"Renowned English Dramatist" Arnold Wesker Hand Signed 3.5X2.25 Card

Description: Up for auction "English Dramatist" Arnold Wesker Hand Signed 3.5X2.25 Card. ES-8297E Sir Arnold Wesker FRSL (24 May 1932 – 12 April 2016) was an English dramatist. He was the author of 50 plays, four volumes of short stories, two volumes of essays, much journalism and a book on the subject, a children's book, some poetry, and other assorted writings. His plays have been translated into 20 languages, and performed worldwide. Wesker was born in Stepney, London, in 1932, the son of Leah (née Cecile Leah Perlmutter), a cook, and Joseph Wesker, a tailor's machinist and active communist. Arnold Wesker was delivered by Samuel Sacks, father of neurologist Oliver Sacks. He attended a Jewish Infants School in Whitechapel. His education was then fragmented during World War II. He was briefly evacuated to Ely, Cambridgeshire, before returning to London where he attended Dean Street School during the Blitz. He then returned to live with his parents who had moved to a council flat in Hackney, East London, where he attended Northwold Road School. He then attended Upton House Central School, Hackney, from 1943. This was a school where emphasis was placed on teaching office skills, including typing, to bright boys who however had not been selected for grammar school places. He was then evacuated again to Llantrisant, South Wales. He was accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art but could not afford to take up his place there. Later, he served for two years in the Royal Air Force, and then went on to work as cook, furniture maker, and bookseller. After saving up enough money, he went to study at the London School of Film Technique, now known as the London Film School. His inspiration for 1957 play The Kitchen, which was later made into a film, came when he was working at the Bell Hotel in Norwich. It was while working here that he met his future wife Dusty. Wesker's plays have dealt with themes including self-discovery, love, confronting death and political disillusion. Chicken Soup with Barley (1958) went out to the provinces. Rather than opening in the West End, its premiere was seen at the provincial Coventry Theatre, a locale which typified Wesker's political views as an 'angry young man'. Wesker's play Roots (1959) was a kitchen sink drama about a girl, Beatie Bryant, who returns after three years of stay in London to her farming family home at Norfolk and struggles to voice herself.[9] Critics commended the "emotional authenticity" brought out in the play. Roots, The Kitchen, and Their Very Own and Golden City were staged by the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre under the management of George Devine and later William Gaskill. Wesker joined with enthusiasm the Royal Court group on the Aldermaston March in 1959. Another of the Royal Court contingent, Lindsay Anderson, made a short documentary film (March to Aldermaston) about the event. He was an active member of the Committee of 100 and, with other prominent members, was jailed in 1961 for his part in its campaign of mass nonviolent resistance to nuclear weapons. After his stay in prison in 1961, Wesker made a full-time commitment to become the leader of an initiative which arose from Resolution 42 of the 1960 Trades Union Congress, concerning the importance of arts in the community. Centre 42 was initially a touring festival aimed at devolving art and culture from London to the other main working class towns of Britain, moving to the Roundhouse in 1964. The project to establish a permanent arts centre struggled through subsequent years, because its funding was limited; Wesker fictionalised it in his play Their Very Own and Golden City (1966). He formally dissolved the project in 1970, although The Roundhouse did eventually open as a permanent arts centre in 2006. Wesker co-founded, in 1974., the Writers & Readers Publishing Cooperative Ltd, with a group of writers that included John Berger, Lisa Appignanesi, Richard Appignanesi, Chris Searle and Glenn Thompson.

Price: 99.99 USD

Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

End Time: 2025-01-29T20:26:53.000Z

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