D. H. Lawrence's neglected art : his theory and practice of drama

Between 1908 and 1913 D. H. Lawrence wrote six plays: The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd, A Collier's Friday Night and The Daughter-In-Law, three naturalistic dramas; and The Merry-Go-Round, The Married Man, and The Fight For Barbara, three comedies of manners. After a lapse of several years, in 1918 Lawrence wrote Touch and Go, a political drama of ideas followed after another interval by David (1925), also a play of ideas using a Biblical framework. Largely neglected until recently, Lawrence's drama spans his writing career and reflects what he was doing in his other work. Although publication of The Complete Plays in 1966, the Peter Gill production in London of Lawrence's three naturalistic dramas in 1968, and the American production of The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd in 1973 resulted in an increased interest in Lawrence's playwriting, only three full-length studies of Lawrence's drama have appeared. Devoted primarily to either the biographical material in his drama or to the ideological similarities between Lawrence's drama and his work in other genres, none of the three studies examines the plays from the point of view of Lawrence's ideas about the distinction between drama and fiction