Theatre and Films of Jez Butterworth

David Ian Rabey is Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at Aberystwyth University, UK, and Artistic Director of Lurking Truth/Gwir sy’n Llechu Theatre Company. His critical publications include Howard Barker: Politics and Desire (1989, 2009), David Rudkin: Sacred Disobedience (1997), English Drama Since 1940 (2003), Howard Barker: Ecstasy and Death (2009), and the forthcoming, Theatre and Time (2016). He has co-edited two collections of essays, Theatre of Catastrophe (2006) and Howard Barker's Art of Theatre (2013). His plays include two volumes, The Wye Plays (2004) and Lovefuries (2008).

Rabey offers a series of illuminating and thought-provoking cultural and historical contextualisations – plunging into past and contemporary understandings of ‘Englishness’ from the outset, for instance – and uses this as the basis for an analysis of the work that is vigorous and always personally engaged, but also open-ended and questioning ... this work has the conscious intent of creating a real and ongoing debate. An indispensable volume.

• Acknowledgments References and Abbreviations A Prologue, with questions: ‘The isle is full of noises…’ 1. Fairy Tales of Hard Men 2. Mojo, Birthday Girl: What Will Happen? Mojo: Shakin’ All Over Birthday Girl: The brave, and the reasonable 3. The Night Heron: A Noose of Briars 4. The Winterling and Leavings: Becoming a Stranger 5. Parlour Song: Men Have Their Uses 6. JERUSALEM: The Keys to the Forest 7. Fair Game, The River: Hunter and Game Fair Game: Freedom and Security The River: Trophies of My Lovers Gone8. Performance and Critical Perspectives Jerusalem in Gotham, or Butterworth on Broadway, by James D. Balestrieri Still Puzzling it Out: Jez Butterworth’s The River: Puzzling as Process, by Mary Karen Dahl Butterworth’s poetics of absence, by Elisabeth Angel-Perez 9. Inconclusion: Burn the Plans Notes Chronology Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index