The Theatre of Timberlake Wertenbaker

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The Theatre of Timberlake Wertenbaker offers the first comprehensive overview of Wertenbaker's playwriting career which spans more than thirty years of stage plays. It considers the contexts of their initial productions by a range of companies and institutions, including the Royal Court, the Arcola and the Women's Theatre Group. While examining all of Wertenbaker's original stage works, Sophie Bush's companion focuses most extensively on the frequently studied plays Our Country's Good and The Love of the Nightingale , but also draws attention to early unpublished works and more recent, critically neglected pieces, and the counterpoints these provide. The Companion will prove invaluable to students and scholars, combining as it does close textual analysis with detailed historical and contextual study of the processes of production and reception. The author makes comprehensive use of previously undiscussed materials from the Wertenbaker Archive, including draft texts, correspondence and theatrical ephemera, as well as original interviews with the playwright. A section of Performance and Critical Perspectives from other scholars and practitioners offer a range of alternative approaches to Wertenbaker's most frequently studied play, Our Country's Good .While providing a detailed analysis of individual plays, and their themes, theatricalities and socio-historical contexts, The Theatre of Timberlake Wertenbaker also examines the processes and shape of Wertenbaker's career as a whole, and considers what the struggles and triumphs that have accompanied her work reveal about the challenges of theatrical collaboration. In its scope and reference Sophie Bush's study extends to encompass a wealth of additional information about other individuals and institutions and succeeds in placing her work within a broad range of concerns and resonances.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

In this thorough examination of Wertenbaker's artistic trajectory, Bush (Sheffield Hallam Univ., UK) points up the playwright's defiance of categorization, a position that may have stymied critical appreciation for her plays other than the internationally renowned Our Country's Good and her frequently performed The Love of the Nightingale, both of which premiered in 1988. Bush takes a predominantly thematic approach to analyzing the full range of Wertenbaker's writing, including early unpublished drafts in the British Library Manuscript Collections. Recurring themes include mutable identities, the defining power of language, empowerment through art, respect for the natural world, and issues of gender and culture. Wertenbaker's important collaborations with director Max Stafford-Clark get particular scrutiny. British critical responses to productions of her less-known plays are referenced and shown to have often been inadequate. Essays by three contributing authors (dramaturg Sarah Sigal, director Roger Hodgman, and acting teacher Debby Turner) come together to consider Our Country's Good. These pieces along with notes, chronology, and other apparatus convey a satisfying appreciation for an underappreciated dramatist. --Felicia Hardison Londré, University of Missouri-Kansas City