"An inability to handle language is not the same thing as stupidity.""Children always turn to the light.""In oratory the will must predominate.""No one but a fool is always right.""Nothing is further than earth from heaven, and nothing is nearer than heaven to earth.""Poetry is the key to the hieroglyphics of nature.""Purity is the feminine, truth the masculine of honor.""Smiles are the language of love.""Some people carry their heart in their head and some carry their head in their heart. The trick is to keep them apart yet working together.""Strength was the virtue of paganism; obedience is the virtue of Christianity.""Sudden resolutions, like the sudden rise of mercury in a barometer, indicate little else than the variability of the weather.""The ultimate tendency of civilization is towards barbarism.""Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail.""To those whose God is honor; only disgrace is a sin.""Weak minds sink under prosperity as well as adversity; but strong and deep ones have two high tides.""When they speak, dead frogs fall out of their mouths."
Hare was educated at Lancing College, an independent school for boys in the village of Lancing in West Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge, he was the Hiring Manager on the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club Committee, 1968.
He worked with the Portable Theatre Company from 1968 - 1971. He was Resident Dramatist at the Royal Court Theatre, London, from 1970-1971, and in 1973 became resident dramatist at the Nottingham Playhouse, a major provincial theatre. In 1975, Hare co-founded the Joint Stock Theatre Company with David Aukin and Max Stafford-Clark. Hare began writing for the National Theatre and in 1978 his play Plenty was produced at the National Theatre, followed by A Map of the World in 1983, and Pravda in 1985, co-written with Howard Brenton. David Hare became the Associate Director of the National Theatre in 1984, and has since seen many of his plays produced, such as his trilogy of plays Racing Demon, Murmuring Judges, and The Absence of War. Hare has also directed many other plays aside from his own works, such as The Pleasure Principle by Snoo Wilson, Weapons of Happiness by Howard Brenton, and King Lear by William Shakespeare for the National Theatre. He is also the author of a collection of lectures on the arts and politics called Obedience, Struggle, and Revolt (2005). David Hare
Hare founded a film company called Greenpoint Films in 1982, and has written screenplays such as Plenty, Wetherby, Strapless, and Paris by Night. Aside from movies he has also written teleplays for the BBC such as Licking Hitler, and Saigon: The Year of the Cat. His career is examined in the Reputations strand on TheatreVoice.
Hare's awards include the BAFTA Award (1979), the New York Drama Critics Circle Award (1983), the Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear (1985), the Olivier Award (1990), and the London Theatre Critics' Award (1990). He was knighted in 1998.
Hare is married to the French fashion designer Nicole Farhi.
Slag (1970) Slag, is a biting satire in which the only characters are the three teachers of a tiny isolated girl's school. To protest the dominance and abusive treatment by men epitomized by the slur as "slags," they vow to abstain from sexual intercourse. Feminism and dominance are ridiculed alike, as the conflicts among the teachers' different visions of radical feminism and their teaching become the grist for duplicitous dominant and abusive acts among them, while the number of pupils in the resulting dysfunctional environment dwindles to zero. Slag was a breakthrough play for David Hare, winning him the Evening Standard Award for most promising new playwright.
The Great Exhibition (1972)
Brassneck (1973) (with Howard Brenton)
Knuckle (1974)
Fanshen (1975)
Teeth 'n' Smiles (1975)
Plenty (1978)
A Map of the World (1982)
Pravda (1985) (with Howard Brenton)
The Bay at Nice, and Wrecked Eggs (1986)
The Secret Rapture (1988)
Racing Demon (1990)
Murmuring Judges (1991)
The Absence of War (1993)
Skylight (1995)
Amy's View (1997)
The Blue Room (1998) (adapted from Arthur Schnitzler)
