English Theatrical Avant-Garde 1900-1925

<p><em>The English Theatrical Avant-Garde 1900–1925</em> unearths an extensive range of hitherto forgotten or ignored theatre practices. In doing so it reveals some of the well-known figures of the early twentieth-century English theatre in a strikingly new light. It fluently describes an intensity of innovation and experiment that together made the Edwardian theatre rather more radical and rather more queer than we’ve ever thought.</p><p>Where the majority of writing on the early twentieth-century theatrical avant-garde is concerned with European movements and experiments English activity of the period is often seen as parochial and conservative – mainly realism and issues-based drama. This book presents a new model of how avant-gardes might work; a model based not on masculine individualism but on communal inclusion. In describing this fascinating material the author introduces us to many new figures and shows familiar ones in different ways: there’s Florence Farr independent woman; Bob Trevelyan radical pacifist and music drama pioneer; Granville Barker doing fairy plays while de-dramatising drama; Laurence Housman socialist homosexual scripting St Francis; and the oddly modern J.M. Barrie. Together they made theatre practices rich in their diversity but consistent in their attempt to be new producing a theatrical avant-garde unlike any other.</p><p>This is a vital and indispensable new study for scholars and students of early twentieth-century theatre in England and beyond.</p>