Howard Barker
Howard Barker
Howard Barker is a British playwright...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth28 June 1946
Howard Barker quotes about
certainly help improve others reasons regard social society understand work
Certainly I never write for utilitarian reasons - to help others understand issues, to improve society and so on. I regard those as fatuous pretexts. Let us keep social work out of the theatre.
say-anything world said
I never 'say' anything in my work. I invent a world. Let others decide what is being 'said'.
beautiful secret theatre
We are suffocated by writers who want to enlighten us with their truths. For me, the theatre is beautiful because it is a secret, and secrets seduce us, we all want to share secrets.
writing dark light
When I write, I am not giving a lecture, I am speculating on behavior. Sometimes this is dangerous, but it should be. As I say often, theatre is a dark place and we should keep the light out of it.
theatre elements impossible
I am so far as I am aware not at all influenced by dramatists, expect for Shakespeare, who I have to say, it is impossible not to be influenced by if you hold language to be the major element of theatre.
reality not-interested
I'm not interested in observed reality.
entertainment not-interested
I'm not interested in entertainment.
views political prejudice
I have plenty of political views and plenty of social and personal prejudices. I do not, however, value them.
taken biblical important
I’ve often taken important classical, biblical or literary stories and interrogated them. I have tried to reinvigorate Lot by interpreting it differently.
beautiful pain character
It is impossible – now, at this point in the long journey of human culture – to avoid the sense that pain is necessity; that it is neither accident, nor malformation, nor malice, nor misunderstanding, that it is integral to the human character both in its inflicting and in its suffering, this terrible sense Tragedy alone has articulated, and will continue to articulate, and in so doing, make beautiful…
artist self self-destructive
The artist who makes himself accessible is self-destructive.