Granville Barker and the dream of theatre

This is the first full treatment of Harley Granville Barker's active work in the theatre. It sheds new light on the actor, director, manager, playwright and critic who was one of the most fascinating and versatile men of the twentieth-century stage, and provides vivid accounts of the crucial productions of the time. Granville Barker was the chief force in establishing a place in Edwardian London for the 'New Drama' of Shaw and the European playwrights, and he also became known for his revolutionary productions of Shakespeare and Euripides. By 1915 he was generally regarded as the most important theatre artist in England. Using original documents and contemporary press reports, Dennis Kennedy recreates the excitement of Granville Barker's accomplishment in the context of an era that proved a turning-point for the arts in general. The book is supported by more than forty photographs from his theatre productions, most of them published here for the first time since the Edwardian years.

• Preface
• 1. Dreaming a Theatre
• 2. Creating a New Drama
• 3. The Court productions
• 4. Shaw's natural son
• 5. The man of affairs
• 6. The limits of naturalism
• 7. Shakespeare alive
• 8. A wide-awake dream
• 9. Opening the stage
• 10. Ploughing the sands: the dream of a national theatre
• Appendix
• Notes
• References
• Index.