I first encounter Barker in my first term
of University. A group was putting
on ‘A Wounded Knife’ and I went to watch to see what it was like. I was astounded. The play had such strength and clarity
of vision that it swept me up with it’s poetic force, it’s political
manipulations and it’s surreal humour, this, I thought, was Theatre. And so Barker has been with me ever
since. Know I’m in a good position
to comment on Barker as I went to Aberystwyth University where he has links
with and whose plays are produced frequently. I was surprised that I had not heard of this dramatist of
caliber before and really it seems you have to be either in Aberystwyth or
Exeter, where his company is based, to know of him. This seems to me a great shame as it is worthy drama he
writes, but as he said to me when I briefly met him “It shows you what the
English will and will not put up with”, and indeed this is fair comment. After all his works are
confrontational, difficult and at times downright unpleasant. Though one of his plays was recently
put on at the National Theatre so things might be changing.
This complexity and prolific nature, and by God he is prolific putting
out plays, poetry and theory almost every year, if not every month, so despite
being introduced to quite a few of his plays I have barely scratched the
surface, makes him a clear contender for the Nobel Prize. Certainly he is the strongest contender
I have looked at so far as he ticks all the boxes that candidates have normally
displayed in the past.
‘A Wounded Knife’ is about the death of a King and his subsequent
revenge of those responsible for it by grudge bearing individuals. It has one of my favourite lines: “I
was driving with a murderer and a moralist, one said ‘go faster’, the other ‘go
slower’”. He has been
described as an anarchistic Shakespeare and the comparison to Shakespeare is
not an ideal one and is actually, to an extent, justified. Barker deals with a wide variety of
characters from workmen to nobility, philosophers and plotters, who create a
matrix of interconnecting relationships that develop and change over time. The stories are immaculately plotted
and the poetry of the dialogue is at the forefront of the drama. He investigates different ideologies of
the political spectrum as well as meditating on Christian theology. Heady stuff but with Barker what you
get is a full-blooded, full spirited, and full cerebral experience. It’s what I love about him.
A criticism I’ve heard about him is that he often lets his obscenities
cloud what is otherwise excellent writing, particularly in ‘The Castle’ where
the C-word is often employed. I
accept he certainly is obscene in places, perhaps needlessly so, but I do not
think it is enough to detract from his overall project.
A typical utterance of his characters is like this, taken from ‘The Love
of a Good Man’:
BISHOP: Why God likes pain. (Pause) Always being asked that one, why God is so very fond of pain. (Pause) Because He is. Wriggle
round it as we might, it’s inescapable He must like pain. His own and other people’s. He must approve of it. And this is as good an occasion to
mention pain as any. Better than
most, in fact. Because we are situated
in a sea of it. An Atlantic of
stilled agony. (Pause. He
examines his fingers a moment) Well, I will not
apologize for Him. I am always
apologizing for Him. It’s getting
a bit much.
The historical is vital for Barker, having,
I think, studied History, ‘The Love of a Good Man’ is set on the gravesite of
Passchendaele, ‘The Castle’ in the time of the Crusades and ‘The Power of the
Dog’, dramatising a meeting between Churchill and Stalin, at the time of the
world wars. He invigorates history
with poetry and is an endless source of inspiration for him.
Barker is certainly someone who I would happily put money on getting the
Nobel Prize but just because I think he deserves does not mean he will get
it. I wholeheartedly hope that he
will be awarded with it soon.
Does Howard Barker deserve the Nobel
Prize? Leave a comment with your
opinion.
Next week I’ll be looking at Jaques
Derrida.
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