Playwright Howard Barker may be a Brit, but his work has a distinctly European bent, as Steve Pratt finds out.

IT'S rare for a contemporary writer to have a theatre company devoted exclusively to performing their work. But Howard Barker doesn't fit the conventional image of a playwright.

The word "controversial" is often attached to his name. Not that his is a name that means as much in the country of his birth as it does internationally. He is acknowledged and much performed in Europe, where he's considered one of the major writers of modern western theatre.

Statistics inform that recently 17 of his plays have been staged in five languages in 12 countries, including Canada, Australia and Macedonia.

Despite the Wrestling School's 15-year commitment to his work, he remains largely unknown in this country.

York audiences can see what other Europeans like so much - "his unflinching and controversial exploration of power, sexuality and human behaviour" - when his latest play, The Fence, tours to the Theatre Royal.

The publicity material talks of powerful poetic language, rich dark humour and a sexually provocative epic. This seems to involve a scandal in a ruling monarchy and a blind boy's struggle to discover his true identity.

Barker himself isn't giving away much more. "I've always been interested in the idea of frontiers. The Great Wall of China and the Berlin Wall were put up to preserve something from someone else," he says.

"When the Gaza fence was put up, I decided I would try and write about that, incorporating not only political barriers but those barriers we set up in our own lives."

He rejects the idea that audiences might regard his plays as "difficult". In fact, he says, the people who find them easiest to relate to are those who don't go to the theatre much, such as younger people.

"Many people take to me and there's a growing school of writing that's influenced by the way I've worked over the last 30 years," he says.

"I don't pretend to be popular but one has to ask why these big institutions in this country won't touch my work. It's a scandal."

He once joked about sending all his plays to the National Theatre for rejection. Despite his reputation, such establishments have declined to stage his work.

But surely he wouldn't want his work performed on such traditional, one might say, conventional, stages? "I have no love of the National Theatre as such and don't believe in it but it's a very big, well-financed theatre, so why don't they do my plays?," he argues.

The tragedy is that they are better understood abroad, continues Barker. He attributes this neglect to the English being moralists and "my plays are without morals really".

He's devoted to theatre. Although he wasn't brought up in the theatre, he feels he has an instinct for it. "There are scenes like the birth of a baby which occur while a murder is going on in the background. I look at that and it's pure theatre," he explains.

Film is fundamentally about realism but the rights of some of his plays, including Victory and The Castle, have been sold to film-makers. So far no-one has succeeded in bringing them to the screen.

Barker considers himself an international writer. "I am from England to look at and the way I think, but I don't think of myself as English. I think of myself as European. My whole culture is steeped in being European," he says.

The Wrestling School, the group devoted to his work, was formed by two actors who liked his work and commissioned a play. The company generally produces one new play a year. He writes more but funding supports only the one project.

"We're never secure because we have to go back to the Arts Council every year and ask for funding. To some extent it's been a miracle. We have no premises and are run by one person who also runs other companies."

The only writer who's influenced him is Shakespeare, from whom he's drawn his love of language. His plays are very traditional in narrative and character and modern theatre appears not to interest him much.

"I don't see as much other theatre as I did. I wouldn't say I was au fait with modern trends at all, but I used to be when I was younger," says Barker. "I have developed a voice of my own which is so particular in a way. I don't see my work as impenetrable. My writing has developed a kind of form and style which is my own voice."

* The Fence runs at York Theatre Royal from June 29 to July 2. Tickets (01904) 623568.

Published: 21/06/2005