The Drama Of Work

“The ‘work-play’ was an acknowledged genre that had its heyday from the late 1950s to the mid-70s. All these plays had something important in common. They realised that work itself is dramatic: that it has its own natural rhythm, and that people often reveal themselves through the jobs they do. But why has the work-play all but disappeared from our stages? There are several reasons. One is that, in the age of the graduate-playwright, there are fewer dramatists who have done real manual toil.”