The Theatre of David Hare

In 2011, David Hare was awarded the PEN/Pinter prize, an award granted annually to writers who, in the words of Harold Pinter, cast an ’unflinching, unswerving’ gaze upon the world, and who show a ’fierce intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies’. This study follows Hare’s varied work for the stage, for film and for television chronologically, analysing his engagement with society over several decades. It looks at how he has given dramatic shape to key socio-political events such as the decline of the Left and the rise of Thatcherism, the impact of the free market, the changing nature of the state, and most recently the abuse of state power and the collapse of the global economy. He considers how Hare’s plays consistently register the impact of a changing world through its most intimate, private effects. Supplemented by three critical essays, and written by one of the leading figures in British theatre scholarship, this Companion is a unique guide to a playwright who is central to any understanding of modern British theatre.