- 149 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
Serjeant Musgrave's Dance
About this book
Set between 1860 and 1880, four deserters bring the body of a dead soldier back to his home town, a mining community in the grip of a coal strike and cut off by snow. Their leader, Serjeant Musgrave, plans to hold the town at gunpoint and confront its people with the realities of warfare. Arden's play questions the military principle of "Obey or suffer" and the cruelty and futility of war.
Serjeant Musgrave's Dance was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in 1959.This volume contains expert notes on the author's life and work, historical and political background to the play and a glossary of difficult words and phrases.
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Information
xxxiv
SERJEANT
MUSGRAVE'S
DANCE
northern
flavour
of
Arden's
language'
(p.
164),
although
Arden
himself
supervised
the
translation.
Visually
the
red-black-white
scheme
was
blurred
because
Brook's
production
'was
built
around
a
grey-green
motif
(p.
166);
a
grey-green
slab
was
used
throughout
the
play
for
tombstones,
stable
divisions
and
so
on,
and
at
the
end
the
dancing
miners
reappeared
after
the
prison
scene
and
after
Attercliffe's
last
line
about
starting
an
orchard,
thus
leaving
the
audience
with
the
image
of
the
trapped
unchanging
miners,
instead
of
hope.
For
Hunt,
'Brook
had
turned
Arden's
popular
ballad
into
a
statement
of
mid-century
despair
—
the
image
of
a
nightmare
that
nobody
can
control.
In
doing
so,
he
had
created
a
brilliant
theatrical
experience
-
but
had
lost
the
point
of
the
play'
(p.167).
The
colliers'
clog
dance
(p.40)
from
the
1965
revival
(Photo:
Dominic)
Table of contents
- Cover
- Contents
- John Arden
- Plot
- Commentary
- Further reading
- SERJEANT MUSGRAVE'S DANCE
- Notes
- Questions for further study
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Yes, you can access Serjeant Musgrave's Dance by John Arden, Glenda Leeming in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Drama. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.