Staging the Past in the Age of Thatcher

Anthony P. Pennino teaches literature, theatre, and cinema at Stevens Institute of Technology, USA. He works primarily on post-war American, British, and Irish playwrights, and has published on August Wilson and William Shakespeare. He is especially interested in political theatre as well as contemporary performance and adaptation of Shakespeare's canon.

1. Introduction: A Snowy Night in December.- 2. Competing Histories.- 3. Plays of the First Thatcher Ministry: "To the world's end. To the churchyard grave".- 4. Plays of the Second Thatcher Ministry: "Demolition needs a drawing, too".- 5. Plays of the Third Thatcher Ministry: "I shall destroy your power to resist".- 6. Plays of the Two Major Ministries: "Let them see we are happy".- 7. Conclusion: May 2, 1997 and Beyond.

"Pennino's smart, well-researched study of theater during the age of Margaret Thatcher and her successor, John Major, demonstrates how serious playwrights-Caryl Churchill, David Edgar, Howard Barker, Howard Brenton, David Hare, Tom Stoppard, Timberlake Wertenbaker-created 'oppositional history plays' that offered a starkly different version of British history and contemporary life than was promulgated by government propaganda, the press, and the wildly popular musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber. ... Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals." (M. S. LoMonaco,Choice, Vol. 57 (9), 2020)