Howard Barker’s I Saw Myself was the twentieth anniversary production of the Wrestling School, staged in London in 2008. It is one of several Barker plays to examine the role of the artist in society, a concern which first arose with the early No End of Blame and Scenes from an Execution. In I Saw Myself, the widowed Sleev attempts to weave her personal and sexual autobiography into a tapestry, an advancing army just days away. From the Wrestling School Web page for the play:

Howard Barker’s last work on the role and responsibility of the artist in society was the internationally acclaimed Scenes From An Execution. Here this theme is further explored with the artist character ferociously denying the importance of depicting the collective experience to insist on her right to tell her own story. Her punishment is cruel but her courage never deserts her. In her struggle to survive war and social hostility, and her determination to complete her individual vision of events, Howard Barker has created his most outstanding female character since Gertrude — The Cry.