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Marion Baraitser

MARION BARAITSER  

 Nationality:    British
email:    Click here to contact     Website:    Click here

Literary Agent:    n/a

Marion Baraitser is a commissioned Arts Council and BBC playwright. She is an award winning published playwright, short story writer, translator and editor. She took an M.A. in English Literature at Witwatersrand University, then worked as a teacher and journalist before settling in London. She was tutor in English Literature for Birkbeck extramural Department, London University for many years and taught Creative Writing for Morley College, City Lit Institute, Women's Theatre Workshop. In 1996 with an Arts Council award, and with grants from UNeSCO and the european Jewish Publications Society, she started her own press, Loki Books, specialising in new fiction in translation from minority languages by women. as editor of Plays by Mediterranean Women' she attended the Women Writers Talk Peace' conference in March 1997 in Israel on a British Council travel award. She lives in London with her children and husband.

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below is a list of Marion Baraitser's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         Bathing Electra         Crystal Den, The         Elephant In A Rhubarb Tree         Home Number One         Louis/Lui         Mafeking/Mafikeng         Mr Bennett And Miss Smith         Story Of An African Farm, The         Winnie

Bathing Electra

Synopsis:
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Notes:
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1st Produced:
Workshop. Women's Playhousetrust    1990

Organisations:
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1st Published:
-   -

Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Crystal Den, The

Synopsis:
Through the eyes of the South African born feminist Olive Schreiner, friend, witness and narrator of eleanor Marx's tragedy, the plot explores real events in the last two years of eleanor's life, uncovering the secrets, lies and betrayals over two generations of the Marx family. the play is set in the 1890s and concerns Edward aveling, eleanor's common-law husband, whose secret marriage leads to eleanor's suicide. eleanor also discovers the scandalous illegitimacy of her half-brother, Freddy Demuth - his mother was the Marx's family's housekeeper. With the help of her friend Israel Zangwill, eleanor discovers her Jewish identity that her father, Karl Marx, rejected

Notes:
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1st Produced:

Organisations:
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1st Published:
Oberon, London,    -

Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  9 characters

Further Reference:
-

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Elephant In A Rhubarb Tree

Synopsis:
a turbulent journey through a maze of madness in a surreal psychological thriller. a psychiatrist Dr Ruby, torn between his repressed desires and those of white South Africa, begins to overheat.

Notes:
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1st Produced:

Organisations:
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1st Published:
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Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Home Number One

Synopsis:
Play for 4/5 puppeteer/actors using a sheet and shadow puppets, their own bodies, plus found objects and material. the story is set in theresienstadt (Terezin) Poland , World War 2 (though it could be in any war camp anywhere, any time) . the play's theme involves three young people coping with the extreme conditions of war and violence, betrayed into this by their adult world, applies throughout the world today. they make a puppet play using found material to explore love, death and themselves.

Notes:
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1st Produced:
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Organisations:
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1st Published:
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Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play for teenagers

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Louis/Lui

Synopsis:
In LOUIS/lui an event takes place in the famous philosopher Louis althusser's room on Sunday, November 16th 1980: his Jewish wife, Helene, is strangled, but our understanding of how and why it takes place, shifts throughout the play, in relation to our understanding of the man's life. the play's musical structure of repetition and variation, always dissolving and reforming itself, allows the audience to piece together the 'clues' of the murder and its 'psychology' from several versions of the story. LOUIS/lui aims to combine startling visual theatre with original compelling text that asks 'real' time and place to evoke a sense of all time and place, that shows the pity and horror and vulnerability of all of us, within the 'true' story of one of us.

Notes:
aCe Writer's Bursary

1st Produced:
Shaker Theatre Company    -

Organisations:
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1st Published:
in Bottled Notes from Underground, Loki, 1998   -

Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Mafeking/Mafikeng

Synopsis:
a young Black, Sol Plaatje serves in the siege of Mafeking as interpreter for Baden-Powell (leading the siege against the rebel Boers). Sol helps the British to win the siege, but finally witnesses his land and freedom being handed back by the victors, to the other White race in South Africa- the Boer. He and his people are dispossessed. It is the start of apartheid. Sol resolves to find a way to regain freedom and the land for his people. He becomes the earliest leader of the aNC. the play alludes to the present Palestinian situation and the USA colonialism in Iraq. Through the play, the music of the time is sung/performed as Baden-Powell puts on a concert to amuse his devastated soldiers.

Notes:
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1st Produced:

Organisations:
New Playwright's Festival

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play with Music

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Mr Bennett And Miss Smith

Synopsis:
the unique story of two writers: the novelist arnold Bennett and the South African writer Pauline Smith. they met in Switzerland when she was twenty and he was twice that. she was seeking a lost Father figure, and he saw in her reticence and neuralgia the mirror image of himself. their friendship lasted over twenty years, and they exchanged letters thrice weekly, which Bennett ordered burnt at his death, after which smith never wrote again.

Notes:
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1st Produced:

Organisations:
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1st Published:
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Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Story Of An African Farm, The

Synopsis:
this intelligent and atmosphEric Dramatisation tells the story of two english cousins growing up in the vast emptiness of a South African semi-desert in the 1860s. the children battle silently and alone as they grow aware of the untrustworthiness of the adult world.

Notes:
adapted from the novel by Olive Schreiner

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Olly Productions

1st Published:
Oberon, London,    -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  doubling

Further Reference:
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Winnie

Synopsis:
the relationship between a mother and daughter (based on Nelson Mandela's wife and child) at a time when Winnie, accompanied by her daughter Zhindzi, was forced to live in a remote township under house arrest

Notes:
Verity Bargate Award shortlist, 1988

1st Produced:
Soho Theatre, London    -

Organisations:
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1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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