Leonardo's last supper
By: Peter Barnes
Contributors: Barnes, Peter, 1931-2004
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2013
Place of publication: London]
Language: eng
Subjects: Drama
Description: In 'Leonardo's Last Supper', Peter Barnes explores a theatrical mode in which everything is simultaneously tragic and ridiculous. A family of undertakers in a mediaeval charnel house prepares to bury Leonardo da Vinci; disposing of the Renaissance genius will be a lucrative coup for the family business, and so the atmosphere is jovial as they dress up as plague doctors and bicker around the corpse. But their dreams of prosperity and perfumed gloves are interrupted when the health of the deceased polymath suddenly improves. 'Leonardo's Last Supper' was first presented with 'Noonday Demons' in 1969 at the Open Space Theatre.
Notes: Previously published in print: in Plays one. London, Methuen Drama, 1996.