James Moran 
The Theatre of D.H. Lawrence 
Dramatic Modernist and Theatrical Innovator

This is the first major book-length study for four decades to examine the plays written by D. H. Lawrence, and the first ever book to give an in-depth analysis of Lawrence”s interaction with the theatre industry during the early twentieth century. It connects and examines his performance texts, and explores his reaction to a wide-range of theatre (from the sensation dramas of working-class Eastwood to the ritual performances of the Pueblo people) in order to explain Lawrence”s contribution to modern drama.



F. R. Leavis influentially labelled the writer ”D. H. Lawrence: Novelist”. But this book foregrounds Lawrence”s career as a playwright, exploring unfamiliar contexts and manuscripts, and drawing particular attention to his three most successful works:
The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd,
The Daughter-in-Law, and
A Collier”s Friday Night. It examines how Lawrence”s novels are suffused with theatrical thinking, revealing how Lawrence”s fictions – from his first published work to the last story that he wrote before his death – continually take inspiration from the playhouse.



The book also argues that, although Lawrence has sometimes been dismissed as a restrictively naturalistic stage writer, his overall oeuvre shows a consistent concern with theatrical experiment, and manifests affinities with the dramatic thinking of modernist figures including Brecht, Artaud, and Joyce. In a final section, the book includes contributions from influential theatre-makers who have taken their own cue from Lawrence”s work, and who have created original work that consciously follows Lawrence in making working-class life central to the public forum of the theatre stage.