Howard Brenton
24. January 2008 01:20
Controversial and politically motivated, Howard Brenton is one of the most progressive and challenging playwrights operating in the British theater scene. Born in Portsmouth in 1946, the son of a police officer-cum-Methodist minister, he wrote his first plays as a student at Cambridge.
“I think the theatre’s a real bear-pit. It’s not the place for reasoned discussion. It is the place for really savage insights.”
Famous abroad for such plays as Christie in Love, Brassneck, and The Romans in Britain, he is always socially conscious, but the lyricism of Brenton’s language and his stylistic novelty set him apart for those who strive merely to shock. Alternating between fantasy and realism, his work forces the audience to look beyond the spin-doctor ideologies so common today and confront our society on its own terms. His most recent play, Paul, can be best described as a "secular reading of Christ's resurrection".
Howard Brenton lives in London.
