The Theatre of D.H. Lawrence

Dramatic Modernist and Theatrical Innovator

James Moran

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781472570376
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781472570406
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This is the first major book-length study for four decades to examine the plays written by D. H. Lawrence, and the first ever book to give an in-depth analysis of Lawrence's interaction with the theatre industry during the early twentieth century. It connects and examines his performance texts, and explores his reaction to a wide-range of theatre (from the sensation dramas of working-class Eastwood to the ritual performances of the Pueblo people) in order to explain Lawrence's contribution to modern drama.

F. R. Leavis influentially labelled the writer 'D. H. Lawrence: Novelist'. But this book foregrounds Lawrence's career as a playwright, exploring unfamiliar contexts and manuscripts, and drawing particular attention to his three most successful works: The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd, The Daughter-in-Law, and A Collier's Friday Night. It examines how Lawrence's novels are suffused with theatrical thinking, revealing how Lawrence's fictions – from his first published work to the last story that he wrote before his death – continually take inspiration from the playhouse.

The book also argues that, although Lawrence has sometimes been dismissed as a restrictively naturalistic stage writer, his overall oeuvre shows a consistent concern with theatrical experiment, and manifests affinities with the dramatic thinking of modernist figures including Brecht, Artaud, and Joyce. In a final section, the book includes contributions from influential theatre-makers who have taken their own cue from Lawrence's work, and who have created original work that consciously follows Lawrence in making working-class life central to the public forum of the theatre stage.

Table of contents

• Cover page
• Halftitle page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• CONTENTS
• FOREWORD
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• OVERVIEW
• INTRODUCTION THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LAWRENCE’S PLAYS: SHIFTS IN REPUTATION FROM 1930 TO 2014
• CHAPTER 1 WRITING LAWRENCE’S PLAYS: BECOMING A DRAMATIST, 1885 TO 1910
• CHAPTER 2 THE FRUSTRATION OF STAGING: DRAMATIC STRUGGLES, 1911 TO 1930
• CHAPTER 3 THE DRAMA OF LAWRENCE’S FICTION: PLAYWRIGHT AS NOVELIST
• CHAPTER 4 LAWRENCE’S THEATRICAL DEVELOPMENT: REALIST AND EXPERIMENTALIST CROSSCURRENTS
• CHAPTER 5 A DIRECTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: PETER GILL, IN CONVERSATION WITH JAMES MORAN
• CHAPTER 6 A PLAYWRIGHT’S PERSPECTIVE
• CHAPTER 7 A SCREENWRITER’S PERSPECTIVE
• CHAPTER 8 AN INTERCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
• CONCLUSION
• LAWRENCE’S THEATRE: A TIMELINE
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX