Masterpieces

<i>You are not at liberty to avenge the pornography industry in this country. We have the censorship laws for that.<br/><br/>Masterpieces</i>opens on three couples having dinner in a restaurant exchanging sexist jokes. The response is varied: some of them laugh uproariously some of them uncomfortably and one is deeply unhappy. Their domestic discussion about the morality of pornography is suddenly amplified a thousand-fold in the next scene in which Rowena is on trial for murder. She had just been to see a 'snuff' film in which a porn actress is actually mutilated and killed on screen and on her way home is approached threateningly by a man who she ends up pushing under a train because he was harassing her. <br/><br/>The play is the story of Rowena's journey through seeing a porn magazine for the first time to a thwarted attempt to help an unhappy prostitute from uncomfortable laughter to radical and disgusted protest at female subjugation.<br/><br/><i>Masterpieces</i>is an angry and defiant play first staged in 1983 at the Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester before transferring to the Royal Court Theatre London. It earned Daniels a London Theatre Critics Award for Most Promising Playwright.<br/><br/>This edition introduces Sarah Daniels into the Modern Classics series and features an introduction by Elaine Aston Professor of Contemporary Performance at Lancaster University.