Hare refers to the chamber pieces written after his monumental trilogy as "Jim and Tim" plays--theatre with few techincal marvels, conflicts based on personal relationships and not external struggles, and, most importantly, a sense of character specificity not found in the archetypes of Susan Traherne and Isobel Glass. "Amy's View" is his second of these smaller plays, and it is the best of the three he has written so far.

As in his first Jim and Tim play, "Skylight", the characters are not politicians and public figures but ordinary Britons with neighbors, lovers and family. But unlike "Skylight", which examined only one theme, "Amy's View" uses its smallness to raise big issues. The piece is a play about grief and happiness, familial relations, and the price of compassion. It's about the role of the theatre, both as an artform and in modern life. It's about having money and not wanting it, wanting money and not having it, and the ultimate inability to know your life.

And, of course, the play resonates with Hare's exquisite dialogue, making "Amy's View" a masterpiece of langauge and well as of stagecraft. It is without question Hare's greatest chamber play, and in parts it even reaches the heights of his two seminal works, "Plenty" and "The Secret Rapture".

David Hare's play is a wonderful look at relationships against the back drop of the 1980s and 1990s London art scene. The tensions of Mother-Daughter relationships forms the core of this play. Other family relationships crackle with the same intensity leaping off the page. The role of Esme is one of the few excellent female lead roles available today - strong, vibrant, sharp tongued and opinionated Esme showcases the broad spectrum of emotions women have between themselves, their children, in-laws, lovers and coworkers.

This book is a terrific reminder of an excellent theater production, reading it won't spoil the play a bit!

David Hare's Amy's View is a startling new play. Rich, funny, sad, absurd, and thought-provoking, Amy's View leaves the reader or audience member clamoring for more. Hare presents fascinating characters in Esme Allen, a famous West End actress; her daughter Amy, who's famous "view" is that love conquers all; her boyfriend and soon to be husband Dominic, a cultural monolith; and Frank, a devoted companion of Esme's who's actions have devastating consequences in all of their lives. This play meshes love and betrayal with the question of whether the theatre is relevant in society anymore. The reader will be astonished. But being lucky enough to see this play performed on Broadway with Judi Dench as Esme, I love this play that much more.

David Hare is an amazing writer and this play is one of his best!A captivating storyline that touched emotions that I never knew I had and left me pondering on life and how vunerable we all are!When a play leaves an impression on you,whether good or bad(and in this instance good) you can be sure that the writer is damn good at their job and David Hare sure is!

"The Secret Rapture" is a stunning piece of drama. Not only does the play portray the alarming effects of Thatcherism, it creates its own world of distinct and unique characters. Building upon the theme that "good people bring out the worst in us," Hare presents a passionate work that never breaks down into melodrama yet wrenches the heart and forces readers and viewers alike to rethink ideas of faith in goodness and in all religions, spiritual and material. Intense and brilliant.

Luther and A Patriot for Me are excellent plays. The passion, drama and elements of surprise and the succint turning points testify to Osborne's talent. Even better than his landmark Look Back in Anger.

Playwriting at its best.

I have read quite a few books about Oscar Wilde, both biographical and fictional. But, I must say that "Judas Kiss", written by a very talented David Hare, seems to be the best among the plays. The minute I started reading this book, I felt better about not having a chance to see the play on Broadway, with an incredible Liam Neeson as late Oscar Wilde. Hare's playwriting ability is so powerful, that I was able to re-create theater stage, the story happening on it, and even Liam Neeson himself. In terms of its narrrative, "Judas Kiss" takes somewhat non-traditional look at the last few months of Oscar Wilde's life in Italy. It is well-documented that prison changed him greatly in spirit and in body, and that he came out physically and spiritually weaker than ever. But, wait and see what Hare has to say about this as well as about Bosie's presence in Wilde's life after prison, among other things.

Although littered with 80's references which may trip up the reader at first, Pravda is the tale of an honest journalist who see's his profession debased through the growth of tabloids, the sensational shocking headlines and the British public's lust for sex, royalty and nationalism. Into this arena walks La Roux, cunning, devious and calculating, a very thinly veiled Murdoch his personality turns everyone towards him, controlling the worlds of royalty, sports, politics and at the end the world of journalism, forcing even the "hero" of the book to give up his honest journalistic instincts and start calling for smut.

Hare removes the rose-colored glasses many wear about clergy in both their work and life in this provocative drama about a team of urban pastors in London. Far from making clergy war heroes, Hare instead invites the audience to see their human dilemmas and the adequacy/inadequacy of contemporary religion when confronted with the contexts of power, sex, politics, and money.

After writing "The Secret Rapture," his indictment of complacency in Thatcherite Britain, and his trilogy of plays on British institutions, David Hare understandably needed a break from writing political theatre. His next play, "Skylight," defied expectations and marked a new phase in Hare's career. Unlike the political plays that precede it, "Skylight" is, to use its author's terminology, a Jim and Tim play: two main characters discuss their lives, their feelings and their relationships, and if any broad themes are to be gleaned it is the role of the viewer and not the playwright. Hare's play is a standalone masterpiece of chamber theatre, and, when compared with his other work, it is even more astounding.

David Hare's dry humor underlies most lines in this play and, as a result, it is a funny enough read. Prior to reading Hare's adaptation of La Ronde, I saw the Broadway version. The audience at the theater failed to laugh at the underlying humor as it was not emphasized. The text, however, brings out this facet of the play very well. Overall, however, there is nothing special about the the play itself. It is a cursory analysis of sexuality and sexual politics. But it's not the Kinsey report.

David Hare's adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's "La Ronde" is nothing short of amazing. The twisting strand of relationships that course through the scenes is filled with mirror images of ourselves. Either in the lives we lead, what we invision in our mind, or in the world we see around us. There are so many difference's between the ten characters, but what makes it truly interesting is when you realize just what might be the same about them.

This play is a first rate pick!

I for one adored this play. Did not see the Broadway play but from what I heard it apparently cheapened this excellent work by David Hare. It goes into the before and after scenes from which the curtain closes. It is not about the sex but how society and individuals view sex and how commmon day our culture holds it. Any open minded individual interested in how individuals and societys behaviors correlate must read this play. It is short and easy reading for anyone to enjoy.

Bernard Shaw is a great playwright. In this particular play he exposes the shortcomings of English upper classes. They only think of mariage, business, politics, but England is in fact a drunken skipper, a skipper on which every sailor and even the captain are drunk with rum and unable to see the danger coming up and to deal with it. So the skipper is condemned to break on the rocks. England in the same way is condemned to break on the rocks because no one, in the upper classes, thinks beyond their interest. This catastrophe coming up is shown by some kind of supernatural explosion at the end of the play and the members of these upper classes admire the event as being beautiful and they are totally unable to cope. The picture given by Shaw of England is particularly pessimistic. Their is no future and no hope for that country. Along the way he discusses important issues such as the liberation of women within their enslavement and their power is nothing but hypnotism or drowning men in a sea of words and charm. The only sane man in the play is the captain, with an allusion to Whitman, « Captain my captain », who sees the catastrophes coming and is unable to convince his own daughters or their husbands and friends that they have to control the boat if they don't want it to capsize. But does he really want to convince them ?

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

I recently saw the production of this play in Atlanta and I was blown away. This is a fascinating, fast-paced comedy with dark undertones about a bankrupt society. It is set in the late nineteenth/early twentieth c., but the issues turn out to be very contemporary: the question of capitalism, security vs. adventure, gender roles... I recommend it!

I found this play, although interesting, to fully satisfy the alienation that Brecht intended to place upon his audience. It was somehow very difficult to feel any really emotion except disdain, and perhaps hatred, towards Mother Courage herself, and this was not helped by her continual hipocracy and mecurial nature. I would have prefered something perhaps slightly more aimed at providing a satisfying read (or show) for the audience, and somehow found "Mother Courage" rather depressing and horrid. She is a symbol for everything wrong with the world and I hope that I never come across anyone of similar moral or ethical values.

Brecht doesn't want emotion because that is Brechtian theater. He thought that in order for a play to invoke social change, it needed to be clear to the audience, that the audience needed to learn something. Emotions, Brecht felt, clog the mind and only feed the brain sentiment, not rational thought. Mother Courage and Her Children is, quite obviously, an anti-war play. Brecht wants you to see that war makes criminals out of everyone, even mothers. He wants you to love Mother Courage while you hate her so that the emotion is cancelled out and you are only left with the thoughts of her actions and why they were wrong. If you want a play to read or perform that is challenging, amazing, and intellectual all at once, this is the way to go. I performed this and I was forever changed.

Saying that Brecht didn't want his plays to evoke an emotional response is an extreme oversimplification of his theories. He just didn't want the emotional response to overwhelm the intellectual response and remove the audience's capacity to judge the work objectively. In this play, we have a heroine who is not a heroine. We understand her, but we never empathize with her. Consequently, the interdependence of war and economy is illuminated without making the reader wallow in excessive emotion. Yes, we do feel strongly when Kattrin is beathing her drum, but that feeling is not what the audience leaves with at the end of the play.