Howard Barker's prolific writing career dates back to 1969 when his first radio play, One Afternoon on the 63rd Level of the North Face of the Pyramid of Cheops the Great, was broadcast by BBC Radio 4. Cheek, his first stage play to be produced, was performed at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in 1970 and published by Methuen in 1971. Since 1977 publisher John Calder has brought out more than forty of Barker's plays, five books of his poetry, and his theoretical manifesto, Arguments for a Theatre (1989). In 1988 a professional touring company called the Wrestling School was formed in London to produce Barker's plays, and he has served as its resident dramatist since its inception; the Wrestling School remains the only professional touring company funded by the Arts Council of Britain to exclusively produce the work of a single playwright.

Barker's work has always sparked extreme and often contradictory reactions from the...