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Setting Up the Scaffolding: Howard Brenton's ‘Hitler Dances’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Richard Boon
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Abstract

Among the products of the theatre workshop run by Max Stafford-Clark at the Traverse Theatre – whose twenty-fifth anniversary is celebrated elsewhere in this issue – was Howard Brenton's Hitler Dances, on which the playwright worked with the director and actors late in 1971. Richard Boon sees both the play and the workshop experience as pivotal to Brenton's later development: here, he reconstructs the processes which led towards its eventual performance structure, and places the play with in the context of Brenton's earlier and subsequent work. Richard Boon, who also contributed an introduction to the Methuen Modern Plays edition of Hitler Dances, has recently completed his doctoral dissertation on Brenton's plays, and is working on a full-length study for publication by Methuen in 1990. He is currently Lecturer in Drama in the University of Leeds.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 4 , Issue 16 , November 1988 , pp. 335 - 343
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

Notes and References

1. Brenton, Howard, Plays: One (London: Methuen 1986)Google Scholar. Included is a Preface by the author.

2. Bull, John, New British Political Dramatists (London: Macmillan, 1984), p. 30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Quoted in Itzin, Catherine and Trussler, Simon, ‘Petrol Bombs Through the Proscenium Arch’, Theatre Quarterly, V, No. 17 (1975), p. 13.Google Scholar

4. Brenton, quoted in Itzin, Catherine, Stages in the Revolution (London: Methuen, 1980), p. 192.Google Scholar

5. Brenton, Howard, Hitler Dances (London: Methuen, 1982).Google Scholar

6. Conversation with the present writer, Northampton, 23 February 1983.

7. See Ritchie, Robert, The Joint Stock Book (London: Methuen, 1987), p. 14–15.Google Scholar

8. A full account of the play's making is to be found in the present writer's Introduction to the published play, op. cit.

9. See Hayman, Ronald, ‘Double Acts’, Sunday Times Magazine, 21 03 1980, p. 26.Google Scholar

10. Quoted in an unpublished interview with Malcolm Hay and Philip Roberts, London, 14 January 1978. I am grateful to the interviewers for allowing me access to their material.

11. Oliver, Cordelia, review of Hitler Dances, Plays and Players, Vol. XIX, No. 6 (03 1972), p. 53.Google Scholar

12. Hayman, Carole, quoted in Ansorge, Peter, ‘Underground Explorations No. 4: War Games’, Plays and Players, Vol. XIX, No. 8 (05 1972), p. 61.Google Scholar

13. Quoted in Hay, Malcolm and Roberts, Philip, ‘Interview: Howard Brenton’, Performing Arts Journal, Vol. III, No. 3 (1979), p. 136.Google Scholar