Barker: Plays One

Includes the plays Victory, The Europeans, The Possibilities and Scenes From An Execution.

Howard Barker is one of the most significant and controversial dramatists of his time. His plays challenge, unsettle and expose. These plays are among his best-known works, and their energy, poetic language and imagination have fixed them firmly in the international repertoire.

Exploring the tragic form defined by Barker as Theatre of Catastrophe, three of the plays speculate on human behaviour in moments of historical crisis. Victory is set in the English Civil War and follows the ethical voyage of a widow towards personal reconstruction. The Europeans takes one of the great eruptions of Islamic imperialism asthe background for a young woman’s insistence on her right to her own identity. Scenes from an Execution shows the struggle of an independently-minded artist against the power of the Venetian state.

The Possibilities, a disturbing series of short plays set in various times and cultures, reveals Barker’s unconventional way with moral dilemmas.