Hare, Sir David

Hare, Sir David (1947– ), playwright and director, born in Bexhill. After some time in fringe theatre, during which he co-founded the Portable Theatre Company, he succeeded C. Hampton as resident dramatist at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1970–1, moving to a residence at the Nottingham Playhouse in 1973. Slag (1970), The Great Exhibition (1972), and Knuckle (1974) marked him out as a powerful and original talent with a keen eye both for the iniquities of social privilege and the contradictions of radical idealism. Class antagonism at Cambridge was the subject of Teeth ‘n’ Smiles (1976). In Plenty (1978) Hare provided a metaphor of the economic and ideological decline of post-war Britain through the experiences of a former courier in occupied France. Pravda (1985, rev. 1986), co-written with Howard Brenton, is a political satire concerning two national newspapers. His acclaimed trilogy of plays on British institutions began with Racing Demon (1990), about four south London clergymen trying to make sense of their vocations. This was followed by Murmuring Judges (1991), a critique of the British criminal justice system, and The Absence of War (1993), about the Labour Party. Amy's View (1997) concerns the antagonism over two decades of an ageing actress, Esme (representing ‘The Death of the Theatre’), and her daughter Amy's partner, Dominic (representing ‘The Rise of the Media’). Recent works include Via Dolorosa (1998), Breath of Life (2002), and the film adaptation of Michael Cunningham's book The Hours (filmed 2003).