Timberlake Wertenbaker
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Timberlake Wertenbaker is a British-based playwright, screenplay writer, and translator who has written plays for the
Royal Court A royal court, often called simply a court when the royal context is clear, is an extended royal household in a monarchy, including all those who regularly attend on a monarch, or another central figure. Hence, the word ''court'' may also be app ...
, the
Royal Shakespeare Company The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and opens around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratf ...
and others. She has been described in ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'' as "the doyenne of political theatre of the 1980s and 1990s".''Washington Post'', "Grappling with Jefferson’s legacy: ‘A playwright doesn’t like nice people’", January 24, 2018
/ref> Wertenbaker's best-known work is '' Our Country's Good'', which received six Tony nominations for its 1991 production. She has a propensity to write about political thinking and conflict, especially where there is a settled orthodoxy: "Then the rebel in me goes berserk, and I start pawing at it. I like the area where the questions are, and the ambiguities of political life, rather than the certainties."


Biography

Wertenbaker was born in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
to Charles Wertenbaker, a journalist, and Lael Wertenbaker, a writer. Much of her childhood was spent in the Basque Country in the small French fishing village of Ciboure. She has been described as possessing a "characteristic reticence"; she has indicated that this may spring partly from her upbringing in Ciboure: "One thing they would tell you as a child was never to say anything because you might be betraying someone who had done something politically or whatever. So I was inculcated with this idea of emotional privacy." Wertenbaker was the resident writer for Shared Experience in 1983 and the
Royal Court Theatre The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a West End theatre#London's non-commercial theatres, non-commercial theatre in Sloane Square, London, England, opene ...
from 1984 to 1985. She was on the Executive Council of the English Stage Company from 1992 to 1997 and on the Executive Committee of PEN from 1998 to 2001. She served as the Royden B. Davis professor of Theatre at
Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...
, Washington D.C., for 2005–06. She was the Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the Freud Museum in 2011. She was also the artistic director of New Perspective Theatre Company. Currently, Wertenbaker is the Chair in Playwriting at the
University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a Public university, public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus university, campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and twenty-six schools of ...
. In addition, she is artistic adviser to the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, also known by its abbreviation RADA (), is a drama school in London, England, which provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in Bloomsbury, Central London ...
and on the council of the
Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...
. Central topics in her work are the efforts of individuals, particularly women: pursuing quests, seeking change, breaking boundaries, and constructing or challenging gender roles. A central technique is the revisioning of actual or imaginary lives from the past, sometimes remote in place as well as in time. There is a further recurring theme in her work: displacement. In her plays, characters are often removed from the familiarity of home and are forced to live in new cultures, sometimes defined by national boundaries, other times by cultural and class divisions. From this central theme emerge related themes, including isolation, dispossession, and the problem of forging an identity within a new cultural milieu. In her work, individuals often seem to assume roles, as if identity were a matter of persons performing themselves. Wertenbaker's work also demonstrates a keen awareness that communication occurs through language that often inadequately expresses experience. In 1997, the
British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...
acquired Wertenbaker's archive consisting of manuscripts, correspondence and papers relating to her writings. Wertenbaker has a home in
north London North London is the northern part of London, England, north of the River Thames and the City of London. It extends from Clerkenwell and Finsbury, on the edge of the City of London financial district, to Greater London's boundary with Hertfordshi ...
, where she lives with her husband, the writer John Man.


Honours and awards

* 1985 ''Plays and Players'' Most Promising Playwright Award for ''The Grace of Mary Traverse'' * 1988 ''Evening Standard'' Award for Most Promising Playwright, ''Our Country's Good'' * 1988 Laurence Olivier/BBC Award for Best New Play, ''Our Country's Good'' * 1989 Eileen Anderson Central Television Drama Award for ''The Love of the Nightingale'' * 1989 Whiting Award for Drama * 1990 Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best New Foreign Play (New York), ''Our Country's Good'' * 1991 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards for Best West End Play (London), ''Three Birds Alighting on a Field'' * 1992 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for ''Three Birds Alighting on a Field'' * 1992 Writers' Guild Award (Best West End Play) for ''Three Birds Alighting on a Field'' * 2016 Writers' Guild Award (Best New Play) for "Jefferson's Garden" Wertenbaker was made a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the ...
in 2006.''British Council: Literature'', "Timberlake Wertenbaker"
/ref>


Works


Plays

Wertenbaker has written plays for the
Royal Court A royal court, often called simply a court when the royal context is clear, is an extended royal household in a monarchy, including all those who regularly attend on a monarch, or another central figure. Hence, the word ''court'' may also be app ...
, the RSC and other theatre companies: * ''This Is No Place for Tallulah Bankhead'' (1978) * ''The Third'' (1980) * ''Second Sentence'' (1980) * ''Case to Answer'' (1980) * ''Breaking Through'' (1980) * ''New Anatomies'' (1981) * ''Inside Out'' (1982) * ''Home Leave'' (1982) * ''Abel’s Sister'' (1984) * ''The Grace of Mary Traverse'' (1985) * '' Our Country's Good'' (1988) * '' The Love of the Nightingale'' (1989) * '' Three Birds Alighting on a Field'' (1991) * ''The Break of Day'' (1995) * ''After Darwin'' (1998) * ''Dianeira'' (radio, 1999) * ''The Ash Girl'' (adaptation of "Cinderella", 2000) * ''Credible Witness'' (2001) * ''Galileo's Daughter'' (2004) * '' Scenes of Seduction'' (radio, 2005) * ''Divine Intervention'' (2006) * '' Arden City'' (for the National Theatre Connections program, 2008) * '' The Line'' (2009) * ''Our Ajax'' (Southwark Playhouse, produced by Karl Sydow and Supporting Wall, 2013) * '' The Ant and the Cicada'' (2014) * '' Jefferson's Garden'' (2015) * ''Winter Hill'' ( Octagon Theatre Bolton, 2017) * ''Who Are You?'' (2021) * ''Pity the Monster'' (Jermyn Street Theatre as part of 15 Heroines) (2020)


Translations and adaptations

Her translations and adaptations include several plays by Marivaux (Shared Experience, Radio 3), Sophocles’ Theban Plays (RSC), Euripides’ ''Hecuba'' (ACT, San Francisco), Eduardo de Filippo, Gabriela Preissová’s ''Jenůfa'' (Arcola), and Racine (''Phèdre'', ''Britannicus''). * ''Mephisto'' by Ariane Mnouchkine (1986) * ''
Léocadia ''Léocadia'' (''Time Remembered'') is a play by Jean Anouilh that premiered at the Théâtre de la Michodière in Paris on 2 December 1940. It is one of Anouilh's ''Pièces roses'', together with ''Humulus le muet'' (1932), ''Le Bal des voleurs'' ...
'' by
Jean Anouilh Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh (; ; 23 June 1910 – 3 October 1987) was a French dramatist and screenwriter whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1944 play ...
(1987) * ''False Admissions; Successful Strategies; La Dispute: Three Plays by Marivaux'' (1989) * ''The Thebans'' by
Sophocles Sophocles ( 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. was an ancient Greek tragedian known as one of three from whom at least two plays have survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those ...
(1992) * ''Filumena'' by
Eduardo De Filippo Eduardo De Filippo OMRI (; 26 May 1900 – 31 October 1984), also known simply as ''Eduardo'', was an Italian actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright, best known for his Neapolitan language, Neapolitan works ''Filumena Marturano'' and ...
(1998) * ''
Hecuba Hecuba (; also Hecabe; , ) was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War. Description Hecuba was described by the chronicler John Malalas, Malalas in his account of the ''Chronography'' as "dark, good eyes ...
''''The Hecuba'', 2001 radio play
/ref> by
Euripides Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...
(2001) (radio) * ''
Jenůfa ''Její pastorkyňa'' (''Her Stepdaughter''; commonly known as ''Jenůfa'' ) is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the Play (theatre), play ''Její pastorkyňa'' by Gabriela Preissová. It was ...
'' by Gabriela Preissová (2007) * ''Hippolytus'' by Euripides (2009) * ''Phèdre'' by
Jean Racine Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ; ; 22 December 1639 – 21 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille, as well as an important literary figure in the Western tr ...
(2009) * ''Elektra'' by Sophocles (2010 & 2012) * ''Antigone'' by Sophocles (2011) * ''Britannicus'' by Jean Racine (2011) * ''Little brother. An odyssey to Europe'' by Ibrahima Balde and Amets Arzallus Antia (2019) * ''Jules and Jim,'' adapted from Henri-Pierre Roché's novel (2023) * '' The Mongol Khan'' (2023)


References


External links

* Mark Lawson
"Timberlake Wertenbaker: ‘You can’t get a straightforward history of America’"
''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', 7 February 2015.
Profile and Production History at The Whiting Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wertenbaker, Timberlake Living people British dramatists and playwrights Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature British translators French–English translators Greek–English translators Academics of the University of East Anglia British women dramatists and playwrights St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe) alumni British women writers Year of birth missing (living people)