Howard Brenton

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Brenton, Howard (1942– ), English dramatist, a political dramatist like Howard Barker who deals with large themes. He wrote his first play in 1965 while still at Cambridge, his first full-length play Revenge (1969) being seen at the Royal Court, as was Magnificence (1973), which deals with urban terrorism. Brassneck (also 1973), written in collaboration with David Hare, is about local government corruption, and The Churchill Play (1974), set in Britain in 1984 under a coalition government, shows political dissidents being brutally treated by the army. (A revised version was produced by the RSC in 1988.) Weapons of Happiness (1976), the first new play to be produced in the National Theatre's new building, uses a crisp factory as a setting for class warfare. It was followed by Epsom Downs (1977), set on Derby Day, and Sore Throats (1979), a violent study of marital friction. In 1980 The Romans in Britain, which draws a parallel between the Roman invasion of Britain and the British presence in Northern Ireland, was also produced at the National Theatre and aroused a good deal of controversy because of its violent scenes of bloodshed and homosexual rape (see CENSORSHIP). Bloody Poetry (1984; NY, 1987) is a study of Byron and Shelley's six-year relationship; Pravda (1985) another collaboration with Hare; and Greenland (1988) is set in a Utopian Britain 700 years hence. His translations of Brecht's Galileo (1980) and Büchner's Danton's Death (1982) were seen at the National Theatre.