Arnold Wesker was an influential English playwright who became a central figure in the post-war generation of New Wave playwrights who flourished at the Royal Court theatre. He was born in the East End of London and his upbringing motivates several of his plays. His father was a Russian-Jewish tailor who was also an active communist, and his mother was of Hungarian-Jewish extraction. Wesker was awarded a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) but couldn't afford to take the place. He was conscripted into the RAF in 1950, which he later wrote about in his play Chips with Everything (1962). Before and after serving in the air force, he worked as a chef, which gave him the inspiration for his 1957 play The Kitchen.
The Wesker Trilogy (1960) - comprising of Chicken Soup with Barley, Roots and I'm Talking about Jerusalem - became influential 'Kitchen Sink' dramas and they were first performed at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry between 1958 and 1960. The trilogy, which drew on Wesker's working-class Jewish background, was then performed in its entirety at London's Royal Court Theatre in 1960. Subsequent plays include Their Very Own and Golden City (1966), The Friends (1970), Caritas: A Play in Two Acts (1981), and Wild Spring (1994). Wesker also wrote a number of short stories, poems, articles, and a memoir, entitled As Much As I Dare: An Autobiography. His book The Birth of Shylock and the Death of Zero Mostel (1997) is an account of the unsuccessful Broadway production of his play Shylock in 1977, when Zero Mostel died after the first performance. In 2005, he published the novel Honey, which takes up the story of Beatie Bryant, his lead character in Roots.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Wesker was politically active and he was prominent figure in the Committee of 100's demonstrations against the use of nuclear weapons. He was sentenced to one month in prison, along with other public figures such as Betrand Russell. Following his release, he became artistic director of Centre 42, a cultural movement for popularising the arts within the community. Wesker was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1985 and was knighted in the 2006 New Year Honours. He died in 2016 following a battle with Parkinson's disease.
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