John Arden
British playwright whose work combined Brechtian political theater with English folk and ballad traditions. Serjeant Musgrave's Dance is among the finest British anti-war plays of the century. His later collaboration with Margaretta D'Arcy produced increasingly radical political work.
Works
- Serjeant Musgrave's DancePolitical allegory of returning soldiers enacting violence through ritualized military funeral
- Armstrong's Last GoodnightBallad of a Scottish gangster's rise and fall in early modern borderlands
- The Workhouse DonkeySprawling political farce set in Yorkshire provincial town hall during election season
- Live Like PigsAnarchic play of destitute family living rough and defying social conventions
- The Happy HavenComic drama of aging bohemian utopians in alternative aging home rebellion