themselves.
need white men to teach them how to speak.
either.
The West has always tried to intelleciual purdah. How little, for examine have women neen tree to contribute to written culture? In the last few centuries, a few novels and poems:
Yet it is written culture which by feeding on its past is able to evolve into elaborate interpretation of human beings relationship to the world which is essential to any social ander.
This is the domain of ideas analysis which women have been excluded. Instead they have been relegated to Seasury intuition' They have related to the world only through a manwritten culture. Only when they speak and write for themselves Will InCy DECAK out of this intellectual purdah.
NORMAL Instead of writing from the anman's "point of view?, Ftried to treat the women in the play as normal human beings. showed them capable of facing. underine moral and political understandinn problems as men.
People reach maturity, be come more than caldren br serfs, only by understanding moral probiems.
Mark pointed out that morality of view*. I think the underprivileged should speak for That's one reason why I've always supported the playwrights' ban on South Africa. Black men do not And women don't need men to do that for them history but works on a class basis. He also points out that LOLLICI action.
It is this action that has created a crisis in the classhased Christan humanism in most Westerners were brought un. Morauty Is no longer a matter of religion bur DIPOICE DILEMMA It seems to me that any play ich has contersporary vance must confront its protagonists with this new moral and dilemma: and the solution to this dilemma — the resolution of the play — can only be stated in terms of political action. There is no other interpretation of morality In the last few years I have written three history plays. The NOUR ANS OR ASCOTLED (The others were Bingo and The Pool cach or tues plays ook: at a turning point in history, WENDIC CULTURES ANICE pretation of moralicy became HE ISSUSE CLUBLE THIEC human devclopment.
Tionship between socia omy and the culture which is produce to relate poppi ain organisation to As tecbnology and cconomic does social structure change bet rele something just though not so casily noticeable: Human subjecrivily, human consciousness, changes And this change in human consciousness ecOn Because of its class basis, the structure of society is based on that past economic structure human consciousness is always changing in response to the present cconomic structure. And so there is conflict and dramalic crisis which ihey are not made.
development further, CONCES COMIN but reason to discern This shows the reason in human produces rational consciousness.
PLAY society shon ideas and concepts.
Usages create the socialist Present worl socialist creating these iniages ramilies into the media. 1.EFT to right: Yvonne Bryceland as Hecuba, Paul Freeman as The Dark Mun, and Nicky Henson as Heres people are quite Eterally living in a sociery for being This is the basis of political Culture is not something we inherit-from the past, from the If it the resolation of the social and the Living. economic structure and human For consciousness I is ine use ot theatre order and evolution in what often seems random or chaotic experience.
is also incidentally theatre definition of art. Dramatic art embodiment activity. lE anew image of the real world activity becomes part of new human Children have to play: revolution often forget that adults played to People need nor only the narcissistic image of the mirror, but images of them selves and others as members of Consider how moch titse people spend watching and comedy series on TV wind scenes which are sur posed to interpret their and ences Lives People need these Images as much as they need The problem is that often the rational. They Lo sit help 10 are which is the onl rational relationship to tho evolution of history Dr development say st ey. Cily the H-bombs could do that, and they are in fact the only alternative to the socialist So we have to createimages of consciousness. No doubt in our time these images are transitional. But speaking from the security of middle see, it scemsto me that many of the new young dramatists are That is why the cheatre's influence goes far beyond its immediate audience, Its ellect The media have difficulty in THIC HEI They are controlled by money interest and are rorosd to try to keep alive the redundant socialimagery of capitalisin and its corresponding forns of moraLy and human consciousness.
They are lie dead teaching several the has a precarious freedom front some of the controls that warp orber media.
That's way parts of our present are politically and THE SEATSESHIC You can't make a revolution in the theatre. That is made in -and only when it is made will people be able to relate rationally to the world Then we will see the creation of a new human subjectivity But equally obvious, 1 should think, is that the work of every is partly cutural, Not only in providing vivid progaganda on specilic issues.
Ret aho in creating amages, patterns, of the new sort of human being. a new moral To see Edward Bond'splay "The Woman' Take this paper to the National!
The Narional Theatre is making a special ricker offer for The Wantan to Socialist Challenge readers You can husk any available seat in advance or on the day at the reduced price of 52.25.
Performances are on the October: 3, 4 (mal. and cvc.), 13, 14 (nat. and ere.) 16. Andin November. 10and I1 (mut. and eve.). Tickets from the Olivier Theatre bux office. South Bank, London SEL. Waterlou tube. Open 10am-8pm. Tel 0i-928 2252. Take along this issue of SC for the special otfer.
Birmingham Socialist Challenge Festival Debates - films - music - stalls Saturday, 30September, Ilam-11.50pm Speakers include: TARJQ ALI, ROBIN ALACKBURN, DUNCAN HALLAS (SWPI JON BLOOMFIELD (CP)
Music includes: BELT & BRACES RED ROCKSHOW Aston Universicy Students Union Tickets E1.S0in advance from: 76b Digbeth, #'ham. Tel 021 643 9209. consciousness We have to show theory and analysis implier in human life. in day to day living as well as in CEEPSE ATE LU STEAL SLAM human subjectivity appropriate to a changed world. WC OBE sart to do tha. now in the The Woman is in two paris The first shows the classical world of beauty and order. This world i still put forward as a moral example. I have shown squalor which it is based. I have alse ShOwn that # could not changed by che principles of human: son In the second half I have mude sonne of the characters sand for WORSTRIES history. They are not abstrac lous because 1 estanlish their individeal humanity in the frs But 1 show them acting cut the logical develgatert history, And hearing in tun thi: God is a Woman. I have represented histocy as a woman with a sword under her skirt Tollowing dates in Socialist Challenge 28 September 1974 puge 15
Socialist Challenge