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Professor David Ian Rabey

Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies
BA MA MA PhD Photograph of Professor David Ian Rabey.

Contact

Email: ddr@aber.ac.uk
Office: F08 Parry Williams
Phone: 01970 622830

Responsibilities

Module co-ordinator

  • English Drama 1950-1980
  • British and Irish Drama 1980-2010
  • Theatre in Society
  • Creative Writing for the Stage      

Teaching Areas

 

  • English Drama 1950-1980
  • British and Irish Drama 1980-2010
  • Theatre in Society;
  • Creative Writing for the Stage;
  • Shakespeare in Performance;
  • Theatre, Gender and Sexuality
  • Acting and Directing

Additional Interests

His musical tastes include contemporary original jazz composition (as exemplified by Paula Gardiner, who has provided original scores for three of his plays) and Elvis Costello, Scott Walker, Steely Dan, Tom Waits, Joe Henry and Richard Thompson. In conjunction with Charmian Savill, he is Jazz Director for the Machynlleth Fesitval. He is currently trying to write some more plays, and a monograph on Theatre and Time (under contract to Intellect Books). His favourite television programmes include The Prisoner, Treme and Dexter. He aims to spend time wisely, to open up a surprising and encouraging volume of possibilities and capabilities. 

Office Hours:

Monday 2-3, Tues 3:15-4

Research

Contemporary British and Irish Theatre; 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.

Staff Publications

  • Howard Barker: Ecstasy and Death (Palgrave, 2009)
  • Lovefuries (Intellect Books, 2008)
  • Theatre of Catastrophe: New Essays on Howard Barker (co-editor with Karoline Gritzner: Oberon Books, 2006)
  • The Wye Plays (Intellect Press, 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: Basingstoke, 1989; 2nd edition, 2009)
  • British and Irish Political Drama in the Twentieth Century (Macmillan: Basingstoke, 1986)
  • Contributor to Word Made Flesh: Philosophy, Eros and Contemporary Tragic Drama by Geroge Hunka (Eyecorner Press, 2011)
  • Contributor to Eroticism and Death in Theatre and Performance ed. Karoline Gritzner (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2010)
  • Contributor to A Companion to Modern British and Irish Drama, 1880-2005 ed. Mary Luckhurst (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006)
  • Contributor to State of Play edited by Dr Hazel Walford Davies (Gomer: Llandysul, 1998)
  • Contributor to Howard Barker's Arguments for a Theatre (Calder: London 1989, Manchester: Manchester University Press 1993, 1997)
  • Contributor to Terrorism and Modern Drama ed. J. Orr & D. Klaic (Edinburgh Uni 1990)
  • 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. 

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