Author(s): Tanya Mander

Abstract: This research paper explores Edward Bond’s play Savedto reveal that post war political playwrights adopted a different kind of dramaturgy for exploring the fragmentation and ambivalence of contemporary society. They do not propagate any political ideology but are committed to continue to question and unmask the existing hegemony. Bond looks at his work in terms of Rational Theatre, aimed to raise questions as political thinker, but it is not the task to supply answers as political playwrights. Edward Bond perceives human society as made of a number of smaller societies; each having its different history and culture. His characters are from these smaller sections of society and they bring on to the stage the contradictions in a stratified society. His idea of rationality and his images of violence seem to be diametrically opposite but when explored they are aligned on the same side attempting to articulate the consciousness of ‘transindividual subject’. The concept of ‘transindividual subject’ was given by Lucien Goldmann, a Marxist. He argues that creative texts are based on transindividual mental structures; and this transindividual subject(s) may be a class (bourgeois or proletariat) or even a smaller group. The paper looks at Saved as interpretation of our age and culture, a reflection, conscious or unconscious, of contemporary social condition and it is not just deluge of facts and details, but is the reflection of the essence of society.

Keywords: Political theatre, violence, trans-individual subject, hegemony and alienation.

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.3.6.37