Summary
Written On The Heart Swan Theatre, Stratford upon Avon THE Royal Shakespeare Company website shows a clergyman theatregoer expressing his delight at this play about the writing of the King James Bible.
After the obscene blasphemies of the previous production, Marat/ Sade, it seemed as if an exorcism had taken place. For those of us in a different line of business, the theme may sound as dry as bones, but in fact David Edgar's play is a brilliant, challenging piece about the power of words, fought on a shifting battlefield between Papists and Puritans, Church or congregation, giants or tyrants, authority or freedom - the argument is wider than religion, as cleverly illustrated by the entrance of the gaudily attired Prince of Wales among the monochrome clerics. The plays opens on a meeting at the residence of the Bishop of Ely to agree revisions to the KJB, then flashes back to the prison cell of the earlier, more radical translator William Tyndale, and to a visitation on a Yorkshire church by anti-Papists anxious to smash painted images and cover saints with words of scripture. But its heart is the imagined return of the martyred Tyndale, the suitably pugnacious Stephen Boxer, to haunt and taunt Ely, superbly played by Oliver Ford Davies, a man now tormented by the consequences of his own youthful zeal.See the full content of this document
Extract
Play Focuses On Power of Words
For one, his ...
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