Stuff Happens [Paperback]

"His best political play yet . . . An exhilarating account of the genesis of the current war in Iraq."--John Lahr, "The New Yorker"

"The most significant theatrical artifact yet to grow from our catastrophic times."--Linda Winer, " Newsday"

"The most feverishly anticipated play in London in recent memory." --Ben Brantley, "The New York Times"

'Stuff happens . . . And it's untidy, and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.'

The famous response of Donald Rumsfeld, American Secretary of Defense, to the looting of Baghdad, at a press conference on 11 April 2003, provides the title for a new play, specially written for the Olivier Theatre, about the extraordinary process leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

How does the world settle its differences, now there is only one superpower? What happens to leaders risking their credibility with sceptical publics? From events which have dominated international headlines for the last two years David Hare has fashioned both a historical narrative and a human drama about the frustrations of power and the limits of diplomacy.

'Our greatest living political playwright.' New Statesman

'When future historians come to study the state of Britain in the late twentieth century, Hare will be the playwright they turn to first.' Blake Morrison, Independent on Sunday

David Hare was born in Sussex in 1947. He is the author of twenty-eight plays for the stage, sixteen of which have been seen at the National Theatre. These plays include Plenty, The Secret Rapture, Skylight, Amy's View, Via Dolorosa, Stuff Happens, Gethsemane and The Power of Yes. In 1993 three plays about the Church, the Law and the Labour Party - Racing Demon, Murmuring Judges and The Absence of War - were presented in repertory in the Olivier Theatre. His many screenplays for cinema and television include Licking Hitler, Damage, The Hours and The Reader. He directed his most recent television film, Page Eight, for the BBC.