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John Hamilton Constable, born 22 July 1952, is a playwright, poet, performer and activist, author of The Southwark Mysteries. He is also known as John Crow, the urban shaman of Cross Bones. ==Life== Constable was born in Shropshire in 1952. He was educated at Oswestry School (1963–69)〔()〕 and Queens' College, Cambridge (1970–73). In the mid-1970s, he performed at David Medalla's Artists For Democracy. From 1977-79, he lived in Japan and travelled widely in the Far East, and from 1980–82, toured Europe with the street theatre group Sheer Madness, playing Hamlet in the devised show ''Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits''.〔()〕 From 1984, following the production of ''Black Mas'' by Foco Novo he returned to live in London. His plays included ''The Fit Up'', ''Tulip Futures'', ''Iceman and The False Hairpiece''. He also wrote childrens' plays, radio dramas, and dramatisations of ''Gormenghast'' and ''The Mosquito Coast'' for the David Glass Ensemble.〔()〕 In 1986 he moved to The Borough, in Southwark, then a poor and much maligned part of south London. The area had a profound influence on his work, which draws freely on its 2,000 year history and the far-reaching changes that saw it reinvented as prime real estate in the heart of London. In Sicily in 1994 he met his companion Katharine Nicholls, a craftworker and community outreach worker. In their activism and esoteric work at Crossbones and with outsiders, she also became known as Katy Kaos. One of the poems in ''The Southwark Mysteries'' is entitled ''kateEkaos''.〔(John. 1999. The Southwark Mysteries London: Oberon Books pp. 92, 288 )〕 She stage-managed his solo shows and site-specific events, co-produced the epic productions of ''The Southwark Mysteries'' and created the original “Hand-Maid” limited edition of ''The Book of The Goose''. In 1995 he wrote and performed a solo show ''I Was An Alien Sex God''. This inaugurated a new phase of experimental writing which produced his best-known work, ''The Southwark Mysteries''. These began in 1996 as a cycle of mystical poems revealed to his shamanistic alter-ego, John Crow, by “The Goose”, who claimed to have been buried in the unconsecrated Cross Bones Graveyard. The Winchester Geese were medieval sex workers in the Bankside brothels licensed by the Bishop of Winchester under Ordinances dating back to 1161. ''The Southwark Mysteries'' grew from a poem cycle to a contemporary mystery play, first performed in Shakespeare's Globe and Southwark Cathedral on 23 April 2000. From 2004 to 2012 he was artistic director of the community arts group Southwark Mysteries, conducting guided walks, workshops and site-specific performances inspired by the work. The Halloween of Cross Bones, conducted annually from 1998 to 2010, ended with a candle-lit procession to the gates of Crossbones, the outcasts' burial ground. He led a long campaign to protect the burial ground and to establish a garden of remembrance on the site. A new production of The Southwark Mysteries was staged in Southwark Cathedral in 2010.〔(rev. ed. 2011. The Southwark Mysteries London: Oberon Books pg. 9 )〕 In November 2010 John Constable was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of London South Bank University for services to the arts and community: “… for his vision and imagination, for his deep commitment to our local area, for his work in reclaiming lost histories and, above all, for his belief in the transformative power of writing and drama...〔()〕 At Southwark's Civic Award Ceremony in May 2011, he received The Liberty of the Old Metropolitan Borough of Southwark.〔()〕 In recognition of his work at Crossbones, and for the human rights of sex workers and other outsiders, Constable was named Campaigner of the Year at the 2011 Erotic Awards.〔()〕 His ''Sha-Manic Plays'', ''Gormenghast'', ''The Southwark Mysteries'' and ''Secret Bankside – Walks In The Outlaw Borough'' are published by Oberon Books. In 2014 Thin Man Press published ''Spark In The Dark'', his first collection of poetry〔()〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John Constable (writer)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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