Class Enemy (play) Class Enemy (play) Class Enemy is a 1978 play by the British playwright Nigel Williams which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre. Class Enemy was written in 1978 as a social commentary on the apathy and anarchy in inner city British schools, is adapted to the new European reality at the beginning of the 21st century. The set is a bleak classroom with broken tables and chairs, dirty blackboard and lit with sterile fluorescent lamps. The play starts with six students waiting for a teacher and, like Samuel Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon, they seem to wait in vain. What the
Samuel Beckett described as minimalist. The extreme example of this, among his dramatic works, is the 1969 piece "Breath", which lasts for only 35 seconds and has no characters (though it was likely intended to offer ironic comment on "Oh! Calcutta!", the theatrical revue for which it served as an introductory piece). In his theatre of the late period, Beckett's characters—already few in number in the earlier plays—are whittled down to essential elements. The ironically titled "Play" (1962), for instance, consists of three characters immersed up to their necks in large funeral urns. The television drama "Eh Joe" (1963), which was written