Freedom and Form in David Hare’s Drama
Assumptions about his political commitments can be derived from David Hare’s career, beginning with his own fringe theatre, the ‘Portable Theatre Company’, in 1968-71, from his collaborations and the settings of his early plays. Yet critics have recognised that explanation in terms of political commitment, both suggested and countered in the plays, only partially and too simply reflects the force and substance of the drama. Venue suggests a focus on political commentary in the early plays: the exclusively social girls’ school in Slag (1970), the new generation of a Labour M.P. whose politics derive from Aldermaston marches and pot parties rather than from a working-class perspective in The Great Exhibition (1972).1 His collaborations with Howard Brenton, Brassneck (1973) and Pravda: A Fleet Street Comedy (1985), demonstrate a more corn-mitted focus than do most of his others, enough to substantiate Richard Allen Cave’s opinion that Brenton’s ‘anger and moral outrage sustain a powerful satirical vision and a structure that aims frankly at demonstration rather than debate’.2