Howard Barker and The Wrestling School have been seen as marginal to the major concerns of British theatre, problematic in their staging and challenging in the ideas they explore. Yet Barker's writing career spans six decades, he is the only living writer to have been accorded an entire season with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and The Wrestling School produces theatre of such a striking quality that it earned continuous Arts Council funding for nearly 20 years.Wrestling with Catastrophe challenges existing ways of reading Barker's theatre practice and plays and provides new ways into his work. It brings together conversations with theatre makers from in and outside The Wrestling School, with first-hand accounts of the company's practice, and a selection of critical readings. The book's combining of testimony from key Wrestling School practitioners with alternative practical perspectives, and with analysis by both established and emerging scholars, ensures that a spectrum of understanding emerges that is rich in both breadth and depth.In its consideration of the full range of Barker's aesthetic concerns - including text, direction, design, acting, narrative form, poetry, appropriation, painting, photography, electronic media, technology, puppetry, and theatre space - the volume makes a radical re-evaluation of Barker's theatre possible.

AcknowledgmentsList of Photographic PlatesNotes on ContributorsIntroduction - James Reynolds and Andy W. Smith Part One: Howard Barker and The Wrestling SchoolIntroduction to Part One 1. A Company and its Origins - James Reynolds in conversation with Kenny Ireland2. From the Actor, to the Actor - Nicholas Le Prevost, Philip Franks, James Clyde, Sean O'Callaghan, Jules Melvin, Victoria Wicks and Suzy Cooper3. Directing Slowly - Hanna Berrigan4. Amplifying Catastrophe - Ace McCarron 5. On Discipline - James Reynolds in conversation with Howard Barker Part Two: Readings/Inversions Introduction to Part Two6. 'To experience a thing as beautiful': the Photographic Practice of Howard Barker - Andy W. Smith 7. Vintage Barker: New Writing in Old Bottles - James Hudson 8. Howard Barker and the Return of Religion - Peter A. Groves 9. Going Underground - James Reynolds Part Three: Other BarkersIntroduction to Part Three10. Acting Barker - Hanna Berrigan in conversation with Fiona Shaw11. Staging Barker in America - Andy W. Smith in conversation with Cheryl Faraone and Richard Romagnoli12. Barker from a Viewpoint: Staging Ursula: Fear of the Estuary - Sarah Crews13. Staging Barker at Scotland's Conservatoire - Mark Brown in conversation with Hugh Hodgart14. 'A Gallery Of Images': from the Aberystwyth Students - David Ian RabeyEndnotes Index