Learning to Sing in the Ruins

Abstract

In this chapter I shall be discussing seven defining plays from Bond’s later and most recent works. These plays all date from the period that I refer to as the ‘later plays’. They are, in terms of chronological order: The Crime of the Twenty-First Century (1999). The Children (2000), Have I None (2000), Chair (2000), The Under Room (2005), Tune (2007) and Innocence (published 2011). My aim is to explore the extent to which these recent and contemporary works reflect and embody ongoing thematic and dramatic concerns from across Bond’s entire output. Simultaneously I analyse the extent to which plays from this period signal the emergence of a new and distinctive stage and vision in Bond’s dramatic intentions, aims and craft. These plays, as explained in the Introduction, fall under, and to some extent cross, two defining generic headings for Bond’s work as a whole. They are ‘The Paris Plays’ and ‘The Birmingham Plays’. These two series have arguably provided Bond with a context in which to work with more freedom and opportunity as a playwright in the light of what seems to be his continuing exploration and experimentation with dramatic form, structure and purpose. In his Introduction, entitled ‘The Third Crisis’, to The Chair Plays he observes:

We shall not know ourselves until we can create these future fictions to be responsible for our own present lives, not know ourselves till we know them and not know how to live till they teach us. Perhaps that is how we will restore the profundity and scope that made drama the basis of modern civilization. (Bond, 2012a, p. xxi)