The Bible and Modern British Drama: 1930 to the Present Day is the first full-length study to explore how playwrights in the modern period have adapted popular biblical stories, such as Abraham and Isaac, Moses and the Exodus from Egypt, and the life and death of Jesus, for the stage. The book offers detailed and accessible interpretations of the work of well-known dramatists such as Christopher Fry, Howard Brenton, and Steven Berkoff, alongside the work of writers whose plays have been neglected in recent criticism, such as James Bridie and Laurence Housman. The drama is analysed within the context of changes in religious belief and practice over the course of the modern period in Britain, comparing plays that approach the Bible from a traditional religious perspective with those that offer alternative viewpoints on the text, including the voices of gay, feminist, black, Jewish, and Muslim dramatists. In doing so, the author offers a broad and in-depth exploration that is grounded in current scholarship, ranging from the past to present, across boundaries of race and gender. Ideal for students, researchers, and general readers interested in understanding how the Bible has served as an important source text for British playwrights in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, The Bible and Modern British Drama shows how Bible-based drama has been influential in creating and disseminating ideas of what constitutes a "good" life, both on an individual and social level.

Focusing on dramatic works by contemporary British and American playwrights, in conjunction with feminist political and theoretical texts, this book discusses feminist constructions of the category Woman. It traces the ways in which mainstream feminist representations of gender are complicit with dominant racial and heterosexual ideologies. The plays addressed generate valuable insights as to how interpretations of Woman structure the political field and determine the standards used for interpreting Woman-as-Wife/Mother, Woman at Work, and Woman as Object and Subject.

The Bible and Modern British Drama: 1930 to the Present Day is the first full-length study to explore how playwrights in the modern period have adapted popular biblical stories, such as Abraham and Isaac, Moses and the Exodus from Egypt, and the life and death of Jesus, for the stage. The book offers detailed and accessible interpretations of the work of well-known dramatists such as Christopher Fry, Howard Brenton, and Steven Berkoff, alongside the work of writers whose plays have been neglected in recent criticism, such as James Bridie and Laurence Housman. The drama is analysed within the context of changes in religious belief and practice over the course of the modern period in Britain, comparing plays that approach the Bible from a traditional religious perspective with those that offer alternative viewpoints on the text, including the voices of gay, feminist, black, Jewish, and Muslim dramatists. In doing so, the author offers a broad and in-depth exploration that is grounded in current scholarship, ranging from the past to present, across boundaries of race and gender. Ideal for students, researchers, and general readers interested in understanding how the Bible has served as an important source text for British playwrights in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, The Bible and Modern British Drama shows how Bible-based drama has been influential in creating and disseminating ideas of what constitutes a "good" life, both on an individual and social level.

Focusing on dramatic works by contemporary British and American playwrights, in conjunction with feminist political and theoretical texts, this book discusses feminist constructions of the category "Woman". It traces the ways in which mainstream feminist representations of gender are complicit with dominant racial and heterosexual ideologies. The plays addressed generate valuable insights as to how interpretations of "Woman" structure the political field and determine the standards used for interpreting Woman-as-Wife/Mother, Woman at Work, and Woman as Object and Subject.;A conclusion details where women of difference should locate themselves for resistance and how feminists might go about establishing a progressive feminist politics and a women's movement that is able to accommodate differences of race, class, and sexuality.;The chapters explore: how feminist theories on mothering collude with dominant ones in maintaining motherhood as a category of sexual and racial privilege; the different ways in which black, white, lesbian and heterosexual women negotiate their roles outside and inside the home; the intersection of race and sexuality in the construction of "Woman-as-Object" and the relation of gender, race, and rape; how bi-racial and lesbian women negotiate multiple identities; the construction of butch/fem lesbian sexual/subject identities.