Research

Contemporary British and Irish Theatre; Theatre and Time; Theatre and Society; Theatre, Sexuality and Eroticism; Practical creative work as director-dramatist

Biography

David was born in the English Black Country, and lived in America and Dublin, and now lives in Machynlleth. Formerly lecturer in English & Drama, Trinity College, Dublin (1982-4). Educated at Universities of Birmingham and California, Berkeley. Artistic Director of Lurking Truth Theatre Company/Cwmni Gwir Sy’n Llechu, which he co-founded in 1986, and for which he wrote and directed the plays The Back of Beyond (written 1994-5, staged twice in 1996), The Battle of the Crows (written 1996, staged 1998), published as a single volume The Wye Plays (2004); also Bite or Suck (written 1996, staged 1997) and Lovefuries (The Contracting Sea and The Hanging Judge) (written 2002, staged 2004-5, published 2008). Performances in work by Howard Barker includes: The Exaggerator in Don’t Exaggerate, Sleen in The Early Hours of a Reviled Man, title role in (Uncle) Vanya at Theatr Clwyd and Theatr y Castell, Aberystwyth; Isonzo in Barker’s own (English language premiere) production of his play The Twelfth Battle of Isonzo, in Dublin (2001) and on tour in Ireland and Wales (2002); Lamp in Blok/Eko (world premiere, directed by Barker, The Wrestling School/Exeter Northcott/Exeter University, 2011); other performance work, for Lurking Truth: Carlos in The Bewitched (Barnes), Perowne in AC/DC (Williams) and Badger in Bite or Suck. Departmental directing work includes The Sons of Light (Rudkin), The Europeans (Barker), Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare), Coriolanus (Shakespeare), Heartbreak House (Shaw), Dreaming (Barnes), Crash (stage adaptation by Rabey of Ballard’s novel), Saint’s Day (Whiting), Ursula: Fear of the Estuary (Barker), The Master and Margarita (Bulgakov, adapted Rudkin), Stone City Blue (Thomas), Merlin Unchained (Rudkin, world premiere), Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare), The Freedom of the Graveyard (a stage adaptation by Rabey of Gaiman’s novel The Graveyard Book, world premiere) and The Forty (Barker, world premiere). External directing includes work in Aberystwyth, Cardiff and Swansea and Dublin, including That Slidey Dark by Nigel Wells (1994). He is an Associate of Howard Barker's theatre company, The Wrestling School.

Teaching

Module co-ordinator

TP20420 Theatre in Society

TP20520 English Drama 1950-80

TP20820 British and Irish Drama 1980-2012

TP34140 Playwriting

 

Contributor to:

TP10120 Studying Theatre 1

TP10220 Studying Theatre 2

TP23220 Shakespeare in Performance

TP33120 Theatre, Gender and Sexuality

TP33940 Advanced Practical Production

Publications

MONOGRAPHS:

Howard Barker: Ecstasy and Death (Palgrave: Basingstoke, 2009)
Lovefuries (Intellect Books, Bristol / Chicago UP, 2008)
Theatre of Catastrophe: New Essays on Howard Barker (co-editor with Karoline Gritzner: Oberon Books: London, 2006)
The Wye Plays (Intellect Books, Bristol / Chicago UP, 2004)
English Drama Since 1940 (Longman's Literature in English Series: London, 2003)
David Rudkin: Sacred Disobedience (Harwood: Amsterdam, 1997)
Howard Barker: Politics and Desire (Macmillan/Palgrave: Basingstoke, 1989; 2nd edition, 2009)
British and Irish Political Drama in the Twentieth Century (Macmillan: Basingstoke, 1986)
Work on a forthcoming book-length study, Theatre and Time, contracted for publication by Intellect Books
Ongoing work in, on and with the theatre of Howard Barker (including Howard Barker's Art of Theatre, co-edited with Sarah Goldingay, forthcoming, Manchester: Manchester UP, 2013).

CONFERENCES

Dialogue with Howard Barker, ‘Howard Barker at the Segal Center’, one-day symposium, City University New York, 10 May 2010
Invited to U.S. N.A.T.H.E. conference, New Orleans 2008, to deliver paper on Howard Barker panel
Co-organized, with Karoline Gritzner, one-day symposium, Theatrical Aesthetics of Eroticism and Death, May 1st 2004
Organised national conference, Standing Committee of University Drama Departments, Aberystwyth, March 2004
Organised 'The Drama of David Rudkin', One-Day conference, Aberystwyth 5 May 1990
Invited to U.S. N.A.T.H.E. conference, Seattle 1990, to deliver paper to theory and criticism panel

CRITICAL EDITION EDITED AND PUBLISHED:

RED SUN and MERLIN UNCHAINED by David Rudkin with critical essays ed. Rabey, including his essay: 'Broken Magic? A Director’s Perspective on Merlin Unchained’ Intellect Books, 2011.

 

PUBLISHED ESSAYS IN EDITED BOOKS:

‘After Words: Shapes in the Darkness’, in George Hunka, WORD MADE FLESH: PHILOSPOHY, EROS AND CONTEMPORARY TRAGIC DRAMA Eyecorner Press, 2011, pp. 161-173.

‘Flirting with Disaster’, in EROTICISM AND DEATH  IN THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE, ed. Karoline Gritzner, Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2010, pp. 123-143.

‘Ed Thomas: Jazz Pictures in the Gaps of Language’, in A COMPANION TO CONTEMPORARY BRITISH AND IRISH DRAMA, ed. Mary Luckhurst, Blackwell, Oxford, 2006, pp. 541-550.

‘Raising Hell: An Introduction to Howard Barker’s Theatre of Catastrophe’, pp. 13-29, and ‘Howard Barker in Conversation with David Ian Rabey and Karoline Gritzner, pp. 30-37; in THEATRE OF CATASTROPHE: NEW ESSAYS ON HOWARD BARKER , eds. Karoline Gritzner and David Ian Rabey, London, Oberon Books, 2006.

'Treweryn of the Soul: Ed Thomas's Flowers of the Dead Red Sea' 4-185.

'Greg Cullen's Drama: Spiritual Realism and Chaotic Necessity', 327-346.

 'Love, Anger and Money: A Conversation with Greg Cullen', 362- 368.

 - All in STATE OF PLAY: FOUR PLAYWRIGHTS OF WALES, ed. Hazel Walford Davies, Gomer Press, Llandysul, 1998

'Howard Barker', in BRITISH PLAYWRIGHTS, 1956-1995, ed. W.A.Demastes, Greenwood 1996, 28-38.

'Power, Culture and the Politics of Absolute Play:  Hearbreak House and Too True to be Good as Existential Expressionism',  SHAW ANNUAL 12, ed. Fred D. Crawford, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992, 199-212.

'Violation and Implication:  Pinter's One for the Road and Lewis's Ficky Stingers' in THEMES IN DRAMA 13:  VIOLENCE, ed.  James Redmond, Cambridge University Press, 1991, 261-8.  

'Unlocking the World:  Images of Terrorism in ContemporaryBritish Drama', in TERRORISM IN MODERN DRAMA, ed. Klaic & Orr, Edinburgh University Press,  1990, 151-9.

  

PUBLISHED ARTICLES:

CHASING THE ELLIPSES: STAGING HOWARD BARKER’S THE FORTY (Few Words) Studies in Theatre and Performance, 32 (3), 2012, forthcoming         

THE THEATRICAL IN THE SEXUAL, THE SEXUAL IN THE THEATRICAL: SOME PARALLELS AND PROVOCATIONS Essays in Theatre/Études Théâtrales, 21 (1 & 2), 2002-3 (published Fall 2008), 63-78.

TWO AGAINST NATURE: REHEARSING AND PERFORMING HOWARD BARKER’S PRODUCTION OF HIS PLAY THE TWELFTH BATTLE OF ISONZO Theatre Research International, 30 (2), 2005, 175-189.

PETER BARNES: A MEMORIAL IN CORRESPONDENCE Contemporary Theatre Review, 15 (2), 2005, 252-258.

STAGING CRASH: THE SEXUALISING OF LANGUAGE IN ACTION Studies in Theatre and Performance, XXXIII, 1, 2003, 41-54.

ON BEING A SHAKESPEARIAN DRAMATIST: AN APPROACH TO THE BACK OF BEYOND Theatre Research International, XXV, 3, Autumn 2000, 284-294.     

KISSING HOLES FOR THE BULLETS: CONSCIOUSNESS IN DIRECTING AND PLAYING BARKER'S UNCLE VANYA (Co-written with Andy Cornforth) Performing Arts International, 4, 1, 1999, 25-45.

LIBERATIONS FROM THE LITERAL or WHY I WRITE FOR THE THEATRE New Welsh Review 43, Winter 1998-9, 77-81.

APOLOGIES CONSTERNANTES: LES ARGUMENTS POUR UN THEATRE DE HOWARD BARKER Alternatives Theatrales 57, May 1998, 62-3.

BURNING ALONE IN THE DARK:  AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVID RUDKIN Planet, 114, Dec.- Jan. 1995-6, 91-9.

THE BITE OF EXILED LOVE:  ABJECTIVE PROTAGONISTS IN SOME CONTEMPORARY ANGLO-IRISH DRAMAS Essays in Theatre/Etudes Theatrales, XIII, no. 1, Nov. 1994, 29-44.

OUT OF THE WILDERNESS:  A PROFILE OF JAZZ AND THEATRE COMPOSER, PAULA GARDINER Planet 99, June/July 1993, 33-9.

'WHAT DO YOU SEE?':  HOWARD BARKER'S  THE EUROPEANS:   A DIRECTOR'S PERSPECTIVE Studies in Theatre Production 6, December 1993, 23-34.

FOR THE ABSENT TRUTH ERECT:  IMPOTENCE AND POTENCY IN HOWARD BARKER'S RECENT DRAMA Essays in Theatre/Etudes Theatrales X,  No. 1, November 1991 31-7.

THE ALMEIDA THEATRE: LOVE, DEATH AND A JOURNEY OF THE SOUL Euromaske 3, Spring 1991, 47-50.

WELSH THEATRE:  INVENTING NEW MYTHS (co-written with Charmian C Savill) Euromaske 1, Fall 1990, 73-5.

TIMBERLAKE WERTENBAKER'S DRAMA OF LANGUAGE, DISPOSSESSION AND DISCOVERY Modern Drama XXXIII No. 4, December 1990, 518-528.

WATCHING THE WATCHMEN (Graphic Novels as Counter-Culture) Planet 73, Feb-Mar 1989, 74-81.

PLAY, SATIRE, SELF-DEFINITION AND INDIVIDUATION IN HAMLET. Hamlet Studies V Nos. 1 and 2 - Summer/Winter 1983 - 6-26.

AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT AND REFLEXIVE HISTORY IN THE PLAYS OF DAVID EDGAR,  Critical Quarterly XXV No. 3 - Autumn 1983, 49-60.

 

PAMPHLETS   :          

DAVID EDGAR, Book Trust/British Council Contemporary Writers Series, 1989.

 

CRITICAL INTRODUCTION :

'Why Can't This Crazy Love Be Mine? : An Introduction to Edward Thomas and Y Cwmni' and EAST FROM THE GANTRY, in FRONTLINE INTELLIGENCE 1:  NEW PLAYS FOR THE NINETIES, ed. Pamela Edwardes.                     Methuen 1993.

 

DICTIONARY & ENCYCLOPAEDIA ENTRIES:

Entries on Howard Barker (57-9), David Rudkin (825 - 7), Timberlake Wertenbaker (1033-4), in INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY OF THEATRE - 2: PLAYWRIGHTS, ed. Mark Hawkins-Dady, St. James Press, London                      & Detroit, 1994.

 

INTERVIEW:

‘Academic, Playwright, Actor and Director: David Ian Rabey’, in VIEWS, POSITIONS, LEGACIES: INTERVIEWS WITH GERMAN AND BRITISH THEATRE ARTISTS, 1985-2007 by Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe: Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars’ Publishing, 2007.

 

PROGRAMME NOTES FOR PROFESSIONAL PRODUCTIONS:  

SCENES FROM AN EXECUTION (Barker), Royal National Theatre: Lyttleton Theatre, Oct-Dec 2012.    AFORE NIGHT COME (Rudkin), Theatr Clwyd, Feb. 1998.

THE WRESTLING SCHOOL 1995 EUROPEAN TOUR PROGRAMME:   HATED NIGHTFALL, THE CASTLE, JUDITH: Essay, 'Appalling Enhancements:  Howard Barker's Theatre of Catastrophe'

Y CWMNI NEW WALES TRILOGY:  FLOWERS OF THE DEAD RED SEA, HOUSE OF AMERICA, EAST FROM THE GANTRY:  Essay, 'Why Can't This Crazy Love Be Mine?'  for 1992 National Tour programme.

VOLPONE, Almeida Theatre Production, Feb. 1990.