Drama - Play Review 'Waste'

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Play review ‘Waste’ Harley Granville-Barker 1923 Almeida Theatre ‘Waste’ is a play written by Harley Granville Barker. It was first preformed at the Almeida Theatre – Islington, London in 1923. ‘Waste’ is about an affair between a married woman ‘Amy’ and a politician ‘Henry’. Amy gets pregnant and doesn’t know what to do with the baby. Later she decides to have an abortion. Henry tells her not to, but she ignores him and does the abortion, which causes her death. The story ends in another tragedy when Henry kills himself because his political career is ruined. At the centre of the story is the difference in the way the two tragedies played out. Amy’s death was her fault because she chose to have an abortion when Henry was telling her not to. While Henry’s death was sad and upsetting because it wasn’t his fault. Henry killed himself because his political career was ruined and he thought that there was no point of him living anymore. In the 1920’s Amy’s death was not seen as a tragedy whereas Henry’s was, because at that time men had higher status than women in the society, also because Henry was a man with a really good job, politician. Women, who had no job at that time, did not mean anything so they were usually unemployed. This is why people did not care about Amy’s death and thought that she was not important. We see Amy as the irresponsible person because she was the one that wanted the abortion and did not really listen to what Henry said to her. We see that the unplanned pregnancy was both their fault because they both took part in producing the baby, but the person to blame is Amy because she was not supposed to have an affair at all and she was not forced to become pregnant. Why would anyone in 2008 want to watch ‘Waste’? Well, the answer is that the issues that happened in the 1920’s still happen in 2008. Political scandals still exist,
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