Graham Saunders is Allardyce Nicol Professor of Drama Arts at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is author of Love me or Kill me: Sarah Kane and the Theatre of Extremes (2002), About Kane: the Playwright and the Work (2009), Patrick Marber’s Closer (2008) and British Theatre Companies 1980-1994 (2015). He is co-editor of Cool Britannia: Political Theatre in the 1990s (Palgrave, 2008) and Sarah Kane in Context (2010).

“The most satisfying aspects of the book are the more sustained readings of such complex and highly thought-provoking playtexts as Butterworth’s, Kane’s, or Greig’s that it manages to focus on for more than a few paragraphs. … the study provides rich material and collects many pertinent quotations from relevant sources.” (Tobias Döring, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, Vol. 8 (2), 2020)

• Contents.- Acknowledgements.- 1. Introduction: Appropriating the Past.- 2. Why Rewrite Shakespeare & his Contemporaries?.- 3. A Host of Lears: Howard Barker's Seven Lears, Elaine Feinstein's Lear's Daughters and Sarah Kane’s Blasted.- 4. ‘Love in the Museum’: Howard Barker, the Erotic and the Classical Text.- 5. ‘If Power Change Purpose’: Appropriation and the Shakespearian Despot.- 6. Anyone for Venice? Wesker. Marowitz & Pascal Appropriate The Merchant of Venice.- 7. Festive Tragedy: Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem.- Bibliography.- Index.

Graham Saunders is Allardyce Nicol Professor of Drama Arts at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is author of Love me or Kill me: Sarah Kane and the Theatre of Extremes (2002), About Kane: the Playwright and the Work (2009), Patrick Marber’s Closer (2008) and British Theatre Companies 1980-1994 (2015). He is co-editor of Cool Britannia: Political Theatre in the 1990s (Palgrave, 2008) and Sarah Kane in Context (2010).

“The most satisfying aspects of the book are the more sustained readings of such complex and highly thought-provoking playtexts as Butterworth’s, Kane’s, or Greig’s that it manages to focus on for more than a few paragraphs. … the study provides rich material and collects many pertinent quotations from relevant sources.” (Tobias Döring, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, Vol. 8 (2), 2020)

• Contents.- Acknowledgements.- 1. Introduction: Appropriating the Past.- 2. Why Rewrite Shakespeare & his Contemporaries?.- 3. A Host of Lears: Howard Barker's Seven Lears, Elaine Feinstein's Lear's Daughters and Sarah Kane’s Blasted.- 4. ‘Love in the Museum’: Howard Barker, the Erotic and the Classical Text.- 5. ‘If Power Change Purpose’: Appropriation and the Shakespearian Despot.- 6. Anyone for Venice? Wesker. Marowitz & Pascal Appropriate The Merchant of Venice.- 7. Festive Tragedy: Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem.- Bibliography.- Index.

Graham Saunders is Allardyce Nicol Professor of Drama Arts at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is author of Love me or Kill me: Sarah Kane and the Theatre of Extremes (2002), About Kane: the Playwright and the Work (2009), Patrick Marber’s Closer (2008) and British Theatre Companies 1980-1994 (2015). He is co-editor of Cool Britannia: Political Theatre in the 1990s (Palgrave, 2008) and Sarah Kane in Context (2010).

“The most satisfying aspects of the book are the more sustained readings of such complex and highly thought-provoking playtexts as Butterworth’s, Kane’s, or Greig’s that it manages to focus on for more than a few paragraphs. … the study provides rich material and collects many pertinent quotations from relevant sources.” (Tobias Döring, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, Vol. 8 (2), 2020)

• Contents.- Acknowledgements.- 1. Introduction: Appropriating the Past.- 2. Why Rewrite Shakespeare & his Contemporaries?.- 3. A Host of Lears: Howard Barker's Seven Lears, Elaine Feinstein's Lear's Daughters and Sarah Kane’s Blasted.- 4. ‘Love in the Museum’: Howard Barker, the Erotic and the Classical Text.- 5. ‘If Power Change Purpose’: Appropriation and the Shakespearian Despot.- 6. Anyone for Venice? Wesker. Marowitz & Pascal Appropriate The Merchant of Venice.- 7. Festive Tragedy: Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem.- Bibliography.- Index.