RESULTS

This is the final play in a series of three, following Racing Demon and Murmuring Judges in which David Hare looks at certain institutions within the British establishment. As with the other plays, Hare has created a fiction based on fact, and for his research into the workings of the Labour Party he was granted access to top-level Labour Party meetings. This is the story of the Labour leader, George Jones during his run up to - and subsequent loss of a general election. Hare portrays the perennial conflict with in the Labour Party, as much personal as ideological, between embattled opponents.

Management Teaching use: As a text about leadership, this play provides a perfect case study in the conflicts experienced by a popular leader whose style does not suit the situation in which the organisation finds itself. The central figure is a leader of a political party in opposition who faces an election, which may or may not be unwinnable. His subordinates all have very different ideas, which may improve their chances, but the clashes of personality provide opportunities for a discussion of leadership styles and how organisations may require different leaders at different times.

'Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge'. Gauguin's epigram serves as the motto for this moral tale of two women, both in their 60s, whose lives are interwoven in ways neither of them yet understands. Madeline Palmer is a retired curator, living alone on the Isle of Wight. One day to her door comes Angela Beale, a woman she has met only once, who is now enjoying sudden success, late in life, as a popular novelist. The progress of a single night comes to echo the hidden course of their lives.

Nothing is more important to a modern political party than fund-raising. But the values of the donors can't always coincide with the professed beliefs of the party. And family scandal within the cabinet has the potential to throw both the money-raisers and the money-spenders into chaos. This richly imagined ensemble play about British public life looks at the way business, media and politics are now intertwined to nobody's advantage, as, in an unforgiving world, one character after another passes through Gethsemane. Gethsemane, David Hare's 14th original play for the National Theatre, London, premiered in November 2008.

All frequent questions addressed to David Hare over the last 35 years, as his work has taken him from the travelling fringe to the National Theatre, from seasons on Broadway to performances in prisons, church halls and on bare floors. Since 1978, Hare has sought uniquely to address these and other questions in occasional lectures given both in Britain and abroad. Now, for the first time, these lectures are collected together with some of his more recent prose pieces about God, Iraq, Israel/Palestine and the privatisation of the railways. Bringing to the lectern the same wit, insight and gift for the essential for which his plays are known, Hare presents the distilled result of a lifetime's sustained thinking about art and politics.

One of David Hare's plays in his trilogy about the workings of the British establishment.
This is a play in which many of the Church's tensions, like the internal dissension on matters of doctrine and practice, and the conflict with the government, come to the surface. Four clergymen struggle to make sense of their mission in the inner city. The hero Lionel Espy is a doubting cleric who is far more concerned with the church's social commitments than its sacramental obligations.

Management Teaching use: This play is essentially about change in an organisation. It shows how an aggressive radical force for change (the evangelical movement) overtakes a culture of insecurity (represented by Lionel). It also highlights the problems of an organisation, which seems to be losing its own sphere of influence, or 'market', and is taking what may be rash or ill-considered measures to revive its fortunes. The text could stimulate a discussion of what an organisation such as a church or charity could do if there were deep divisions in policy and confusion as to marketing strategy.

How did Hare go about writing his topical plays, which pull no punches in respect of the Church, the law or the Labour Party, and also manage to address the most sensitive problems and dilemmas? This book examines these questions by reviewing Hare's interviews with the media.

David Hare is one of the most prolific, challenging, and culturally acclaimed playwrights in Britain today. Jeremy Ridgman's study focuses on the dramatic method that drives the complex moral and political narratives of Hare's work. Taking as his starting point a case study of the trilogy, Racing Demon, Murmuring Judges and The Absence of War, he considers its relationship to its staging and performance, looking in particular at the dramatist's collaborations with director, designer, and performer. Hare's writing for the theatre since 1970 is set alongside his work for television and film and his achievements as director and translator, to provide a detailed insight into key areas of his dramatic technique particularly dialogue, narrative, and epic form.