1stAngel & Friends

The world premiere of Howard Barker’s play Rome: On Being Divine is being showcased by Performing Arts students at the University of Bedfordshire on 9 May.

The British playwright wrote the play in 1993 and it will be the first time it has ever been performed on stage.

Dr Amanda Price, Principal Lecturer in Theatre, said: “We are very excited to premier Rome at the University of Bedfordshire Theatre. Howard Barker has been invited to attend and we are hoping he will come along to see one of his epic plays come to light. I am sure he will be pleased by what he sees.

“As part of their Performing Arts degree students form their own theatre companies. They have worked very hard on the production, challenging themselves to create a play of epic proportions which has never been produced before.

“The students have worked in partnership with many local people to make it happen with Bedford College students stepping in as make-up artists, teacher Neil Carey from Sharnbrook Upper has composed an original score for the play and local artist Briony Risdale is helping to paint the scenery, including a reproduction of one of Francis Bacon’s famous Screaming Popes entitled Head VI.”

Barker is one of the major British playwrights to have emerged in the late twentieth century. He began writing plays in the 1970s and was considered a political playwright alongside contemporaries such as Howard Brenton, Trevor Griffiths and David Edgar.

Throughout the eighties his work became less easily classifiable as he tackled historical, cultural and religious themes in plays which were ‘unfashionably’ epic at a time when theatres were tightening their belts and favouring smaller casts in response to economic cutbacks across the sector. But Barker’s works have earned him a sizable following in Europe and many of his plays have been translated into various languages.

In Rome: On Being Divine Barker considers the foundation stones of Western culture - Rome, Christianity and the French Revolution - as moments of profound transformation in thought, faith, and desire. He suggests that history is not a product of economic rationality, but of acts of love, power and desire.

The play does not trace a story from beginning to end, but offers a series of meditations on what it is to be human, and how that ‘humanness’ echoes through Western history.

Rome: On Being Divine will run on 9 and 10 May at the University of Bedfordshire Theatre, Polhill Avenue, in Bedford, at 7pm. Tickets are available on the door and cost £5 (£3 for concessions.)

The University has also launched a pioneering new theatre degree course starting in September. As well as giving students the opportunity to perform in full-scale theatre productions, they gain work experience working in community and educational environments and develop a portfolio of entrepreneurial experience and expertise to professional standards.

The BA (Hons) in Contemporary Theatre Practice ties in with the Department for Culture Media and Sport’s action plan for the creative industries published by the Government last month. The plan entitled ‘Creative Britain: New Talents for the New Economy’ emphasised the importance of building on the links between industry and higher education to ensure graduates can gain employment in a highly competitive industry.

Graduates will be equipped to work in a number of different roles such as actors, theatre directors/managers, teachers, educational outreach workers, specialist trainers, workshop programme creators and leaders, project managers, or freelance directors.

For further information about the BA (Hons) in Contemporary Theatre Practice visit www.beds.ac.uk/courses/bysubject/medart/ba-conthepra-bc or contact 01234 793279.