David Pownall
Список книг автора David PownallWriting 'Master Class'
Writing Master Class is the biography of David Pownall’s play, Master Class (1983), from conception to coming of age. Threaded through the account of the inception and development of the piece are twists of authorial life-story necessary for the telling. Whereas a novel or poem can be kept a secret until it is properly finished, a play has to go out to meet the people early. On the day the script is put into the hands of actors, the soul of the thing passes out of the author’s control. It can be bent, battered, warped – or improved within its being far beyond expectations. As a drama of dictatorship in art and the cleverness needed to evade its worst manifestations, Master Class has been at large for thirty years, produced in twenty countries, in some several times. What has been done to it, how it has fared, is touched upon but the main story in this book is the making of the piece. This is a fascinating insight into the playwright’s craft.
Sound Theatre: Thoughts on the Radio Play
Sound theatre is a performance art of special purity, cousin to music.A meditation on the nature of sound how it shapes and colours our daily experiences. Sound Theatre is a series of short missives, both whimsical and profound, that collectively form an intimate portrait of the award-winning playwright and his artistic philosophy, providing a great insight into writing drama for the radio, a unique and much cherished medium. …the ninth and latest series in the Oberon Masters series is Pownall’s thoughts presented as an enjoyable series of missives. It goes beyond authorship, although it has plenty to say about script writing, and discusses the nature of sound and how it colours daily experiences – The Stage
Nijinsky: Death of a Faun
The stormy love affair between the legendary dancer Nijinsky and his mentor Diaghilev is the best known scandal in the history of ballet. Set in a mental asylum, as Nijinsky hears of the death of the great impresario and fears for his own life. With and introduction by Nicholas Dromgoole.
Poems
Poetry has always played its part in David Pownall's life as an author. During his distinguished career as a playwright and novelist, two collections of verse have been published, plus contributions to literary magazines and anthologies. Poems is his selection of the best from new and previously published work.
Pownall: Plays Two
Includes the plays Beef, The Viewing, My Father’s House and Black StarBeef, a winner of the John Whiting Award, has so far only been published in radio form. In The Viewing a family buy a house which is haunted by God, while My Father’s House, commissioned by Birmingham Rep, looks at British politics through the eyes of Joseph Chamberlain and family. Black Star centres around the black American actor Ira Aldridge, touring in Shakespeare in Poland in 1865.
Innocent Screams
Dawn, Coronation Day 1953. The artist Francis Bacon works on his portrait of Pope Innocent X, inspired by Velazquez' masterpiece and his own deep absorption in human carnality. The chaotic studio is populated by characters possessing the power of change, who come to life in a satirical interplay of art, history, sex and politics.
The Lancaster Plays
Includes the plays Gaunt, Lile Jimmy Williamson, Buck Ruxton and A Tale of Two Town HallsWritten between 1972 and 1976, a time of high hopes for the rebirth of a national network of regional theatres, these four plays were major building blocks in successfully creating an audience for the new Duke’s Playhouse in Lancaster.Gaunt and Lile Jimmy Williamson focuses on the myth and reality of power surrounding two local legends; Buck Ruxton is an imperial tragedy of 1936, a notorious double murder by a successful Indian doctor driven mad by the scandal of his Scottish wife’s infidelity. A Tale of Two Town Halls is a political satire, a comedy cartoon on the IMF crisis in the mid-Seventies.
