair and Brown while watching Jean Anouilh's intellectually vacuous piece of boulevard history. Anouilh's play is based on one, endlessly repeated idea: that Henry II was plagued by a homoerotic, stonily unrequited passion for his old hawking, horsing and whoring chum, Thomas Becket. Having pinched his mistress and rashly elevated him first to the chancellorship and then to Canterbury, Henry is confronted by the awkward fact that Becket puts the honour of God before that of his king. So, in a rage born of thwarted love, Henry licenses his barons to kill the unyielding Becket. -Michael Billington, Guardian | ||||
