The Ecstatic Bible

A series of interlocking narratives suffused by the European political and social experience of the twentieth century. Barker''s epic work of sweeping landscapes, passionate characters, provocative imagery, powerful language and rich dark humor first amazed audiences twelve years ago. Now available in paperback for the first time, The Ecstatic Bible is full of echoes of past pain and comic contradiction.

Howard Barker is an internationally renowned dramatist, whose first plays were performed at the Royal Court and by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Since 1992 his work has been presented by his own company The Wrestling School. Barker’s theatre is characterized by its poetic, non-naturalistic form and inhabits worlds of contradiction, suffering and sexual passion. Barker is also a poet and theorist of theatre, whose ’Theatre of Catastrophe’ defines a new form of tragedy for our times.