Edward Bond was een Britse toneelschrijver wiens werken werden gekenmerkt door een radicale en vaak provocerende kritiek op de samenleving. Zijn toneelstukken onderzochten thema's als macht, geweld en de menselijke natuur met onverschrokken realisme en filosofisch inzicht. Bond concentreerde zich op het deconstrueren van conventionele narratieve structuren en taal om de verborgen mechanismen van onderdrukking bloot te leggen en te zoeken naar mogelijkheden voor menselijke bevrijding. Zijn invloed op het moderne drama is onmiskenbaar, aangezien hij de grenzen verlegde van wat theater kan onderzoeken en hoe het dat kan doen.
Exploring themes of identity and self-discovery, the narrative follows a character grappling with their past and sense of self. The protagonist feels erased, striving to reclaim their identity through a symbolic knife, which represents both a tool for survival and a means of understanding their existence. The tension between forgetting and remembering drives the story, as the character seeks to define who they are amidst feelings of anonymity and loss.
Two new plays from Britain's most challenging dramatist Have I None and The Children are both set in a late-21st-century apocalyptic landscape where human behaviour is monitored, living spaces are designated and where any emotional displays are immediately eradicated. In The Children a teenager's unquestioning loyalty to his mother has fatal consequences, while in Have I None a couple's lives are irreversibly changed by the appearance of a disturbing stranger who questions their existence.Edward Bond is "a great playwright - many, particularly in continental Europe, would say the greatest living English playwright" (Independent)
Theatre& Education provides an insight into the energy, passion and values that have inspired the most inventive theatre-makers who work with young people in educational settings.
The internationally acclaimed dramatist Edward Bond endures as one of the towering figures of contemporary British theatre. His plays are read at schools and university level. Edward Bond is the most radical playwright to have emerged from the sixti
The internationally acclaimed dramatist Edward Bond endures as one of the towering figures of contemporary British theatre. His plays are read at schools and university level. "Edward Bond is the most radical playwright to have emerged from the sixtiLear - "Bond's greatest (and biggest) play … It is even more topical now and will become more so as man's inhumanity gains subtle sophistication with the twenty-first century's approach" (The Times); The Sea - "It blends wild farce with tragedy and ends with a sliver of hope … what makes the play fascinating is Bond's bleak poetry and social comedy" (Guardian); Narrow Road to the Deep North - "His best piece so far … No one else could have written it" (The Times); Black Mass, written for performance at an anti-apartheid demonstration: "A Georg Grosz picture come to life … the only possible kind of artistic imagery through which to speak of such evil" (Listener); Passion - a play for CND: "Mingles comedy and high anger with absolute sureness." (Guardian)
"A new play by one of Britain's greatest playwrights is an event...the severity and seriousness of his message is delivered with extraordinary directness" (Carole Woddis, Times Educational Supplement)On a seemingly ordinary day the extraordinary happens. As a student prepares for the first day of exams he meets someone from the past who confronts him with an impossible dilemma. It's a life or death situation. Can he use his imagination to stop the most horrific events from taking place?This play was toured to British schools during 1995 by Big Brum, the Birmingham theatre company. Notes and commentary on the production have been written by Tony Coult.Edward Bond "is one of the two or three major playwrights - and arguably the only one - to emerge since the fifties" (Observer)
A wild storm shakes a small East Anglian seaside village and sets off a series of events that changes the lives of all its residents. Set in the high Edwardian world of 1907, The Sea is a fascinating blend of wild farce, high comedy, biting social satire and bleak poetic tragedy.
'Bond's greatest (and biggest) play ... it is even more topical now and will become more so as man's inhumanity gains subtle sophistication' The Times
Described by its author as 'almost irresponsibly optimistic', Saved is a play set in London in the sixties. Its subject is the cultural poverty and frustration of a generation of young people on the dole and living on council estates. The play was first staged privately in November 1965 at the Royal Court Theatre, London, before members of the English Stage Society in a time when plays were still censored. With its scenes of violence, including the stoning of a baby, Saved became a notorious play and a cause celebre. In a letter to the Observer, Sir Laurence Olivier wrote: 'Saved is not a play for children but it is for grown-ups, and the grown-ups of this country should have the courage to look at it.' Saved has had a marked influence on a whole new generation writing in the 1990s.Edward Bond is "a great playwright - many, particularly in continental Europe, would say the greatest living English playwright" (Independent)
