It's hard to get a hearing
And the educators lie willingly
And unwillingly
As do the poets
It is hard to get a hearing
And everything's sewn up
Sewn up as usual
But more sewn up as usual now
It is hard to get a hearing
But like the dew which falls in the dark
And the slow journey of rain through faults
The words seep down
Aberystwyth is so very chaste
Only Victory emerging from the dead
Looks flagrantly naked
But in such fractures it occurs
How far from the beat of mechanical
Art and oiled acting
How far from the centres where the
Secretaries yawn and discard their shoes
We gather round a text which yields
Meaning reluctantly
We try to perform the contradiction
We do not smooth and it occurs
That must be the purpose of art
That must be art occurring
Its discomfort is considerable
And yet we return.'
-'To the Aberystwyth Students', Howard Barker
Studying anywhere else in Britain I would not have known about Howard Barker, even if I studied Drama and Performance. Aberystwyth was different. 'A Wounded Knife' was being performed in my first year, almost one of the first things I saw at that University.
The first scene: family around the grave of a King.
The first words: the nephew spits on the grave and says "I have spat. And, in having spat, I wish to spit again".
The wounded knife of the title refers to the killer of the King that does not get punished but is instead allowed to live, kept alive by the nephew. This angers certain members of the family who then plot to get rid of the assassin. There's a surgeon who at one point comes on covered in blood, which no-one notices or remarks upon. There's a moralist who eventually becomes the killer of the killer after being pushed to boiling point. The characters calculate and maneuver themselves around like chess pieces, chess often being mentioned by the characters.
The play talks about death and when it is right to die, who gets to choose to die?
It was my first introduction to Barker and I was in a fortunate place to witness more. Over the three or four years I was in Aberystwyth I watched other plays by him. 'Lot and His God', about Lot and an angel in a cafe discussing why Lot should leave the town and his wife that involved the angle to blind a waiter who then crawls about the floor below them. 'Acts: Chapter One' about the legacy of a woman, also containing angles, ending in a man and woman facing each other in total nakedness. 'Slowly' about four woman in a castle waiting for the barbarians to get in and imaging what was about to happen to them.
'The Forty' where Barker tries to strip narrative completely leaving only forty scenes that include people at an art gallery saying 'I am here today, but only for today', a sadistic army officer dragging away a solider from his lover, a shopkeeper who as he sweeps breaks down crying, a returning man at the door of his wife saying 'I'm ill. So can I come back?', a photographer taking pictures of a model kissing an old tramp, a large birthday cake wheeled on and off the stage, and others.
Most of these performances where put on with foremost scholar on Barker David Ian Rabey's company 'Lurking Truth' and a student company called 'Pot 'o' Thieves'.
Since then I have been looking for Barker where I can. I found him in Coventry with a student group called WUDS who were putting on 'Seven Lears', the life of King Lear before he was King and before he divided his kingdom but also incorporating the Shakespeare passage about the seven ages of man.
'Sevens Lears' has the subtitle: The Pursuit of the Good. Early on Lear find the people of the gaol while playing with his brothers. 'NOT YET DEAD. EVER SO SORRY. NOT YET DEAD.' the prisoners chant. Lear is horrified. 'When I'm King, I'll not allow this', he says. His brothers commit suicide and Lear cowers in the dark alone.
He is introduced to a man placed to be his moral guardian, the Bishop. 'I am a bad man', says the Bishop. 'I will love you passionately then won't talk to you for days'. The Bishop is certain about his purpose and place in life. Later on the Bishop ransacks a Church reflecting 'I'm a Bishop, why do I need candlesticks?'. As for the gaol the Bishop does not share the concern that Lear has with it. 'The prison is full and that is excellent,' Why excellent? 'Because if some men are to be free then some men have to be unfree.' Lear refuses to accept this. 'But you must look at it and you must swallow it' the Bishop insists, injustice being an important part in being King. 'God knows why your father appointed me' the Bishop wonders.
Lear enters the stage followed by a female scholar who wishes to touch him. Lear pushes her away. 'You do abuse me. Your love is rough'. He's more interested in her daughter, whom she finds Lear's interest in her suspect. 'I am sixteen and therefore not interesting'. Lear makes not attempt at hiding his passion. 'I must fuck your daughter' he says to the mother. 'That would so injure me' the mother says. 'There is a law in love' the scholar elucidates later saying 'There is a law that a man may be tried to adultery on a Monday but not on a Friday. This seems to make no sense but at the beginning of the week the man is strong, towards the end his morality is weakened'.
Lear confesses his love for both the mother and the daughter and asks the Bishop for advice. 'Kill the mother' the Bishops advises, 'Love the mother' Lear says, 'Then abducte the daughter' Lear can't bring himself to.
Lear studies government. 'The role of government is to make being good easy for people, that way they do not have to try to hard. No, no, the opposite is true, the role of government is to make being good as hard as possible and that way making the good seem worthwhile'. Soldiers go by. 'Is there a war on?' Lear asks, 'I am the Prince and do not get told anything' The soldiers leave. The King's dead body is brought on and when the daughter enters Lear pretends to cry. 'I do not think you should do that' she says crying being below royalty, especially now that Lear is King.
In being King, Lear has the assistance of the government minister who advises on policy. Lear asks him about what to do with the aging fool Lando who has run out of use. 'You retire Lando with a sum of money and make the post available to others' Lear is advised. Lear has an idea: 'You can be my fool. Bring to comedy what you have brought to economics' the minister is aghast, 'ALL MY SKILLS ARE IN GOVERNMENT'. The minister reluctantly complies.
The gaol makes it's re-appearance. 'LEAR LEAR YOU ARE NOW KING YET YOU DO NOT FREE US' 'I haven't forgotten you' Lear pleads.
Lear marries the daughter after an awkward dinner of seduction. Lear's unborn children cheer him on 'WE WANT TO BE BORN WE WANT TO BE BORN'. The new Queen becomes a formidable leader in war as Lear fights in Asia. The fool struggles with his new duties in the battleground. 'Getting better' he says cheerfully, 'humor is inputence upon catastrophe'. The fool considers his job 'The job's not what is was. It was easier for the old fools who could say any old shit'
Lear comes across a beggar and his mate who decides he will become his new Duke so long as he ditches his companion. The beggar relishes his duties and makes use of his position to advance his sexual life. 'Do you have a lover?' he says to the Queen, 'I led an army into Asia' she replies. 'I never mind making love to the dead,' he says 'Their cold flesh can be just as passionate as any living'.
An engineer builds an areoplane for Lear. 'For this two thousand went without arithmetic, millions went hungry'. The scholar cannot support this. Lear still has some concerns about the technology. He asks the engineer if flying was compatible with the will of God. The engineer reassures Lear that God wants people to fly but that God did not give people wings because He wanted men to use their imagination to that they could achieve it themselves. Lear with excitement puts his best boy servant into the plane's first flight. The plane explodes. The fool seizes on this opportunity. 'If there was ever a need for humour this is.' and attempts a joke about the folly of the King but is choked with rage and is unable to complete the punchline. Lear has the engineer killed.
After the war with Asia the people want to be praised but Lear is unable to give them what they want. 'I crawled in the mud for you, I lost my eye for you now you brush us away?' a soldier exclaims. The Bishop becomes unnerved by the approaching unrest. 'Praise them Lear, say anything but praise them'. Lear gets up on a chair and address the simmering crowd. 'I want to say, but won't say...I could say, but can't now' The Queen steps in and gives a speech that quells the anger. Lear is chased by the one-eyed soldier but is killed by the King. Blood is on his hands.
Hated Lear remains in a tower visited by the fool and his two daughters whom he cries in their embrace. The Queen's mother is also there. 'What is our mother's mother doing here?' the two girls say in unison. 'Does she make the bed?' they ask. Yes, says the fool, 'she makes the bed untidy with the movement of her arse'. Kites dominate the skyline outside. 'A red kite for every dead child, a white kite for every suicide, Lear we will blacken the sun with kites for your injustice'.
The King struggles to live and asks a beggar to kill him holding out a knife, which the beggar initially refuses stating that that would be an act of teason. Lear's best friend Kent comes to him and embraces him. The beggar returns remarking that the killing of the King would make his name among his friends but quickly finds the knife in his own body, Lear preferring to kill then be killed.
Kent and the Bishop are at odds. Down at the beach the Bishop is paddling in the water as Kent approaches. Kent accuses the Bishop for having poisoned Lear and for turning him into a tyrant and is about to kill him when the two Princesses appear. The Bishop quickly holds one hostage. 'Oh you monster' says Kent, 'Yes, monstrous for having the will to live'. Kent does kill the Bishop in the sea but is taken out by a strong current and becomes deserted on an island where the body of the Bishop floats in and out tormenting him from beyond.
Regan is born, different from the other two girls. The prowling Duke makes his desires known to the young girl. 'Take me to the dark places so that I may learn' she says. The Duke is ashamed of her innocence and leaves her untouched.
The word innocence is mentioned by Kent to Lear over the dinner table. 'Innocence?' Lear says dumbfounded 'I never knew that word. What is innocence?' he is not offered an explanation. Lear struggles to bear his own corruption. A swing appears and Lear gets up on it's seat and cries out in desperation 'RAISE ME!'. A man with a drum walks by. 'Who are you?' Lear asks, 'I'm happiness' the man says. 'Happiness? But I never asked for you'
At the end Kent and Lear are playing chess upon which Lear lightly tells off Kent for cheating. 'All these years we've played, I've always noticed that you cheat, I don't criticize, merely mention, even a good player who could win with his skills cheats' Kent suddenly realises that the room is filled with the dead bodies of the gaol and gasps with horror. 'Ah, well now, you're changing the subject'.
In all my reading of Barker the most transgressive play I've read is 'He Stumbled'.
The play focuses on a anatomist called Doja, a man unable to prevent people from falling in love with him. During the play a body gets dissected with the organs put into glass jars. Both the Queen and her son are in love with Doja and though he does his best to manipulate the situation to avoid tragedy it, in the end, becomes unavoidable. What makes this play the most transgressive comes in the moment when Doja forces another character to drink the liquid from one of the glass jars- a heresy for normal medical procedure. In the end Doja comes to the realisation that it is himself who should be anatomised by his own hands. Here science is questioned.
The radio play 'In the Depths of Deep Love' an exiled poet has to guard a bottomless well against all those who refuse to pay the charge for falling down it, namely students. He comes into contact, and falls in love, with a woman connected to the King of the country and she hovers around between deciding to commit suicide or not. It ends with the King and the woman jumping down the well together, their hands touching each other for the rest of their lives.
'The Love of a Good Man' is set on the fields of Passchendaele, the mass grave site for many young soldiers. The Prince of Wales is there to find the Unknown Soldier who will represent the millions dead. The Prince is a man who desperately wants to have common touch. In the first scene the Prince kisses the hand of a labourer, something which his man servant finds nauseating. Digging on the field is Flowers and his men who are approached by two English women, one of whom is trying to find the exact location of her son's grave, the other becoming seduced by a young rouge. The Prince also becomes victim of love for the young woman and, with real lack of tact due to desperation, chats up the young women with the line: 'I WANT TO FUCK YOUR CUNT'- easily the best line in all of Barker. Flower's own love life comes to a crisis when he realises that he needs a son because he will at some point die.
In 'Blok/Eko' the Queen decides to eliminate all the doctors and nurses and relplace them with poets to do the job of healing. The Queen takes a young poet under her wing and because she understands that the only songs worth singing are ones of tragedy she gives the poet a life full of pain.
Why Barker? This quote by David Hodgson from the book 'Howard Barker's Theatre: Wrestling with Catastrophe' that articulates well what attracts me to him:
'I first discovered Barker through just reading about his work, and from this distance I was intrigued. His words and thoughts resonated quietly with my teenage self. They seemed potent, vital, and this was before I even saw anything on stage. I felt I had grasp on it, that I 'got' Barker. Of course, I was totally wrong. This comfortable introduction didn't prepare me enough. On stage Gertrude hit so hard I felt bloodied up, assaulted by it. I left the theatre stunned and disturbed. I couldn't be sure of what I had seen. Then something happened that I didn't expect; part of me began to feel more vulnerable than a couple of hours before. The catastrophe left a hidden part of me exposed, and didn't apologise for it. What was worse is that I didn't understand what I had witnessed, at least not fully. Barker talks of an audience divided, but in this instance I felt as if I was the one that was disconnected, my understanding of what I had seen being so splintered and conflicting. I could tell you that this feeling disappeared and that I came to a grand conclusion as I pulled the pieces together, though that would be a barefaced lie. I never completely put the pieces together, not entirely. To me, this is the crux of why I enjoy immersing myself beyond the immediate. It still gnaws at my guts in ways I couldn't have prepared for.'
