biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1930– )
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| biography:
| Playwright and director, born in London, UK. He became a repertory actor, first writing poetry, then turning to drama with The Room (1957). His first major play, The Birthday Party (1958), was badly received, but was revived after the success of The Caretaker (1960, film 1963), and has been televised twice (1960, 1987) and filmed (1968). Other plays include The Homecoming (1965), Old Times (1971), and No Man's Land (1975). His television play The Lover (1963) won the Italia Prize. Early screenplays include The Servant (1962), The Pumpkin Eaters (1963), Accident (1967), and The Go-Between (1969). His work is highly regarded for the way it uses the unspoken meaning behind inconsequential everyday talk to induce an atmosphere of menace. Closely associated with the director Peter Hall, he became an associate director of the National Theatre after Hall became director in 1973. He wrote a number of filmscripts during the 1980s, including The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) and Reunion (1989), as well as several short plays, such as A Kind of Alaska (1982) and Mountain Language (1988), in which there is an explicit commitment to radical political causes. Later plays include Moonlight (1993) and Ashes to Ashes (1996), and in 1998 appeared Various Voices, a personal selection of prose, poetry, and political writings. He was made a Companion of Honour in 2002. |
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