Hare, David, 1947-

British playwright, director, and filmmaker.

From the description of Papers, 1968-1993. (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRC); University of Texas at Austin). WorldCat record id: 122492244

David Hare, playwright. Adapted from Arthur Schnitzler's Reigen. Literal translation by Julian Hammond.

From the description of The blue room: typescript. (New York Public Library). WorldCat record id: 86164370

British playwright David Hare was born June 5, 1947, in St. Leonards, Sussex, England, the son of Clifford and Agnes Gilmour Hare. Clifford Hare was a sailor, and when David was five, the family moved to Bexhill-on-Sea, also in Sussex. Hare attended Lancing College and then went on to Jesus College, Cambridge, in order to study with famed Marxist Raymond Williams. After graduating from Cambridge in 1968 with an honors M.A. in English, Hare briefly worked for the film company A. B. Pathé before co-founding the Portable Theatre Company with Tony Bicât. Portable Theatre, a touring experimental theatre group, became a leader in the fringe theatre movement. Hare wrote his first plays for Portable Theatre and served as its director from 1968-71. He also served as literary manager of the Royal Court Theatre from 1969-70 and as its resident dramatist from 1970-71.

Hare's first major play, Slag (1970), won him the Evening Standard Drama Award for most promising new playwright. Like Slag, The Great Exhibition (1972) viewed the failure of contemporary English society to change or accomplish anything. In 1972, Portable Theatre and its subsidiary, Shoot, declared bankruptcy, and Hare became resident dramatist at Nottingham Playhouse. Brassneck, which Hare wrote with Howard Brenton, was produced there that same year. At about the same time, Hare co-founded the Joint Stock Theatre Group with David Aukin and Max Stafford-Clark, and he served as director there from 1975-80. Knuckle (1974), the first of Hare's plays to be produced in London's West End, received the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Award; Hare was the first dramatist to win the award. Hare's first plays had established the primacy of social and political issues in his work, but with Knuckle, he shifted from contemporary satire toward what he calls his “history” plays. Hare's plays usually present a romantic relationship between members of the middle class and use the decline and corruption of the characters' careers, relationships, and idealism to reflect historical events.

In Fanshen (1975), based on the book by William Hinton, Hare looked at the process of revolution. As a Joint Stock production, Fanshen was a collective effort in which actors collaborated with the writer, improvising and discussing the text at workshops and rehearsals. With Teeth 'n' Smiles (1975), Hare returned to an examination of the state of post-World War II English society, which he sees as dominated by dishonesty and corruption. A collaboration with Nick and Tony Bicât, it was Hare's only play to premiere at the Royal Court Theatre. Plenty, considered Hare's best play, was produced in 1978 and was Hare's first original play at the National Theatre. The play, about a woman who served in the French Resistance during World War II but finds only disillusionment in post-war Britain, shows the inability of people to effect change. A Map of the World (1983) expands to a global perspective and uses the device of a play within a play; by this time, Hare had become more interested in style and form. Pravda (1985), co-written with Howard Brenton, is a scathing attack on the press. In The Secret Rapture, a Margaret Thatcher-like M.P. takes advantage of her sister's goodness, with tragic consequences. A trilogy on institutions, Racing Demon (1990), Murmuring Judges (1991), and Absence of War (1993), looks at religion, the legal system, and political parties. Hare's most recent play, Skylight (1995), is less directly political, focusing on the failed relationship between two former lovers who meet again.

In addition to directing his own plays, Hare has directed such works as The Pleasure Principle (1973) by Snoo Wilson, The Party (1974) by Trevor Griffiths, Weapons of Happiness (1976) by Howard Brenton, and Devil's Island (1977) by Tony Bicât. Hare also directed a production of King Lear at the National Theatre in 1986, with Anthony Hopkins starring as Lear. Hare became associate director at the National Theatre in 1984 and has also been a member of the council of the English Stage Company.

Like many British playwrights, Hare has written teleplays for the BBC. Licking Hitler (1978) uses a World War II setting to examine the pervasiveness of lies in English culture. As in other Hare works, in Dreams of Leaving (1980) the main characters' loss of idealism leads to despair and madness. Saigon: The Year of the Cat (1983), directed by Stephen Frears, is about the Vietnam War and again juxtaposes personal lives with historical events. Heading Home is about a woman looking back at choices she made that led to her sense of loneliness.

Hare has written several screenplays and even founded a film company, Greenpoint Films, in 1982. Among screenplays by Hare are Plenty (1985), Wetherby (1985), Strapless (1989), Paris by Night (1989), and Damage (1992). Wetherby, about repressed passions among members of the middle class, won the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival.

Hare married theatrical agent Margaret Mathieson in 1970; they had three children, Joe, Darcy, and Lewis, before divorcing in 1980. Hare married designer Nicole Farhi in December 1992.

David Hare's papers were acquired by the HRHRC in 1993. Additional materials are expected for the collection, and they will be described separately.

More information about David Hare and his work may be found in his autobiographical Writing Left Handed (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), David Hare by Joan FitzPatrick Dean (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990), and The Plays of David Hare by Carol Homden (Cambridge University Press, 1995).

From the guide to the David Hare Papers TXRC95-A129., 1968-93, (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center University of Texas at Austin)

Epithet: playwright

Title: Knight

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000472.0x00022c