Shakespeare in post-war british theatre: Bingo by Edward Bond, the art-society relation and the strategic use of the canon

This article aims to draft an analysis of the play Bingo (1973) by the British playwright Edward Bond, which portrays William Shakespeare in the context of the common lands' enclosure in Elizabethan England. It is intended to discuss the role of artists and literary works regarding the immediate material reality and to instigate the debate over the possible strategic use of the canon as proposed by Bond and the German playwright Bertolt Brecht and his epic theatre. Such a discussion, proposed by the play in the 1970s, is considered of ultimate actuality and highlights the political potential of art, especially the theatre.