Edward Bond
Encyclopedia
Edward Bond is an English playwright, theatre director, poet, theorist and screenwriter
. He is the author of some fifty plays, among them Saved
(1965), the production of which was instrumental in the abolition of theatre censorship in the UK. Bond is broadly considered one among the major living dramatists but he has always been and remains highly controversial because of the violence shown in his plays, the radicalism of his statements about modern theatre and society, and his theories on drama.
, North London. As a child during World War II he was evacuated to the countryside but was present during the bombings on London
in 1940 and 1944. This early exposure to the violence and terror of war probably shaped themes in his work, while his experience of the evacuation gave him an awareness of social alienation which would characterise his writing.
His first contact with theatre was music-hall, where his sister used to be sawn in two in a conjuror's sideshow. At fourteen, with his class he saw a performance of Shakespeare's Macbeth
by Donald Wolfit
which was revelatory. He later explained that this performance was the first time he had been presented with traumatic experiences comparable to his own in a way he could apprehend and give meaning to.
At fifteen, he left school with only a very basic education, something from which he derived a deep sense of social exclusion that contributed significantly to his political orientation. Bond then educated himself, driven by an impressive eagerness for knowledge. After various jobs in factories and offices, he did his national service in the British Army occupation forces in Vienna between 1953 and 1955. During his time in the army he discovered the naked violence hidden behind normal social behaviour, and decided to start writing.
Back in London, he educated himself in theatre while working, saw everything he could on stage and exercised his skill by writing drama sketches. He was especially impressed by the performances of the Berliner Ensemble
in the summer of 1956. In June 1958, after submitting two plays to the Royal Court Theatre
(The Fiery Tree and Klaxon in Atreus' Place, which Bond keeps unpublished) he was invited to join its newly formed writers' group.
, Arnold Wesker
, and Ann Jellicoe
), Bond had his real first play, The Pope's Wedding staged as a Sunday night 'performance without décor' at the Royal Court Theatre
in 1962. This is a falsely naturalistic drama (the title refers to "an impossible ceremony") set in contemporary Essex
which shows, through a set of tragic circumstances, the death of rural society brought about by modern post-war urban living standards.
Bond's next play, Saved
(1965) became one of the best known cause célèbre
s in 20th century British theatre history. Saved delves into the lives of a selection of South London working class youths suppressed - as Bond would see it - by a brutal economic system and unable to give their lives meaning, who drift eventually into barbarous mutual violence. Among them, one character, Len, persistently (and successfully) tries to maintain links between people violently tearing each other to pieces. The play shows the social causes of violence and opposes them with individual freedom. This would remain the major theme throughout Bond's work.
The play was directed by William Gaskill
, then artistic director of the Royal Court. The Theatres Act 1843
was still in force and required scripts to be submitted for approval by the Lord Chamberlain's Office
. Saved included a scene featuring the stoning to death of a baby in its pram. The Lord Chamberlain sought to censor it, but Bond refused to alter a word, claiming that removing this pivotal scene would alter the meaning of the play. He was firmly backed by Gaskill and the Royal Court although threatened with serious trouble. Formation of a theatre club normally allowed plays that had been banned for their language or subject matter to be performed under 'club' conditions - such as that at the Comedy Theatre, however the English Stage Society were prosecuted. An active campaign sought to overturn the prosecution, with a passionate defence presented by Laurence Olivier
, then Artistic Director of the National Theatre
. The court found the English Stage Society guilty and they were given a conditional discharge
.
Bond and the Royal Court continued to defy the censor, and in 1967 produced a new play, the surreal Early Morning. This portrays a lesbian
relationship between Queen Victoria
and Florence Nightingale
, the royal Princes as Siamese twins, Disraeli
and Prince Albert plotting a coup and the whole dramatis personae damned to a cannibalistic Heaven after falling off Beachy Head
. The Royal Court produced the play despite the imposition of a total ban and within a year the law was finally repealed. In 1969, when the Royal Court was finally able to perform Bond's work legally, it put on and toured the three plays in Europe, winning the Belgrade International Theatre Festival prize. The experience of prosecution and mutual support sealed a link between Bond and the Royal Court where all his plays (except external commissions) would be premiered until 1976, most directed by Gaskill.
While Bond's work remained banned for performance in Britain, Saved became the greatest international success of its time with more than thirty different productions around the world between 1966 and 1969, often by notorious directors such as Peter Stein
in Germany or Claude Régy in France. At that time, the play was controversial everywhere but is now considered as a 20th century classic.
After a few commissioned works (the British Empire
satire
Narrow Road to the Deep North (1968) for the Coventry People and City Festival, two agit-prop plays for festival performances, Black Mass (1970) to commemorate the Sharpeville Massacre
and Passion (1971) for the CND Easter Festival), Bond composed his new major work, Lear
, based on Shakespeare's King Lear
. The play follows the decay of an aging tyrannical king. Betrayed by his two cynical daughters; hounded as a political risk following military defeat; pursued by the ghost of a man whose life he has destroyed and whose death he has caused; imprisoned and tortured until enucleated; after a life of violence he finally finds wisdom and peace in a radical opposition to power. The end of the play shows him as a forced labourer in a camp setting an example for future rebellion by sabotaging the wall he once built, which subsequent regimes keep perpetuating.
In 1974 Bond translated Spring Awakening (1891) by the German playwright Frank Wedekind
, about the suppression of adolescent sexuality. The play had always been censored or presented with major cuts since its writing, and Bond's was the first translation to restore Wedekind's original text, including its most controversial scenes.
The subdued Edwardian-set comedy The Sea (1973) shows a seaside community on England's East Coast a few years before World War I, dominated by a dictatorial lady and overwhelmed by the drowning of one of its young citizens. Nurtured by his experience as a child evacuee to the seaside, the play is (rightly) subtitled "a comedy" and was intended as optimistic after the gloomy mood of his previous plays. This is encapsulated by the successful escape of a young and promising couple from this narrow and oppressive society. This play would be the last plays of Bond's directed by Gaskill.
Bond then produced two pieces exploring the place of the artist in society. Bingo
(1974) portrayed the retired Shakespeare as an exploitative landlord, an impotent yet compassionate witness of social violence, who eventually commits suicide, repeatedly asking himself "Was anything done?". The Fool
(1975) reinterprets the life of the rural 19th century poet John Clare
. It involves Clare in the Littleport Riots
of 1816, and then makes his own poetry the depository of the spirit of this rural rebellion against the growth of modern industrial capitalism. The failure of this historical class war eventually drives him to a madhouse. In 1976 Bingo won the Obie award
as Best Off-Broadway play and The Fool was voted best play of the year by Plays and Players.
's The White Devil
for Michael Lindsay-Hogg
to re-open the Old Vic
and a libretto for the German composer Hans Werner Henze
to open at the Royal Opera House
in Covent Garden
: We Come to the River
. (In 1982 the pair collaborated again, less successfully on another opera, The English Cat
).
However, Bond's working relationship with the Royal Court progressively slackened, and by the mid 1970s he had found a new partner in the Royal Shakespeare Company
. Beginning with Bingo in 1976, the RSC revived and toured his plays regularly until the early 1990s, and Bond, though often disagreeing with the aesthetic choices of its productions or protesting at not being consulted sufficiently, recognized the genuine support the company gave to his work. In 1977 the RSC commissioned a new play for the opening of their new London theatre, the Warehouse
, which would be The Bundle. Set in an imaginary medieval Japan
and based on an anecdote from the classical Japanese poet Bashō
, the play shows an eventually successful revolution whose leader nevertheless constantly faces the human cost of political change and experiences as futile an ideology of compassion, being (in Bond's view) politically counterproductive and supportive of reactionary violence.
Bond assigned the same political concern to his next play, The Woman, set in a fantasy Trojan War
and based on Euripides
' Trojan Women. Comparable to Lear
, it shows the fight of the decayed Trojan queen, Hecuba
, against the Athenian empire
, succeeding only when she abandons the aristocracy and the interests of the state to physically meet the proletariat and join the people's cause.
In 1977, Bond accepted an Honorary Doctorate by Yale University
(though thirty years before he was not allowed to sit for his eleven-plus examination) and he began to take up students workshops in Newcastle, Durham and Birmingham, for which he wrote several plays. The most accomplished among them was The Worlds, written for the Newcastle University Theatre Society, based on the recent events in the UK, both the Northern Ireland conflict and the social crisis of the winter of Discontent
.
His early 1980s plays were directly influenced by the coming to power of the Conservative Party
led by Margaret Thatcher
and the profound social changes they were bringing about. Restoration, as a half-musical parody of Restoration comedies, deals with working class support for the Tories by showing a servant accepting his conviction and eventual execution for a murder committed by his cynical and silly master. Summer deals with the moral ambiguities of capitalism through the conflict of two women in socialist Yugoslavia
. One is the daughter of former landlords, whose compassionate nature doesn’t prevent them being exploiters and collaborationists during the German occupation. The other, the daughter of servants, rejects the values of the former, who she once saved from a firing squad. Derek, written for a youth festival, alludes directly to the Falklands war
and shows an idiotic aristocrat stealing the brain of a gifted worker and sending him to die in a war in a country that "sounds like the name of a disease".
, in Vienna in 1973, Bond directed his last four plays in London between 1978 and 1982: The Worlds and Restoration at the Royal Court and The Woman and Summer at the National Theatre. These latter two introduced the South African actress Yvonne Bryceland
, whom Bond admired, considering her the ideal female interpreter.
The Woman was the first contemporary play performed in the recently opened Olivier auditorium and, though poorly reviewed, the production was acclaimed as an aesthetic success, especially for its innovative use of the huge open stage. However, Bond's working relationships as a director with both the National Theatre and the Royal Court were highly conflicted. The theatres and their actors accused him of being authoritarian and abstract in his direction and unrealistic in his production requirements, and Bond complained undiplomatically about their lack of artistic engagement and had crude rows both with some reluctant actors and theatre managers. He felt that British theatre had no understanding of his intention to revitalise modern drama and could no longer fulfil his artistic demands.
With his notoriously uncompromising attitude, Bond gained the reputation of a "difficult author", which contributed to keeping him away from the major English stages. During the mid-1980s, Peter Hall at the National Theatre repeatedly refused to allow him to direct his new play Human Cannon, written for Yvonne Bryceland and the wide stage of the Olivier. In 1985, he attempted to direct his War Plays at the RSC, accepting very bad working conditions, but left the rehearsals before the premiere after disastrous sessions, and then violently criticized the production and the theatre. He then decided not to allow his plays to be premiered in London by institutional theatres without proper working conditions. He only agreed to return to the RSC in 1996 when he directed In the Company of Men, but considered this production a failure. He nevertheless regularly accepted revivals and sometimes got involved in these productions, although remaining generally unsatisfied, and he directed workshops for RSC actors with Cicely Berry
. Except for two plays written for the BBC in the early 1990s (Olly's Prison and Tuesday), Bond continued writing plays in the knowledge that they would not be staged in Britain except by amateur companies.
These conflicts are still highly controversial, and Bond and those with whom he has clashed continue to settle scores in letters, books and interviews.
. To point to the barbarity of a society which planned to kill the enemy's children to protect their own (that being how he saw the logic of nuclear deterrence
), he suggested an improvisation in which a soldier was ordered to kill a child of his community to curb mass starvation. According to Bond, each student who improvised as the soldier refused to kill a foreign child and paradoxically returned home to kill their own sibling instead. He saw in this a deeply rooted force in the individual preserving an innate sense of justice that he theorized as 'Radical Innocence'. Subsequently he built on this concept a comprehensive theory of drama in its anthropological and social role that he intended to go beyond Brecht
's theories on political drama. This discovery also gave him the key to write on nuclear war, not to just to condemn the atrocity of war in a general way but, from a political perspective, questioning public acceptance of it and collaboration with it by ordinary citizens.
Between 1984 and 1985 he wrote three plays to meet various requests, which he united as The War Plays. The first, Red Black and Ignorant (written for a Festival dedicated to George Orwell
), is a short agit-prop play in which a child, aborted and burnt to death in the nuclear global bombings, comes from the future to accuse the society of the audience of his murder. The second, The Tin Can People (written for a young activists' company), denounces capitalist society's ideology of death. It shows a community of survivors living on an infinite supply of canned food running berserk when they feel threatened by a stranger and destroying all they have as in a reduced nuclear war. The third, Great Peace (written for the RSC) re-enacts the Palermo improvisation in a city barely surviving in the aftermath of nuclear bombardment. It focuses on a soldier who kills his baby sister and his mother who tries to kill her neighbour's child to save her own. The play then follows her twenty years later, in the sterile global wilderness that nuclear war has made of the world, where she rebuilds her humanity bit by bit by meeting other survivors.
These desperate efforts to stay human or be human anew in an inhuman situation would be the purpose of most of the characters in Bond's subsequent plays, the scope of which will be to explore the limits and possibilities of humanity. His next play, Jackets, again uses the Palermo improvisation and sets up a confrontation between two young men manipulated by military conspiracies, first in medieval Japan, then in contemporary urban riots. In the Company of Men shows a desperate fight by the adoptive son of an armaments factory manager to be who he is in a cynical, intrigue-ridden neo-liberal business world that Bond considers the mirror of our post-modern times. In Olly's Prison, a man who has killed his daughter and forgotten his crime tries to find meaning in his life. In Tuesday, a young deserter tries to tell the truth about the war but is destroyed by society. More innovative in structure, Coffee exposes the cultural roots of violence. It contrasts an initial, imaginary section resembling a gloomy fairy tale, in which a mother kills her child because she can no longer feed her, with a second, realistic part reproducing the historical Babi Yar
massacre, where the same characters are among the victims. As in the Palermo improvisation, a soldier realises he cannot shoot the victims any more, and eventually decides instead to shoot his officer and escape with the girl.
Though isolated from the institutional British theatres, Bond found two new partners in the mid-90s who would keep alive his impulse for writing. One was the Birmingham
-based theatre-in-education company Big Brum, of which he remains an associate artist. From 1995 to 2009 he wrote seven very different plays dedicated to young audiences for this company: At the Inland Sea (1995), in which a youth confronts the legacy of the holocaust; Eleven Vests (1997), on scholastic and military authoritarianism
; Have I None (2000), The Balancing Act (2003), The Under Room (2005) Tune (2007) and A Window (2009). Big Brum appears to be the only professional company in England for more than two decades that Bond is openly writing for and allowing to premiere his plays. This collaboration has brought Bond's theories on drama to broader attention in England, where they are now relayed by the National Association for Teaching of Drama. In 1999, he wrote The Children to be played by pupils at Manor Community College in Cambridge
. This other contribution to drama intended for young audiences has been performed ever since in many schools and theatres in England and abroad and counts as one of Bond's international successes.
Bond's other partnership of recent years has been with French director Alain Françon who premiered In the Company of Men in 1992 and produced an acclaimed version of The War Plays at the Festival d'Avignon
in 1994, re-introducing Bond's work to France where his plays and theory have since become highly influential. Françon continued to promote Bond's work when he was head of the Théâtre national de la Colline
in Paris from 1997 to 2010 and, with strong support and involvement from Bond, staged Coffee, The Crime of the 21st Century, Have I None, Born and Chair. To Françon and his actors Bond dedicated People and Innocence, which, with Have I None, Coffee and The Crime of the 21st Century, he calls The Colline Pentad and considers his major project of the past decade.
During the early years of the 21st century, there has been renewed worldwide interest in Bond's work and ideas on drama. In France, he has held several conferences with participants drawn from a wide audience and has directed many workshops in Paris and elsewhere. He has been invited to take part in conferences and workshops all over Europe and America. In the United States, Robert Woodruff
and the American Repertory Theatre
produced Olly's Prison in 2005; Woodruff also directed Saved (2001) and Chair (2008) at Theatre for a New Audience in New York. In Germany, interest in his plays has remained high since the seventies. In Britain his plays are now regularly revived in community theatre and in 2008, he had his first West End production in a career of almost fifty years with Jonathan Kent
's revival of The Sea
at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, with David Haig
and Eileen Atkins
. Among recent productions are revivals of Lear
at the Crucible Theatre
Sheffield
featuring Ian McDiarmid
and Restoration with added songs, toured in 2006 by the Oxford Stage Company. During the autumn of 2010 The Cock Tavern Theatre
in London produced six of his plays simultaneously (one chosen from each decade), including a new one, provisionally entitled There Will Be More, commissioned for this occasion and performed although unfinished. Notably, Bond himself directed a revival of The Fool and took over the direction of There Will Be More.
The Lyric Hammersmith
is presenting the first London production of Bond's Saved
for 27 years in autumn 2011 in a production by the venue's Artistic Director Sean Holmes
.
to produce long, serious prose prefaces to his plays.
These contain the author's meditations on capitalism
, violence
, technology
, post-modernism and imagination and develop a comprehensive theory on the use and means of drama. Eight volumes of his Collected Plays, including the prefaces, are available from the UK publisher Methuen.
In 1999 he published The Hidden Plot, a collection of writings on theatre and the meaning of drama. He has published two volumes from his notebooks and four volumes of letters. His Collected Poems was published in 1987.
's Laughter in the Dark
(1968, dir. Tony Richardson
) and the aborigine drama Walkabout
(1971, dir. Nicolas Roeg
); as well as contributing dialogue to Blowup
(1966, dir. Michelangelo Antonioni
) and Nicholas and Alexandra
(1971, dir. Franklin J. Schaffner). Except for Antonioni's Blowup, his contribution to which is contested, Bond himself considered these works strictly as potboilers and often became frustrated when further involved in cinema projects.
Television plays
Radio plays
Unavailable early plays
Libretti for Operas by Hans Werner Henze
Libretti for Ballets
Adaptations from other authors
Screenplays
other plays, by Methuen, London
Letters, selected and edited by Ian Stuart:
Selections from Edward Bond's Notebooks, edited by Ian Stuart, London, Methuen,
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
. He is the author of some fifty plays, among them Saved
Saved (play)
Saved is a play written by Edward Bond, and was first produced at the Royal Court Theatre in November 1965. It was originally enacted privately, under "club" auspices, since the play was initially censored due largely to the infamous 'stoning of a baby' scene.The play itself is set in London during...
(1965), the production of which was instrumental in the abolition of theatre censorship in the UK. Bond is broadly considered one among the major living dramatists but he has always been and remains highly controversial because of the violence shown in his plays, the radicalism of his statements about modern theatre and society, and his theories on drama.
Early life
Edward Bond was born on 18 July 1934 into a lower working class family in HollowayHolloway, London
Holloway is an inner-city district in the London Borough of Islington located north of Charing Cross and follows for the most part, the line of the Holloway Road . At the centre of Holloway is the Nag's Head area...
, North London. As a child during World War II he was evacuated to the countryside but was present during the bombings on London
The Blitz
The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...
in 1940 and 1944. This early exposure to the violence and terror of war probably shaped themes in his work, while his experience of the evacuation gave him an awareness of social alienation which would characterise his writing.
His first contact with theatre was music-hall, where his sister used to be sawn in two in a conjuror's sideshow. At fourteen, with his class he saw a performance of Shakespeare's Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
by Donald Wolfit
Donald Wolfit
Sir Donald Wolfit, KBE was a well-known English actor-manager.-Biography:Wolfit, who was "Woolfitt" at birth was born at New Balderton, near Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire and attended the Magnus Grammar School and made his stage début in 1920...
which was revelatory. He later explained that this performance was the first time he had been presented with traumatic experiences comparable to his own in a way he could apprehend and give meaning to.
At fifteen, he left school with only a very basic education, something from which he derived a deep sense of social exclusion that contributed significantly to his political orientation. Bond then educated himself, driven by an impressive eagerness for knowledge. After various jobs in factories and offices, he did his national service in the British Army occupation forces in Vienna between 1953 and 1955. During his time in the army he discovered the naked violence hidden behind normal social behaviour, and decided to start writing.
Back in London, he educated himself in theatre while working, saw everything he could on stage and exercised his skill by writing drama sketches. He was especially impressed by the performances of the Berliner Ensemble
Berliner Ensemble
The Berliner Ensemble is a German theatre company established by playwright Bertolt Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel in January 1949 in East Berlin...
in the summer of 1956. In June 1958, after submitting two plays to the Royal Court Theatre
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
(The Fiery Tree and Klaxon in Atreus' Place, which Bond keeps unpublished) he was invited to join its newly formed writers' group.
Mid-1960s to mid-1970s: first plays and association with the Royal Court
After three years studying with writers his age but already well-known (like John ArdenJohn Arden
John Arden is an award-winning English playwright from Barnsley . His works tend to expose social issues of personal concern. He is a member of the Royal Society of Literature....
, Arnold Wesker
Arnold Wesker
Sir Arnold Wesker is a prolific British dramatist known for his contributions to kitchen sink drama. He is the author of 42 plays, 4 volumes of short stories, 2 volumes of essays, a book on journalism, a children's book, extensive journalism, poetry and other assorted writings...
, and Ann Jellicoe
Ann Jellicoe
Ann Jellicoe is a British actor, theatre director and playwright. Although her work has covered many areas of theatre and film, she is best known for "pushing the envelope" of the stage play, devising new forms which challenge and delight unconventional audiences...
), Bond had his real first play, The Pope's Wedding staged as a Sunday night 'performance without décor' at the Royal Court Theatre
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
in 1962. This is a falsely naturalistic drama (the title refers to "an impossible ceremony") set in contemporary Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
which shows, through a set of tragic circumstances, the death of rural society brought about by modern post-war urban living standards.
Bond's next play, Saved
Saved (play)
Saved is a play written by Edward Bond, and was first produced at the Royal Court Theatre in November 1965. It was originally enacted privately, under "club" auspices, since the play was initially censored due largely to the infamous 'stoning of a baby' scene.The play itself is set in London during...
(1965) became one of the best known cause célèbre
Cause célèbre
A is an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning and heated public debate. The term is particularly used in connection with celebrated legal cases. It is a French phrase in common English use...
s in 20th century British theatre history. Saved delves into the lives of a selection of South London working class youths suppressed - as Bond would see it - by a brutal economic system and unable to give their lives meaning, who drift eventually into barbarous mutual violence. Among them, one character, Len, persistently (and successfully) tries to maintain links between people violently tearing each other to pieces. The play shows the social causes of violence and opposes them with individual freedom. This would remain the major theme throughout Bond's work.
The play was directed by William Gaskill
William Gaskill
William 'Bill' Gaskill is a British theatre director.He worked alongside Laurence Olivier as a founding director of the National Theatre from its time at the Old Vic in 1963...
, then artistic director of the Royal Court. The Theatres Act 1843
Theatres Act 1843
The Theatres Act 1843 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It amended the regime established under the Licensing Act 1737 for the licensing of the theatre in the UK, implementing the proposals made by a select committee of the House of Commons in 1832.Under the Licensing Act 1737 The...
was still in force and required scripts to be submitted for approval by the Lord Chamberlain's Office
Lord Chamberlain's Office
The Lord Chamberlain's Office is a department within the British Royal Household. It is presently concerned with matters such as protocol, state visits, investitures, garden parties, the State Opening of Parliament, royal weddings and funerals. For example, in April 2005 it organised the wedding of...
. Saved included a scene featuring the stoning to death of a baby in its pram. The Lord Chamberlain sought to censor it, but Bond refused to alter a word, claiming that removing this pivotal scene would alter the meaning of the play. He was firmly backed by Gaskill and the Royal Court although threatened with serious trouble. Formation of a theatre club normally allowed plays that had been banned for their language or subject matter to be performed under 'club' conditions - such as that at the Comedy Theatre, however the English Stage Society were prosecuted. An active campaign sought to overturn the prosecution, with a passionate defence presented by Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
, then Artistic Director of the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
. The court found the English Stage Society guilty and they were given a conditional discharge
Conditional discharge
A discharge is a type of sentence where no punishment is imposed. An absolute discharge is unconditional: the defendant is not punished, and the case is over. In some jurisdictions, an absolute discharge means there is no conviction despite a finding that the defendant is guilty...
.
Bond and the Royal Court continued to defy the censor, and in 1967 produced a new play, the surreal Early Morning. This portrays a lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
relationship between Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
and Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale OM, RRC was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night...
, the royal Princes as Siamese twins, Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS, was a British Prime Minister, parliamentarian, Conservative statesman and literary figure. Starting from comparatively humble origins, he served in government for three decades, twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom...
and Prince Albert plotting a coup and the whole dramatis personae damned to a cannibalistic Heaven after falling off Beachy Head
Beachy Head
Beachy Head is a chalk headland on the south coast of England, close to the town of Eastbourne in the county of East Sussex, immediately east of the Seven Sisters. The cliff there is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, rising to 162 m above sea level. The peak allows views of the south...
. The Royal Court produced the play despite the imposition of a total ban and within a year the law was finally repealed. In 1969, when the Royal Court was finally able to perform Bond's work legally, it put on and toured the three plays in Europe, winning the Belgrade International Theatre Festival prize. The experience of prosecution and mutual support sealed a link between Bond and the Royal Court where all his plays (except external commissions) would be premiered until 1976, most directed by Gaskill.
While Bond's work remained banned for performance in Britain, Saved became the greatest international success of its time with more than thirty different productions around the world between 1966 and 1969, often by notorious directors such as Peter Stein
Peter Stein
Peter Stein is a critically acclaimed German theatre and opera director who established himself at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, a company that he brought to the forefront of German theatre....
in Germany or Claude Régy in France. At that time, the play was controversial everywhere but is now considered as a 20th century classic.
After a few commissioned works (the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
Narrow Road to the Deep North (1968) for the Coventry People and City Festival, two agit-prop plays for festival performances, Black Mass (1970) to commemorate the Sharpeville Massacre
Sharpeville massacre
The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on 21 March 1960, at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in the Transvaal . After a day of demonstrations, at which a crowd of black protesters far outnumbered the police, the South African police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69...
and Passion (1971) for the CND Easter Festival), Bond composed his new major work, Lear
Lear (play)
Lear is a 1971 three-act play by the British dramatist Edward Bond. It is an epic rewrite of William Shakespeare's King Lear. The play was first produced at the Royal Court Theatre in 1971, featuring Harry Andrews in the title role...
, based on Shakespeare's King Lear
King Lear
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
. The play follows the decay of an aging tyrannical king. Betrayed by his two cynical daughters; hounded as a political risk following military defeat; pursued by the ghost of a man whose life he has destroyed and whose death he has caused; imprisoned and tortured until enucleated; after a life of violence he finally finds wisdom and peace in a radical opposition to power. The end of the play shows him as a forced labourer in a camp setting an example for future rebellion by sabotaging the wall he once built, which subsequent regimes keep perpetuating.
In 1974 Bond translated Spring Awakening (1891) by the German playwright Frank Wedekind
Frank Wedekind
Benjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
, about the suppression of adolescent sexuality. The play had always been censored or presented with major cuts since its writing, and Bond's was the first translation to restore Wedekind's original text, including its most controversial scenes.
The subdued Edwardian-set comedy The Sea (1973) shows a seaside community on England's East Coast a few years before World War I, dominated by a dictatorial lady and overwhelmed by the drowning of one of its young citizens. Nurtured by his experience as a child evacuee to the seaside, the play is (rightly) subtitled "a comedy" and was intended as optimistic after the gloomy mood of his previous plays. This is encapsulated by the successful escape of a young and promising couple from this narrow and oppressive society. This play would be the last plays of Bond's directed by Gaskill.
Bond then produced two pieces exploring the place of the artist in society. Bingo
Bingo (play)
Bingo: Scenes of Money and Death is a 1973 play by English Marxist playwright Edward Bond. It depicts an aging William Shakespeare at his Warwickshire home in 1615 and 1616, suffering pangs of conscience in part because he signed a contract which protected his landholdings, on the condition that...
(1974) portrayed the retired Shakespeare as an exploitative landlord, an impotent yet compassionate witness of social violence, who eventually commits suicide, repeatedly asking himself "Was anything done?". The Fool
The Fool (Edward Bond play)
The Fool is a play by the English playwright Edward Bond. It traces the life of the poet John Clare against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution, from his roots in rural East Anglia via literary success in London to his final years in a lunatic asylum...
(1975) reinterprets the life of the rural 19th century poet John Clare
John Clare
John Clare was an English poet, born the son of a farm labourer who came to be known for his celebratory representations of the English countryside and his lamentation of its disruption. His poetry underwent a major re-evaluation in the late 20th century and he is often now considered to be among...
. It involves Clare in the Littleport Riots
Ely and Littleport riots 1816
The Ely and Littleport riots, also known as the Littleport riots, began in Littleport, Cambridgeshire, on 22 May 1816, against a background of similar unrest throughout the country following the Napoleonic Wars. A group of 56 Littleport residents met at The Globe Inn to discuss the high...
of 1816, and then makes his own poetry the depository of the spirit of this rural rebellion against the growth of modern industrial capitalism. The failure of this historical class war eventually drives him to a madhouse. In 1976 Bingo won the Obie award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
as Best Off-Broadway play and The Fool was voted best play of the year by Plays and Players.
From the 1970s to the mid-1980s: broaden scope of practice and political experiments
Bond remained a successful playwright in England all through the 1970s, expanding his range of writing and his collaborations. His plays were requested by institutional and community theatres, for premieres and revivals, and he was commissioned to write plays both by renowned institutions and fringe activist companies. For example, in 1976 he wrote, on one hand Stone and A-A-America , two agit-prop-style plays, respectively for Gay Sweatshop and the Almost-Free Theatre and, on the other, an adaptation of WebsterJohn Webster
John Webster was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.- Biography :Webster's life is obscure, and the dates...
's The White Devil
The White Devil
The White Devil is a revenge tragedy from 1612 by English playwright John Webster . A notorious failure when it premiered, Webster complained the play was acted in the dead of winter before an unreceptive audience. The play's complexity, sophistication and satire made it a poor fit with the...
for Michael Lindsay-Hogg
Michael Lindsay-Hogg
Sir Michael Edward Lindsay-Hogg, 5th Baronet is a British television and stage director and an occasional writer and actor.-Background and early work:...
to re-open the Old Vic
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
and a libretto for the German composer Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
to open at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
in Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
: We Come to the River
We Come to the River
We Come to the River is an opera by Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by Edward Bond. Henze and Bond described this work as "Actions for music", rather than an opera. It was Henze's 7th opera, written originally for the Royal Opera in London, and takes as its focus the horrors of war...
. (In 1982 the pair collaborated again, less successfully on another opera, The English Cat
The English Cat
The English Cat is an opera in two acts by Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by Edward Bond, based on Les peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise by Honoré de Balzac...
).
However, Bond's working relationship with the Royal Court progressively slackened, and by the mid 1970s he had found a new partner in the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
. Beginning with Bingo in 1976, the RSC revived and toured his plays regularly until the early 1990s, and Bond, though often disagreeing with the aesthetic choices of its productions or protesting at not being consulted sufficiently, recognized the genuine support the company gave to his work. In 1977 the RSC commissioned a new play for the opening of their new London theatre, the Warehouse
Warehouse
A warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial areas of cities and towns. They usually have loading docks to load and unload...
, which would be The Bundle. Set in an imaginary medieval Japan
History of Japan
The history of Japan encompasses the history of the islands of Japan and the Japanese people, spanning the ancient history of the region to the modern history of Japan as a nation state. Following the last ice age, around 12,000 BC, the rich ecosystem of the Japanese Archipelago fostered human...
and based on an anecdote from the classical Japanese poet Bashō
Basho
Basho may refer to:*Bashō, Edo-period Japanese haiku poet*Basho , a crater on Mercury*Bashō, a Noh play by Komparu Zenchiku* Basho, a concept in Kitaro Nishida's philosophy* Basho, a contest in sumo wrestling, especially one of the honbasho...
, the play shows an eventually successful revolution whose leader nevertheless constantly faces the human cost of political change and experiences as futile an ideology of compassion, being (in Bond's view) politically counterproductive and supportive of reactionary violence.
Bond assigned the same political concern to his next play, The Woman, set in a fantasy Trojan War
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
and based on Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
' Trojan Women. Comparable to Lear
Lear (play)
Lear is a 1971 three-act play by the British dramatist Edward Bond. It is an epic rewrite of William Shakespeare's King Lear. The play was first produced at the Royal Court Theatre in 1971, featuring Harry Andrews in the title role...
, it shows the fight of the decayed Trojan queen, Hecuba
Hecuba
Hecuba was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War, with whom she had 19 children. These children included several major characters of Homer's Iliad such as the warriors Hector and Paris, and the prophetess Cassandra...
, against the Athenian empire
Delian League
The Delian League, founded in circa 477 BC, was an association of Greek city-states, members numbering between 150 to 173, under the leadership of Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Persian Empire after the Greek victory in the Battle of Plataea at the end of the Greco–Persian Wars...
, succeeding only when she abandons the aristocracy and the interests of the state to physically meet the proletariat and join the people's cause.
In 1977, Bond accepted an Honorary Doctorate by Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
(though thirty years before he was not allowed to sit for his eleven-plus examination) and he began to take up students workshops in Newcastle, Durham and Birmingham, for which he wrote several plays. The most accomplished among them was The Worlds, written for the Newcastle University Theatre Society, based on the recent events in the UK, both the Northern Ireland conflict and the social crisis of the winter of Discontent
Winter of Discontent
The "Winter of Discontent" is an expression, popularised by the British media, referring to the winter of 1978–79 in the United Kingdom, during which there were widespread strikes by local authority trade unions demanding larger pay rises for their members, because the Labour government of...
.
His early 1980s plays were directly influenced by the coming to power of the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
led by Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
and the profound social changes they were bringing about. Restoration, as a half-musical parody of Restoration comedies, deals with working class support for the Tories by showing a servant accepting his conviction and eventual execution for a murder committed by his cynical and silly master. Summer deals with the moral ambiguities of capitalism through the conflict of two women in socialist Yugoslavia
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
. One is the daughter of former landlords, whose compassionate nature doesn’t prevent them being exploiters and collaborationists during the German occupation. The other, the daughter of servants, rejects the values of the former, who she once saved from a firing squad. Derek, written for a youth festival, alludes directly to the Falklands war
Falklands War
The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
and shows an idiotic aristocrat stealing the brain of a gifted worker and sending him to die in a war in a country that "sounds like the name of a disease".
Controversial directing attempts and quarrels with the institutions
During the late 1970s, Bond felt he needed practical contact with the stage to experiment with his ideas on drama and improve his writing. He therefore began directing his own plays and progressively he made this a condition of their first production. After staging Lear in German at the BurgtheaterBurgtheater
The Burgtheater , originally known as K.K. Theater an der Burg, then until 1918 as the K.K. Hofburgtheater, is the Austrian National Theatre in Vienna and one of the most important German language theatres in the world.The Burgtheater was created in 1741 and has become known as "die Burg" by the...
, in Vienna in 1973, Bond directed his last four plays in London between 1978 and 1982: The Worlds and Restoration at the Royal Court and The Woman and Summer at the National Theatre. These latter two introduced the South African actress Yvonne Bryceland
Yvonne Bryceland
Yvonne Bryceland was a South African stage actress.-Career:Bryceland worked as a newspaper librarian before her theatrical début in Stage Door in 1947...
, whom Bond admired, considering her the ideal female interpreter.
The Woman was the first contemporary play performed in the recently opened Olivier auditorium and, though poorly reviewed, the production was acclaimed as an aesthetic success, especially for its innovative use of the huge open stage. However, Bond's working relationships as a director with both the National Theatre and the Royal Court were highly conflicted. The theatres and their actors accused him of being authoritarian and abstract in his direction and unrealistic in his production requirements, and Bond complained undiplomatically about their lack of artistic engagement and had crude rows both with some reluctant actors and theatre managers. He felt that British theatre had no understanding of his intention to revitalise modern drama and could no longer fulfil his artistic demands.
With his notoriously uncompromising attitude, Bond gained the reputation of a "difficult author", which contributed to keeping him away from the major English stages. During the mid-1980s, Peter Hall at the National Theatre repeatedly refused to allow him to direct his new play Human Cannon, written for Yvonne Bryceland and the wide stage of the Olivier. In 1985, he attempted to direct his War Plays at the RSC, accepting very bad working conditions, but left the rehearsals before the premiere after disastrous sessions, and then violently criticized the production and the theatre. He then decided not to allow his plays to be premiered in London by institutional theatres without proper working conditions. He only agreed to return to the RSC in 1996 when he directed In the Company of Men, but considered this production a failure. He nevertheless regularly accepted revivals and sometimes got involved in these productions, although remaining generally unsatisfied, and he directed workshops for RSC actors with Cicely Berry
Cicely Berry
Cicely Frances Berry CBE is the voice director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and is world-renowned in her work as a voice and text coach, having spent many years as an instructor at London's Central School of Speech and Drama. She has conducted workshops all over the globe, including Korea,...
. Except for two plays written for the BBC in the early 1990s (Olly's Prison and Tuesday), Bond continued writing plays in the knowledge that they would not be staged in Britain except by amateur companies.
These conflicts are still highly controversial, and Bond and those with whom he has clashed continue to settle scores in letters, books and interviews.
The turning point of the 1980s
Nevertheless, in the mid-1980s, Bond's work had a new beginning with the trilogy of The War Plays. Motivated by the threats of the last years of the Cold War and the political activism it provoked in Britain and Europe, Bond had planned to write about nuclear war since the early 1980s. He found a means to do so after testing a storyline with Sicilian students in PalermoPalermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
. To point to the barbarity of a society which planned to kill the enemy's children to protect their own (that being how he saw the logic of nuclear deterrence
Deterrence theory
Deterrence theory gained increased prominence as a military strategy during the Cold War with regard to the use of nuclear weapons, and features prominently in current United States foreign policy regarding the development of nuclear technology in North Korea and Iran. Deterrence theory however was...
), he suggested an improvisation in which a soldier was ordered to kill a child of his community to curb mass starvation. According to Bond, each student who improvised as the soldier refused to kill a foreign child and paradoxically returned home to kill their own sibling instead. He saw in this a deeply rooted force in the individual preserving an innate sense of justice that he theorized as 'Radical Innocence'. Subsequently he built on this concept a comprehensive theory of drama in its anthropological and social role that he intended to go beyond Brecht
Brecht
Brecht is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Antwerp. The municipality comprises the towns of Brecht proper, Sint-Job-in't-Goor and Sint-Lenaarts. On January 1, 2006 Brecht had a total population of 26,464...
's theories on political drama. This discovery also gave him the key to write on nuclear war, not to just to condemn the atrocity of war in a general way but, from a political perspective, questioning public acceptance of it and collaboration with it by ordinary citizens.
Between 1984 and 1985 he wrote three plays to meet various requests, which he united as The War Plays. The first, Red Black and Ignorant (written for a Festival dedicated to George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
), is a short agit-prop play in which a child, aborted and burnt to death in the nuclear global bombings, comes from the future to accuse the society of the audience of his murder. The second, The Tin Can People (written for a young activists' company), denounces capitalist society's ideology of death. It shows a community of survivors living on an infinite supply of canned food running berserk when they feel threatened by a stranger and destroying all they have as in a reduced nuclear war. The third, Great Peace (written for the RSC) re-enacts the Palermo improvisation in a city barely surviving in the aftermath of nuclear bombardment. It focuses on a soldier who kills his baby sister and his mother who tries to kill her neighbour's child to save her own. The play then follows her twenty years later, in the sterile global wilderness that nuclear war has made of the world, where she rebuilds her humanity bit by bit by meeting other survivors.
These desperate efforts to stay human or be human anew in an inhuman situation would be the purpose of most of the characters in Bond's subsequent plays, the scope of which will be to explore the limits and possibilities of humanity. His next play, Jackets, again uses the Palermo improvisation and sets up a confrontation between two young men manipulated by military conspiracies, first in medieval Japan, then in contemporary urban riots. In the Company of Men shows a desperate fight by the adoptive son of an armaments factory manager to be who he is in a cynical, intrigue-ridden neo-liberal business world that Bond considers the mirror of our post-modern times. In Olly's Prison, a man who has killed his daughter and forgotten his crime tries to find meaning in his life. In Tuesday, a young deserter tries to tell the truth about the war but is destroyed by society. More innovative in structure, Coffee exposes the cultural roots of violence. It contrasts an initial, imaginary section resembling a gloomy fairy tale, in which a mother kills her child because she can no longer feed her, with a second, realistic part reproducing the historical Babi Yar
Babi Yar
Babi Yar is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kiev and a site of a series of massacres carried out by the Nazis during their campaign against the Soviet Union. The most notorious and the best documented of these massacres took place on September 29–30, 1941, wherein 33,771 Jews were killed in a...
massacre, where the same characters are among the victims. As in the Palermo improvisation, a soldier realises he cannot shoot the victims any more, and eventually decides instead to shoot his officer and escape with the girl.
Recent years
From 1997 to 2008, Bond's plays explored in depth a gloomy vision of a future society (in 2077) where the potential menaces of social breakdown and bio-political control have become real and structural. The first in this cycle, The Crime of the 21st Century, shows a few outcasts who have fled the over-controlled cities to hide in a no-man's-land where they try in vain to rebuild their humanity by creating a semblance of community. Have I None, Chair and The Under Room show the monotonous life of the cities, where social relationships and memory have been abolished, consumption and possession standardized, and where people are harassed by the resistance of their imagination and panicked by strangers. Born and Innocence follow the actions of militarized policemen, the 'Wapos', who perpetrate atrocities on reluctant civilians during mass deportations, but some of whom try to find a human dimension to their lives and desperately attempt to escape the alienated and criminal conditions they are trapped in.Though isolated from the institutional British theatres, Bond found two new partners in the mid-90s who would keep alive his impulse for writing. One was the Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
-based theatre-in-education company Big Brum, of which he remains an associate artist. From 1995 to 2009 he wrote seven very different plays dedicated to young audiences for this company: At the Inland Sea (1995), in which a youth confronts the legacy of the holocaust; Eleven Vests (1997), on scholastic and military authoritarianism
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
; Have I None (2000), The Balancing Act (2003), The Under Room (2005) Tune (2007) and A Window (2009). Big Brum appears to be the only professional company in England for more than two decades that Bond is openly writing for and allowing to premiere his plays. This collaboration has brought Bond's theories on drama to broader attention in England, where they are now relayed by the National Association for Teaching of Drama. In 1999, he wrote The Children to be played by pupils at Manor Community College in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
. This other contribution to drama intended for young audiences has been performed ever since in many schools and theatres in England and abroad and counts as one of Bond's international successes.
Bond's other partnership of recent years has been with French director Alain Françon who premiered In the Company of Men in 1992 and produced an acclaimed version of The War Plays at the Festival d'Avignon
Festival d'Avignon
The Festival d'Avignon, or Avignon Festival, is an annual arts festival held in the French city of Avignon. Founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar, it is the oldest extant festival in France and one of the world's greatest...
in 1994, re-introducing Bond's work to France where his plays and theory have since become highly influential. Françon continued to promote Bond's work when he was head of the Théâtre national de la Colline
Théâtre national de la Colline
The Théâtre national de la Colline is a theatre at 15, rue Malte-Brun in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. It is one of the five national theatres dedicated to drama which are entirely supported by the French Ministry of Culture. The other four are the Odéon-Théâtre, the Comédie-Française, the...
in Paris from 1997 to 2010 and, with strong support and involvement from Bond, staged Coffee, The Crime of the 21st Century, Have I None, Born and Chair. To Françon and his actors Bond dedicated People and Innocence, which, with Have I None, Coffee and The Crime of the 21st Century, he calls The Colline Pentad and considers his major project of the past decade.
During the early years of the 21st century, there has been renewed worldwide interest in Bond's work and ideas on drama. In France, he has held several conferences with participants drawn from a wide audience and has directed many workshops in Paris and elsewhere. He has been invited to take part in conferences and workshops all over Europe and America. In the United States, Robert Woodruff
Robert Woodruff (director)
Robert Woodruff is an American theater director.-Early life:Woodruff graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude from the University at Buffalo in political science. He has a masters degree in theater arts from San Francisco State University...
and the American Repertory Theatre
American Repertory Theatre
The American Repertory Theater is a professional not-for-profit theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1980 by Robert Brustein, the A.R.T. is known for its commitment to new American plays and music–theater explorations; to neglected works of the past; and to established classical texts...
produced Olly's Prison in 2005; Woodruff also directed Saved (2001) and Chair (2008) at Theatre for a New Audience in New York. In Germany, interest in his plays has remained high since the seventies. In Britain his plays are now regularly revived in community theatre and in 2008, he had his first West End production in a career of almost fifty years with Jonathan Kent
Jonathan Kent (director)
Jonathan Kent is an English theatre director and opera director. He is best known as a director/producer partner of Ian McDiarmid at the Almeida Theatre from 1990 to 2002.-Early life:...
's revival of The Sea
The Sea (play)
The Sea is a play written by the English dramatist Edward Bond in 1973. It is a comedy set in a small village in rural East Anglia in the Edwardian period. The play draws on some of the themes of Shakespeare's The Tempest....
at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, with David Haig
David Haig
David Haig is an Olivier Award-winning English actor and FIPA Award-winning writer. He is known for his versatility, having played dramatic, serio-comic and comedic roles, playing characters of varied social classes...
and Eileen Atkins
Eileen Atkins
Dame Eileen June Atkins, DBE is an English actress and occasional screenwriter.- Early life :Atkins was born in the Mothers' Hospital in Clapton, a Salvation Army women's hostel in East London...
. Among recent productions are revivals of Lear
Lear (play)
Lear is a 1971 three-act play by the British dramatist Edward Bond. It is an epic rewrite of William Shakespeare's King Lear. The play was first produced at the Royal Court Theatre in 1971, featuring Harry Andrews in the title role...
at the Crucible Theatre
Crucible Theatre
The Crucible Theatre is a theatre built in 1971 and located in the city centre of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. As well as theatrical performances, it is home to the most important event in professional snooker, the World Snooker Championship....
Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
featuring Ian McDiarmid
Ian McDiarmid
Ian McDiarmid is a Scottish theatre actor and director, who has also made sporadic appearances on film and television.McDiarmid has had a successful career in theatre; he has been cast in many plays, while occasionally directing others and although he has appeared mostly in theatrical productions,...
and Restoration with added songs, toured in 2006 by the Oxford Stage Company. During the autumn of 2010 The Cock Tavern Theatre
The Cock Tavern Theatre
The Cock Tavern Theatre was a multi-award winning pub theatre located in the heart of Kilburn in the north-west of London. The venue specialised in new works and critical revivals...
in London produced six of his plays simultaneously (one chosen from each decade), including a new one, provisionally entitled There Will Be More, commissioned for this occasion and performed although unfinished. Notably, Bond himself directed a revival of The Fool and took over the direction of There Will Be More.
The Lyric Hammersmith
Lyric Hammersmith
The Lyric Theatre, also known as the Lyric Hammersmith, is a theatre on King Street, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which takes pride in its original, "groundbreaking" productions....
is presenting the first London production of Bond's Saved
Saved (play)
Saved is a play written by Edward Bond, and was first produced at the Royal Court Theatre in November 1965. It was originally enacted privately, under "club" auspices, since the play was initially censored due largely to the infamous 'stoning of a baby' scene.The play itself is set in London during...
for 27 years in autumn 2011 in a production by the venue's Artistic Director Sean Holmes
Sean Holmes
Sean Holmes is a British theatre director and, from spring 2009, artistic director of London’s Lyric Hammersmith.-Early career:Sean Holmes took a masters degree at King's College, London and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in text and performance...
.
Publications
Since the early 1970s, Bond has been conspicuous as the first dramatist since George Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
to produce long, serious prose prefaces to his plays.
These contain the author's meditations on capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
, technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
, post-modernism and imagination and develop a comprehensive theory on the use and means of drama. Eight volumes of his Collected Plays, including the prefaces, are available from the UK publisher Methuen.
In 1999 he published The Hidden Plot, a collection of writings on theatre and the meaning of drama. He has published two volumes from his notebooks and four volumes of letters. His Collected Poems was published in 1987.
Contribution to the cinema
In the late 1960s/early 1970s Bond also made some contributions to the cinema. He wrote an adaptation of NabokovVladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
's Laughter in the Dark
Laughter in the Dark (film)
Laughter in the Dark is a 1969 French-British drama film directed by Tony Richardson and starring Nicol Williamson and Anna Karina. It is based on the novel of the same name. Nicol Williamson was brought in as a very late replacement for Richard Burton, who had already shot several scenes...
(1968, dir. Tony Richardson
Tony Richardson
Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson was an English theatre and film director and producer.-Early life:Richardson was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in 1928, the son of Elsie Evans and Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist...
) and the aborigine drama Walkabout
Walkabout (film)
Walkabout is a 1971 film set in Australia, directed by Nicolas Roeg and starring Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg and David Gulpilil. Edward Bond wrote the screenplay, which is loosely based on the novel Walkabout by James Vance Marshall...
(1971, dir. Nicolas Roeg
Nicolas Roeg
Nicolas Jack Roeg, CBE, BSC is an English film director and cinematographer.-Life and career:Roeg was born in London, the son of Mabel Gertrude and Jack Nicolas Roeg...
); as well as contributing dialogue to Blowup
Blowup
Blowup is a 1966 film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, his first English-language film.It tells of a British photographer's accidental involvement with a murder, inspired by Julio Cortázar's short story, "Las babas del diablo" or "The Devil's Drool" , translated also as Blow-Up, and by the life...
(1966, dir. Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director, screenwriter, editor and short story writer.- Personal life :...
) and Nicholas and Alexandra
Nicholas and Alexandra
Nicholas and Alexandra is a 1971 biographical film which tells the story of the last Russian monarch, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra....
(1971, dir. Franklin J. Schaffner). Except for Antonioni's Blowup, his contribution to which is contested, Bond himself considered these works strictly as potboilers and often became frustrated when further involved in cinema projects.
List of works
Plays (dates of writing, followed by director, place and date of world première, if any)- The Pope's Wedding (1961–62) Keith Johnstone, Royal Court Theatre, London, December 9, 1962
- Saved (1964) William GaskillWilliam GaskillWilliam 'Bill' Gaskill is a British theatre director.He worked alongside Laurence Olivier as a founding director of the National Theatre from its time at the Old Vic in 1963...
, English Stage Society, Royal Court Theatre, London, November 3, 1965 - Early Morning (1965–67) William GaskillWilliam GaskillWilliam 'Bill' Gaskill is a British theatre director.He worked alongside Laurence Olivier as a founding director of the National Theatre from its time at the Old Vic in 1963...
, English Stage Society, Royal Court Theatre London, March 31, 1968 - Narrow Road to the Deep North (1968) Jane Howell, Belgrade TheatreBelgrade TheatreThe Belgrade Theatre is a live performance venue seating 858 and situated in Coventry, England. It was the first civic theatre to be built after the Second World War in Britain and as such was more than a place of entertainment...
, Coventry, June 24, 1968 - Black Mass (1970) David Jones, Lyceum Theatre, London, March 22, 1970
- Passion "a Play for CND" (1971) Bill Bryden, au CND Festival of Life on Easter, Alexandra Park Racecourse, April 11, 1971
- Lear (1969–71) William GaskillWilliam GaskillWilliam 'Bill' Gaskill is a British theatre director.He worked alongside Laurence Olivier as a founding director of the National Theatre from its time at the Old Vic in 1963...
, Royal Court Theatre London, September 29, 1971 - The Sea "a comedy" (1971–72) William GaskillWilliam GaskillWilliam 'Bill' Gaskill is a British theatre director.He worked alongside Laurence Olivier as a founding director of the National Theatre from its time at the Old Vic in 1963...
, Royal Court Theatre London, May 22, 1973 - Bingo "scenes of money and death" (1973) Jane Howell & John Dove, Northcott Theatre, November Exeter, 14 1973
- The Fool "scenes of bread and love" (1974) Peter GillPeter Gill (playwright)Peter Gill, theatre director, playwright and former actor, was born in Cardiff, Wales, on 7 September 1939, son of George John Gill and his wife Margaret Mary .He was educated at St Illtyd's College, Cardiff.-Career:...
, Royal Court Theatre London, November 18, 1975 - A-A-America !: Grandma Faust "a burlesque" and The Swing "a documentary" (1976)Jack EmeryJack EmeryJack Emery is a British director, writer and producer for stage, TV and radio. He was educated at Keele University. He began his career producing and acting at Keele, most notably in his first one-man show taken from the novels and plays of Samuel Beckett, called "A Remnant", which played in the...
, Inter-Action's Ambiance Lunch-Hour Theatre Club, Almost Free Theatre, London. Grandma Faust: October 25; The Swing: November 22, 1976 - Stone "a short Play" (1976) Gerald ChapmanGerald ChapmanGerald Chapman , called the "Count of Gramercy Park", and "The Gentleman Bandit" was an American criminal who co-led an early Prohibition-era gang with George "Dutch" Anderson from 1919 until the mid-1920s...
, Gay Sweatshop, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, June 8, 1976 - The Woman "scenes of war and freedom" (1974–77) Edward Bond, National Theatre (Olivier Stage), London, August 10, 1978
- The Bundle or New Narrow Road To The Deep North (1977) Howard Davies, Royal Shakespeare Company, The Warehouse Theatre, London, January 13, 1978
- The Worlds (1979) Edward Bond, Newcastle University Theatre Society, Newcastle Playhouse, March 8, 1979
- Restoration "a pastorale" (1979–1980) Edward Bond, Royal Court Theatre, London, July 22, 1981
- Summer "a European play" (1980–81) Edward Bond, National Theatre (Cottlesloe Stage), London, January 27, 1982
- Derek (1982) Nick Hamm, Royal Shakespeare Company, The Other Place, Stratford On Avon, October 18, 1982
- Human Cannon (1979–1983) Dan Baron Cohen, Quantum TheatreQuantum TheatreQuantum Theatre is a professional theatre company that produces experimental productions in non-traditional performance spaces around the Pittsburgh area. Founded in 1990 by Karla Boos, the company aims to incorporate influences from world culture and the international theatre scene. The theatre...
, Manchester, February 2, 1986 - The War Plays:Red Black and Ignorant (1983–84) Nick Hamm (as The Unknown Citizen), Royal Shakespeare Company, pour le festival "Thoughtcrimes", Barbican Pit, London, January 19, 1984; The Tin Can People (1984) Nick Philippou, Bread and Circus Theatre, Midlands Art Centre, Birmingham, May 4, 1984; Great Peace (1984–85) Nick Hamm, Royal Shakespeare Company, Barbican Pit, London, July 17, 1985; premiered as a trilogy: Nick Hamm, Royal Shakespeare Company, Barbican Pit, London, July 25, 1985
- Jackets or The Secret Hand (1986) Keith Sturgess, Department of Theatre Studies, University of Lancaster, Nuffield studio, Lancaster, January 24, 1989
- In the Company of Men (1987–88) Alain Françon (as La Compagnie des hommes), Théâtre de la VilleThéâtre de la VilleThe Théâtre de la Ville is one of the two theatres built in the 19th century by Baron Haussmann at Place du Châtelet, Paris; the other being the Théâtre du Châtelet...
, Paris, September 29, 1992 - September (1989) Greg Doran, Canterbury CathedralCanterbury CathedralCanterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and forms part of a World Heritage Site....
, Canterbury, September 16, 1989 - Olly's prison (1990) (stage version) Jorge LavelliJorge LavelliJorge Lavelli is a French theater director of Italian ethnicity and Argentine origin.The son of Italian immigrants in Argentina, Lavelli has lived in France since the early 1960s. He became a French citizen in 1977....
(as Maison d'arrêt), Festival d'AvignonFestival d'AvignonThe Festival d'Avignon, or Avignon Festival, is an annual arts festival held in the French city of Avignon. Founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar, it is the oldest extant festival in France and one of the world's greatest...
, July 15, 1993 - Tuesday (stage version) Claudia Stavisky (as Mardi), Théâtre de la Colline, Paris, November 23, 1995
- Coffee "a tragedy" (1993–94) Dan Baron Cohen, The Rational Theatre Company, Chapter Art Centre, Cardiff, November 27, 1996
- At the Inland Sea, "a play for young people" (1995) Geoff Gillham, Big Brum Theatre in Education Company, Broadway School, Aston, Birmingham, October 16, 1995
- Eleven Vests (1995–97) Geoff Gillham, Big Brum Theatre in Education Company, Birmingham, October 7, 1997
- The Crime of the twenty-first Century (1996–98) Leander Haussman (as Das Verbrechen des 21. Jahrhunderts), Schauspielhaus, Bochum, May 28, 1999
- The Children (1999) Claudette Bryanston, Classwork Theatre, Manor Community College, Cambridge, February 11, 2000
- Have I None (2000) Chris Cooper, Big Brum Theatre-in-Education Company, Birmingham, November 2, 2000
- Existence (2002) (stage version) Christian Benedetti, Studio Théâtre, Alfortville, October 28, 2002
- Born (2002–03) Alain Françon (as Naître), Festival d'Avignon, July 10, 2006
- The Balancing Act (2003) Chris Cooper, Big Brum Theatre in Education Company, Birmingham, October 2003
- The Short Electra (2003-4) John Doona, Young People Drama Festival, March 13, 2004
- People (2005),
- The Under Room (2005) Chris Cooper, Big Brum Theatre in Education Company, 9 October 2005
- Chair, stage version ( 2005) Alain Françon (as Chaise) Festival d'Avignon, July 18, 2006
- Arcade (2006) John Doona, Chester, September 21, 2006
- Tune (2006) Chris Cooper, Big Brum Theatre-in-Education Company, 2007
- Innocence (2008), unperformed
- A Window (2009) Chris Cooper, Big Brum Theatre in Education Company, November 2009
- There Will Be More (2010) Adam Spreadbury-Maher, Good Night Out Presents, The Cock Tavern Theatre, October 26, 2010
- The Edge (2011), unperformed
Television plays
- Olly's Prison, (1990) shot in December 1991, (Roy Battersby) broadcasted: BBC2, May 1993
- Tuesday (1992)Shot in March 1993, (Sharon Miller and Edward Bond), broadcasted: BBC Schools Television, June 1993
Radio plays
- Chair (2000), broadcast: BBC Radio 4, April 8, 2000
- Existence (2002), broadcast: BBC Radio 4, May 2002
Unavailable early plays
- The Tragedy, for television, 1950s
- "He jumped but the bridge was burning", 1950s
- The Asses of Kish, 1956-7
- Too Late Now, for television, ca 1957
- The Broken Shepherdess, for radio, ca 1958
- Sylo's New Ruins, for television, ca 1958
- The Performance for television, ca 1958
- The Best Laid Schemes, for television, ca 1958
- A Woman Weeping, ca 1957
- The Roller Coaster, ca 1958
- Klaxon in Aetreus’ Place, 1958
- The Fiery Tree, 1958
- I Don’t Want to Be Nice, 1959
- The Golden Age, 1959
- The Outing, 1959–60
- Kissing The Beast, for radio, 1960
- The Palace of Varieties in the Sand, 1975–76
Libretti for Operas by Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
- We Come to the river "Actions for Music in Two Parts and Eleven Scenes", 1972 74, in The Fool, Londres, Eyre Methuen, 1976
- The Cat "a story for music", 1979, in Restoration, London, Methuen, 1982, from Honoré de Balzac's Peines d'amour d'une chatte anglaise, music by H.W. Henze; recorded as: The English Cat, "Ein Geschichte für Sänger und Instrumentalisten von Edward Bond", Parnassus Orchestra London, dir.: Markus Stenz-Peter Doll, Mayence, Wergo, 2 CD, WER 62042, 1989
Libretti for Ballets
- Text for a Ballet: for Dancers, Chorus and Orchestra (1977), partially published as From an Unfinished Ballet, in Theatre Poems and Songs, London, Methuen, 1980
- Orpheus "a story in six scenes" (1977 78), music by Hans Werner HenzeHans Werner HenzeHans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
, for William ForsytheWilliam Forsythe (dancer)William Forsythe is an American dancer and choreographer resident in Frankfurt am Main in Hessen. He is known internationally for his work with the Ballett Frankfurt and The Forsythe Company... - Burns "a piece for dancers and musicians" (1985), for Midland Ballet Company
Adaptations from other authors
- Thomas MiddletonThomas MiddletonThomas Middleton was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. Middleton stands with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson as among the most successful and prolific of playwrights who wrote their best plays during the Jacobean period. He was one of the few Renaissance dramatists to achieve equal success in...
: A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1965) - Anton ChekhovAnton ChekhovAnton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
: Three Sisters (1966), with Richard CottrellRichard CottrellRichard Cottrell is an English theatre director. He has been the Director of the Cambridge Theatre Company and the Bristol Old Vic in England, and of the Nimrod Theatre in Sydney, Australia...
, for William Gaskill - Bertolt BrechtBertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
: Heads (Round Heads and Pick Heads) (ca 1970), with Keith Hack, inédit, - John WebsterJohn WebsterJohn Webster was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.- Biography :Webster's life is obscure, and the dates...
: The White Devil (1976), "Acting Edition" for Michael Lindsay-HoggMichael Lindsay-HoggSir Michael Edward Lindsay-Hogg, 5th Baronet is a British television and stage director and an occasional writer and actor.-Background and early work:... - Frank WedekindFrank WedekindBenjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
: Spring Awakening (1974), with Elisabeth Bond-Pablé, for Bill Bryden - Frank WedekindFrank WedekindBenjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
: Lulu (1992), with Elisabeth Bond-Pablé, for Nick Philippou
Screenplays
- BlowupBlowupBlowup is a 1966 film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, his first English-language film.It tells of a British photographer's accidental involvement with a murder, inspired by Julio Cortázar's short story, "Las babas del diablo" or "The Devil's Drool" , translated also as Blow-Up, and by the life...
, from Julio CortázarJulio CortázarJulio Cortázar, born Jules Florencio Cortázar, was an Argentine writer. Cortázar, known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, influenced an entire generation of Spanish speaking readers and writers in the Americas and Europe.-Early life:Cortázar's parents, Julio José Cortázar and...
, dir: Michelangelo AntonioniMichelangelo AntonioniMichelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director, screenwriter, editor and short story writer.- Personal life :...
, 1967 - Michael Koolhas, from H. von KleistVon KleistVon Kleist is a Pomeranian Prussian noble family. Notable members of this family include:* Ewald Jürgen Georg von Kleist ; co-inventor of the Leyden jar* Ewald Christian von Kleist ; German poet and soldier...
, dir: Volker SchlöndorffVolker SchlöndorffVolker Schlöndorff is a Berlin-based German filmmaker who has worked in Germany, France and the United States...
, 1968 - The Nun of Monza (dialogues), dir: Eriprando Visconti, 1969
- Laughter in the Dark, from V. NabokovNabokovNabokov may refer to:* Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov , Russian-American author, entomologist, and chess problem composer* Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov , Russian criminologist, journalist, and liberal politician, and father of Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov* Nicolas Nabokov , Russian-American...
, dir: Tony Richardson, 1969 - The Walkabout, from J. Vance Marshall, dir: Nicholas Roeg, 1971
- Nicholas and Alexandra, dir: Franklin D. Schaffner, 1971
- Days of Fury (AKA One Russian Summer), with U. Pirro et A. Calenda, dir: Antonio Calenda, 1973
- The Master Builder, from H. Ibsen, commande de KCETTV, unperformed, 1974 75
- Moby Dick, from H. MelvilleMelville-In Australia:*Melville, Western Australia - the suburb*City of Melville, Western Australia - the local government authority*Melville Island, Northern Territory in Australia-In Canada:*Melville, Saskatchewan*Melville, Ontario*Melville Peninsula, Nunavut...
, 1991, unperformed - Ithaca, from HomerHomerIn the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
, 1998–99, unperformed
Plays
"uniformed edition", 8 volumes by Methuen, London- vol. 1 (1977): Author's note: On Violence; Saved, Early morning; Pope's Wedding
- vol. 2 (1978): Introduction; Preface to Lear; Lear; The Sea; Narrow Road to The Deep North, Black Mass; Passion
- vol. 3 (1987): Four Pieces; Introduction to Bingo, Bingo; Introduction to The Fool; The Fool; Clare Poems; The Woman; Poems, Stories and Essays for The Woman; Author's note; Stone
- vol. 4 (1992): The Worlds; The Activists Papers; Restoration; Restoration Poems and Stories; Summer; Summer Poems
- vol. 5 (1996): Human Cannon, The Bundle; In the Company of Men; Jackets
- vol. 6 (1998): Choruses from After the Assassinations; War Plays; Commentary on the War Plays
- vol. 7 (2003): The Cap; The Crime of the Twenty-first Century; Olly's Prison; Notes on Imagination; Coffee; The Swing; Derek; Fables and Stories
- vol. 8 (2006): Born, People, Chair, Existence, The Under Room
other plays, by Methuen, London
- At the Inland Sea (1997)
- Eleven Vests with Tuesday (1997)
- The Children with Have I None (2001)
- Lear, Student Edition, with Commentary and Notes by Patricia Hern (1983)
- Saved, Student Edition, with Commentary and Notes by David Davis (2008)
- Olly's Prison, stage and TV version (1993)
Selected theoretical writings
- The Activists Papers (1980) in Plays 4, London, Methuen, 1992
- A Note on Dramatic Method (1977), in: The Bundle, London, Methuen, 1978
- Commentary on The War Plays (1991) in Plays 6, London, Methuen, 1998
- The Dramatic Child, (1992), in Tuesday, London, Methuen, 1992
- Drama Devices, ( 2004), in David Davis (ed.): Edward Bond and the Dramatic Child, Edward Bond's Plays for Young People, London, Trentham Books, 2005
- The Hidden Plot Notes on Theatre and the State, London, Methuen, 2000
- Introduction, for The Fool, in Plays 3, London, Methuen, 1987
- Notes on Post-modernism (1989) in: Plays 5, London, Methuen, 1996
- Notes on Imagination, in: Coffee, London, Methuen, 1995
- "Something of Myself" (2004), in David Davis (ed.): Edward Bond and the Dramatic Child, Edward Bond's Plays for Young People, London, Trentham Books, 2005
Letters, selected and edited by Ian Stuart:
- I, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994
- II, Luxembourg, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995
- III, Amsterdam, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996
- 4, Amsterdam, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998
- 5, London, Routledge, 2001
Selections from Edward Bond's Notebooks, edited by Ian Stuart, London, Methuen,
- vol.1: 1959–1980, 2000
- vol.2: 1980–1995, 2000
- Malcom Hay & Philip Roberts: Bond a companion to the plays, London, Eyre Methuen, 1978
External links
- www.edwardbond.org Playwright's own website
- A collection of videos from the Théâtre de la Colline including Bond holding a speech in 2001 (French and English) and clips from plays in performance (French)
- A special issue of La Colline's Revue Electronique on Bond with pictures from performances, documents and analysis
- Methuen Author's Site
- An Edward Bond discussion group
- http://www.birminghampost.net/life-leisure-birmingham-guide/birmingham-culture/theatre-in-birmingham/2009/10/21/dramatist-edward-bond-is-still-going-to-extremes-65233-24983934/Bond interviewed by the Birmingham PostBirmingham PostThe Birmingham Post newspaper was originally published under the name Daily Post in Birmingham, England, in 1857 by John Frederick Feeney. It was the largest selling broadsheet in the West Midlands, though it faced little if any competition in this category. It changed to tabloid size in 2008...
, October 2009] - A short speech on video about the purpose of drama
- Big Brum Theatre In Education