Greenland | |
---|---|
Written by | Howard Brenton |
Date premiered | 26 May 1988 |
Place premiered | Royal Court Theatre, London |
Original language | English |
Greenland is a 1988 play by Howard Brenton. It is a neo-Brechtian epic psychodrama [1] with many actors, props and scene changes, [2] on which the writer worked for seven years. [3] It is the last of Brenton's three Utopian plays, following Sore Throats and Bloody Poetry . [4]
Howard Brenton's Greenland is not to be confused with the 2011 play of the same name co-authored by Moira Buffini, Matt Charman, Penelope Skinner and Jack Thorne.
The play opened at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 26 May 1988 [5] and played there for a season. [6] Its United States premiere was at the Famous Door Theater in Chicago in January 1994. [7]
The first act is set on 11 June 1987, the day of the third consecutive Conservative general election victory. [8] Four of the characters jump into the River Thames in despair, and in the second act wake up 700 years in the future, in a utopia where no one has to do anything they don't want to. [9]
The action centres around four characters: Joan, a Labour parliamentary candidate; Betty, a morally-outraged fundamentalist; Brian, a drunk; and Paul, Lord Ludlow, a wife-beating, debt-ridden capitalist. [10]
Edgar Montillion "Monty" Woolley was an American film and theater actor. At the age of 50, he achieved a measure of stardom for his role in the 1939 stage play The Man Who Came to Dinner and its 1942 film adaptation. His distinctive white beard was his trademark and he was affectionately known as "The Beard."
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Epic theatre is a theatrical movement that arose in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners who responded to the political climate of the time through the creation of new political dramas. Epic theatre is not meant to refer to the scale or the scope of the work, but rather to the form that it takes. Epic theatre emphasizes the audience's perspective and reaction to the piece through a variety of techniques that deliberately cause them to individually engage in a different way. The purpose of epic theatre is not to encourage an audience to suspend their disbelief, but rather to force them to see their world as it is.
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