David Hare (playwright)

Sir David Rippon Hare (born 5 June 1947) is an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre director. Best known for his stage work, Hare has also enjoyed great success with films, receiving two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for writing ''The Hours'' in 2002, based on the novel by Michael Cunningham, and ''The Reader'' in 2008, based on the novel by Bernhard Schlink.

In the West End, he had his greatest success with the plays'' Plenty'' (1978), which he adapted into a 1985 film starring Meryl Streep, ''Racing Demon'' (1990), ''Skylight'' (1997), and ''Amy's View'' (1998). The four plays ran on Broadway in 1982–83, 1996, 1998 and 1999 respectively, earning Hare three Tony Award nominations for Best Play for the first three and two Laurence Olivier Awards for Best New Play. His other notable projects on stage include ''A Map of the World'', ''Pravda'' (starring Anthony Hopkins at the Royal National Theatre in London), '' Murmuring Judges'', '' The Absence of War'', '' The Vertical Hour'', and his latest play '' Straight Line Crazy'' starring Ralph Fiennes.

For the big and small screens, along with the Oscar-winning screenplays for the Stephen Daldry drama films '' The Hours'' (2002) and '' The Reader'' (2008), he both wrote and directed the BBC's much acclaimed '' Worricker Trilogy'' of films — '' Page Eight'' (2011), ''Turks & Caicos'' (2014), and '' Salting the Battlefield'' (2014) — as well as scripting television series for the BBC, ''Collateral'' (2018) and ''Roadkill'' (2020).

In addition to his two Academy Award nominations, Hare has received three Golden Globe Award nominations, three Tony Award nominations and has won a BAFTA Award, a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and two Laurence Olivier Awards. He has also been awarded several critics' awards, such as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and he received the Golden Bear in 1985.

Hare has been associate director of the National Theatre since 1984.

Early life and education

David Rippon Hare was born on 5 June 1947 in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, Sussex, and was raised – first in a flat, then in a semi-detached house – in Bexhill-on-Sea, the son of Agnes Cockburn (née Gilmour) and Clifford Theodore Rippon Hare, a passenger ship's purser in the Merchant Navy. His father's elder brother was the cricketer Steriker Hare.Hare, David, ''The Blue Touch Paper: A Memoir'', Faber and Faber, 2015. The Hare family claims descent from the Earls of Bristol.

Hare was educated at Lancing College, an independent school in Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge (MA (Cantab.), English Literature). While at Cambridge, he was the hiring manager on the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club Committee in 1968.

Career

Early work

Hare worked with the Portable Theatre Company from 1968 to 1971. His first play, ''Slag'', was produced in 1970, the same year in which he married his first wife, Margaret Matheson; the couple had three children and divorced in 1980. He was Resident Dramatist at the Royal Court Theatre, London, from 1970 to 1971, and in 1973 became resident dramatist at the Nottingham Playhouse. He co-founded the Joint Stock Theatre Company with David Aukin and Max Stafford-Clark in 1975. Hare's play '' Plenty'' was produced at the National Theatre in 1978.
Aside from films, he has also written teleplays such as, for the BBC, '' Licking Hitler'' (1978), and, for Thames Television, '' Saigon: Year of the Cat'' (1983)."Hare, David 1947-"
''Encyclopedia.com''.

1980s

Hare founded a film company called Greenpoint Films in 1982, and among screenplays he has written are ''Plenty'', ''Wetherby'', ''Strapless'', and ''Paris by Night''. In 1983, his play ''A Map of the World'' was produced at the Royal National Theatre. The production starred Bill Nighy, Diana Quick, and Ronald Hines. The play is set at the Unesco conference on poverty held in Bombay in 1978. It transferred to The Public Theatre in 1985, starring Alfre Woodard, Elizabeth McGovern, and Zeljko Ivanek. In a mixed review, ''The New York Times'' theatre critic Frank Rich wrote: "The play is in part about conflicting points of view – about how reactionaries and leftists look at geopolitics, how journalists and novelists look at events and how the West and the Third World look at each other."

In 1985, Hare wrote ''Pravda'' with Howard Brenton, its title referring to the Russian Communist party newspaper ''Pravda''. The play, a satire on the mid-1980s newspaper industry, in particular the Australian media and press baron Rupert Murdoch, stars Anthony Hopkins in a role that earned him the Laurence Olivier Award. Hare became the associate director of the National Theatre in 1984, and has since seen many of his plays produced, including his trilogy about major British institutions: '' Racing Demon'', '' Murmuring Judges'', and '' The Absence of War''. He has also directed many other plays aside from his own works, notable examples being ''The Pleasure Principle'' by Snoo Wilson, '' Weapons of Happiness'' by Howard Brenton, and ''King Lear'' by William Shakespeare for the National Theatre. Hare is also the author of a collection of lectures on the arts and politics called ''Obedience, Struggle, and Revolt'' (2005).

1990s

In 1990, Hare wrote '' Racing Demon''; part of a trio of plays about British institutions, it focuses on the Church of England, and tackles issues such as gay ordination, and the role of evangelism in inner-city communities. The play debuted at the National Theatre and received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. The play transferred to the Broadway stage at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in 1995. The production starred Paul Giamatti, Denis O'Hare, and Kathleen Chalfant. The play was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play.

In 1995, Hare's translation of '' Mother Courage and Her Children'' by Bertolt Brecht was produced in London. In 1996, Hare wrote ''Skylight'', a play about a woman who receives an unexpected visit from her former lover whose wife has recently died. Michael Gambon and Lia Williams starred in the original production, which received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. The following year, the production transferred to the Broadway stage, where it was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play.

In 1998, Hare wrote ''Amy's View'', a play that deals with an emotional relationship between a mother and her daughter. The original production at the Royal National Theatre starred Judi Dench, Samantha Bond, and Ronald Pickup. Dench starred in the Broadway transfer, earning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 1999.

2000s

In 2001, Hare wrote '' My Zinc Bed'', which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre starring Tom Wilkinson, Julia Ormond, and Steven Mackintosh. The play was adapted into a television film of the same name in 2008. The play received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play nomination, Hare's eighth Olivier Award nomination. The following year Hare wrote the screenplay for '' The Hours'' (2002) adapted from the Michael Cunningham book of the same name. The film starred an ensemble cast that included Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman as women from three different time periods struggling against adversity. Hare received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay nomination as well as BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award nominations.

In 2008, he adapted Bernhard Schlink's The Reader, 1995 novel into Stephen Daldry's film '' The Reader'' starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. The film focuses on a romance in the 1950s between a teenaged boy and an older woman who is later discovered to have been a Nazi guard and is on trial for committing war crimes during the Holocaust. The film was well reviewed and earned Hare his second Academy Award nomination. He also received BAFTA and Golden Globe Award nominations.

2010s

Hare's 2011 play ''South Downs (play), South Downs'', based on his based on his own experiences of being schooled at Lancing College, was well received at the Chichester Festival, and was adapted as a ''Saturday Drama'' on BBC Radio 4.

In December 2011, it was announced that his monologue ''Wall (play), Wall'' about the Israeli West Bank barrier was being adapted by Cam Christiansen as a live-action/animated documentary by the National Film Board of Canada; originally slated for completed in 2014, ''Wall (2017 film), Wall'' premiered at the Calgary International Film Festival in 2017. In November 2012, The New School for Drama selected Hare as temporary Artist-in-residence, during which he interacted with student playwrights about his experience in varying mediums. His career is examined in the Reputations strand on ''TheatreVoice''. He is particularly well known for incisive commentary on the problems of public institutions. Raymond Williams once said, sardonically, that the public services are largely managed by the nation's "upper servants". Hare addresses this group, providing an analysis of the workings of the institutions: he is, he has said, interested in the struggle to make procedures work better – right now – not in waiting until some revolution, somehow, sometime, comes about to raze the current system altogether, to replace it with perfection.

In 2016, ''Daily Variety'' reported that the Jonathan Franzen novel ''Purity (novel), Purity'' was in the process of being adapted into a 20-hour limited series by Todd Field who would share writing duties with Franzen and Hare. It would star Daniel Craig as Andreas Wolf and be executive produced by Field, Franzen, Craig, Hare & Scott Rudin.

However, in a February 2018 interview with ''The Times'' London, Hare said that, given the budget for Field's adaptation (170 million), he doubted it would ever be made, but added "It was one of the richest and most interesting six weeks of my life, sitting in a room with Todd Field, Jonathan Franzen and Daniel Craig bashing out the story. They're extremely interesting people."

In 2016, Hare wrote the screenplay for ''Denial (2016 film), Denial'' based on Deborah Lipstadt's ''History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier''. The film starred Tom Wilkinson, Rachel Weisz, and Timothy Spall. The film dramatises the ''Irving v Penguin Books Ltd'' case, in which Lipstadt, a The Holocaust, Holocaust scholar, was sued by Holocaust denier David Irving for libel. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to positive reviews. It later received the BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film nomination.

2020s

In 2020, Hare contracted COVID-19, an experience reflected in his monologue ''Beat the Devil (play), Beat the Devil'', with Ralph Fiennes in the starring role.

In 2022, Hare wrote, '' Straight Line Crazy''. The play is set in the 1920s through the 1960s in New York City and centres on the life of Robert Moses, portrayed by Fiennes. Fiennes stars as Moses, once a powerful man in New York and the "master builder" of infrastructure from new parks, bridges and expressways. During his working life, he served on the New York State Council of Parks and was the New York Secretary of State. The play premiered at the Bridge Theatre in London in March 2022. The play transferred to the New York stage with Fiennes at The Shed (arts center), The Shed in October 2022.

A new play titled ''Grace Pervades'' and starring Ralph Fiennes is set to premiere in summer 2025 at Theatre Royal, Bath. The play explores the lives of the thespians Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, Edith Craig and Edward Gordon Craig (Terry's two children with Edward William Godwin).

Archive

In 1993, Hare sold his archive to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The archive consists of typescript drafts, notes, rehearsal scripts, schedules, production notes, correspondence, theatre programs, resumes, photographs, and published texts associated with Hare's plays, teleplays, screenplays, and essays, as well as foreign-language translations of Hare's works; works by other authors; personal correspondence; minutes of meetings; and Hare's English papers from University of Cambridge, Cambridge University.

Personal life

Hare has three children with Margaret Matheson, a television producer, whom he married in 1970 and divorced in 1980. During the 1980s, he had a romantic relationship with American actress Blair Brown. He married the French fashion designer Nicole Farhi in 1992.

In 1993, Hare's best friend Sarah Matheson was diagnosed with Multiple System Atrophy and died from the disease in 1999. In January 2015, Hare broadcast the BBC Radio 4 appeal to raise money for the Multiple System Atrophy Trust, which was founded by Matheson.

Works

Selected credits

Theatre

*''Slag'' (1970)
*''The Great Exhibition'' (1972)
*''Brassneck'' (1973) (with Howard Brenton)
*''Knuckle'' (1974)
*''Fanshen'' (1975). Based on ''Fanshen'' (1966)
*''Teeth 'n' Smiles (play), Teeth 'n' Smiles'' (1975)
*'' Plenty'' (1978)
*''A Map of the World'' (1982)
*''Pravda'' (1985) (with Howard Brenton)
*''The Bay at Nice, and Wrecked Eggs'' (1986)
*''The Knife'' (1987) (with Nick Bicat and Tim Rose Price)
*''The Secret Rapture (play), The Secret Rapture'' (1988)
*'' Racing Demon'' (1990)
*'' Murmuring Judges'' (1991)
*'' The Absence of War'' (1993)
*''Skylight'' (1995)
*''Amy's View'' (1997)
*''Ivanov (play), Ivanov'' (1997; 2015) (adapted from Chekhov)
*''The Blue Room (play), The Blue Room'' (1998) (adapted from Arthur Schnitzler, Schnitzler)
*''The Judas Kiss (play), The Judas Kiss'' (1998)
*''Via Dolorosa (play), Via Dolorosa'' (1998)
*'' My Zinc Bed'' (2000)
*''Platonov (play), Platonov'' (2001; 2015) (adapted from Chekhov)
*''The Breath of Life (play), The Breath of Life'' (2002)
*''The Permanent Way'' (2003)
*''Stuff Happens'' (2004)
*'' The Vertical Hour'' (2006)
*''Gethsemane (play), Gethsemane'' (2008)
*''Berlin'' (2009)
*''Wall (play), Wall'' (2009)
*''The Power of Yes'' (2009)
*''South Downs (play), South Downs'' (2011)
*''Behind the Beautiful Forevers'' (2014)
*''The Seagull'' (2015) (adapted from Chekhov)
*''The Moderate Soprano'' (2015)
*''The Red Barn'' (2016)
*''I'm Not Running'' (2018)
*''Beat the Devil (play), Beat the Devil'' (2020)
*'' Straight Line Crazy'' (2022)

Film

*''Plenty (film), Plenty'' (1985)
*''Paris By Night (film), Paris By Night '' (1989) directed
*''Damage (1992 film), Damage'' (1992)
*''The Secret Rapture (film), The Secret Rapture'' (1993)
*'' The Hours'' (2002)
*'' The Reader'' (2008)
*''Denial (2016 film), Denial'' (2016)
*''Wall (2017 film), Wall'' (2017)
*''The White Crow'' (2018)

Television

*''The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles'' (Lucasfilm, 1993) (directed the episode Paris, May 1919)
*'' Page Eight'' (BBC, 2011) (also directed)
*''Turks & Caicos (film), Turks & Caicos'' (BBC, 2014) (also directed)
*'' Salting the Battlefield'' (BBC, 2014) (also directed)
*''Collateral (miniseries), Collateral'' (Netflix, 2018)
*''Roadkill (TV series), Roadkill'' (BBC One, 2020)
*''Beat the Devil (play), Beat the Devil'' (Showtime/Skyarts, 2021)

Awards and honours

For his work in theatre, he has received eight Laurence Olivier Award nominations, winning the award twice, for '' Racing Demon'' in 1990 and ''Skylight'' in 1996. He has also received three Tony Award nominations for '' Plenty'' in 1985, ''Racing Demon'' in 1996 and ''Skylight'' in 1997. He also received the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (1975), a BAFTA Award (1979), the New York Drama Critics Circle Award (1983), and the London Theatre Critics' Award (1990).

Hare has received various award nominations for his film work, including two Academy Award nominations for '' The Hours'' (2002), and '' The Reader'' (2008); two Golden Globe Award nominations; and five BAFTA Award nominations. He was awarded the Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear in 1985. In 1997, he was a member of the jury at the 47th Berlin International Film Festival.

He has also received various honours including knighthoods, degrees, and fellows. He was elected a Learned society, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1985. This gave him the List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), Post Nominal Letters "FRSL" for Life. He was awarded an Honorary title (academic), Honorary Fellowship by Jesus College, Cambridge, in 2001.

He was Knight Bachelor, knighted in the 1998 Birthday Honours, 1998 Queen's Birthday Honours List "For services to the Theatre". This allows him to use the title Sir.

He was awarded the Honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) by the University of East Anglia in 2010.

References

External links

David Hare Papers
an
Additions to His Papers
at the Harry Ransom Center
*
*
*
David Hare
– contributor page at ''The New York Review of Books''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hare, David
1947 births
20th-century English dramatists and playwrights
21st-century English dramatists and playwrights
Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge
BAFTA winners (people)
Directors of Golden Bear winners
English male dramatists and playwrights
English male screenwriters
English republicans
English screenwriters
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
John Llewellyn Rhys Prize winners
Knights Bachelor
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Living people
People educated at Lancing College
Writers from Hastings
Writers Guild of America Award winners