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Present Laughter (Modern Classics)
by Noël Coward"An honest, even profound reflection on the price of fame, with some genuine sexual frisson and an undercurrent of pathos." - The Hollywood ReporterAt the centre of his own universe sits matinee idol Garry Essendine: suave, hedonistic and too old, says his wife, to be having numerous affairs - his line of harmless, infatuated debutantes is largely tolerated but playing closer to home is not. Just before he escapes on tour to Africa the full extent of his misdemeanours is discovered... and all hell breaks loose.Noël Coward's Present Laughter premiered in the early years of the Second World War just as such privileged lives were threatened with fundamental social change, and remains one of the playwright's most enduring hits.This new edition is published in Methuen Drama's iconic Modern Classics series to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Coward's death and features a new introduction by Russell Jackson.
Presentist Shakespeares (Accents on Shakespeare)
by Hugh Grady Terence HawkesPresentist Shakespeares is the first extended study of the principles and practice of 'presentism', a critical movement that takes account of the never-ending dialogue between past and present. In this bold and consistently thought-provoking collection of presentist readings, the contributors: argue that the ironies generated by our involvement in time are a fruitful, necessary and an unavoidable aspect of any text's being, and that presentism allows us to engage with them more fully and productively demonstrate how these ironies can function as agents of change, flowing unstoppably back into the events of the past, colouring how we perceive them and modifying our sense of what they signify show that a critic's inability to step beyond time and specifically the present does not, as has been argued elsewhere, 'contaminate' readings of Shakespeare's plays, but rather points to shades of implication suddenly available here and now within the wide range of plays examined suggest that presentism might not merely challenge or expand our sense of what Shakespeare's plays are able to tell us, but may in fact offer the only effective purchase on these texts that is available to us. Presentist criticism is an open-ended and on-going project, located at a particularly interesting and demanding juncture in modern Shakespeare studies. At this crucial point, then, Presentist Shakespeares is a compelling collection of readings by a distinguished team of authors, but it is also much more: it is a landmark, which reflects, develops and even rejoices in the intedeterminacy of the field. Contributors include: Catherine Belsey, Michael Bristol, Linda Charnes, John Drakakis, Ewan Fernie, Evelyn Gajowski, Hugh Grady, Terence Hawkes and Kiernan Ryan.
Presentist Shakespeares (Accents on Shakespeare)
by Hugh Grady Terence HawkesPresentist Shakespeares is the first extended study of the principles and practice of 'presentism', a critical movement that takes account of the never-ending dialogue between past and present. In this bold and consistently thought-provoking collection of presentist readings, the contributors: argue that the ironies generated by our involvement in time are a fruitful, necessary and an unavoidable aspect of any text's being, and that presentism allows us to engage with them more fully and productively demonstrate how these ironies can function as agents of change, flowing unstoppably back into the events of the past, colouring how we perceive them and modifying our sense of what they signify show that a critic's inability to step beyond time and specifically the present does not, as has been argued elsewhere, 'contaminate' readings of Shakespeare's plays, but rather points to shades of implication suddenly available here and now within the wide range of plays examined suggest that presentism might not merely challenge or expand our sense of what Shakespeare's plays are able to tell us, but may in fact offer the only effective purchase on these texts that is available to us. Presentist criticism is an open-ended and on-going project, located at a particularly interesting and demanding juncture in modern Shakespeare studies. At this crucial point, then, Presentist Shakespeares is a compelling collection of readings by a distinguished team of authors, but it is also much more: it is a landmark, which reflects, develops and even rejoices in the intedeterminacy of the field. Contributors include: Catherine Belsey, Michael Bristol, Linda Charnes, John Drakakis, Ewan Fernie, Evelyn Gajowski, Hugh Grady, Terence Hawkes and Kiernan Ryan.
Preservation, Radicalism, and the Avant-Garde Canon (Avant-Gardes in Performance)
by R. Ferreboeuf F. Noble T. PlunkettCombining a range of content with self-reflexive examination by scholars and practitioners, this edited volume interrogates the contemporary significance of the avant-garde. Rather than focusing on a particular region, period, or movement, the contributors bring together case studies to examine what constitutes the avant-garde canon.
Press Conference
by Harold PinterHarold Pinter can sketch a world in a few lines which reveal the power of his vision focussed on the horrors that have been and that are to come.
Pressure Drop (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Mick Gordon Billy BraggMaverick theatre makers On Theatre join forces with legendary singer-songwriter Billy Bragg to explore what it means to be English in contemporary Britain. A drama of passion and predjudice, Pressure Drop takes us to the heart of one family's struggle to define home. Pressure Drop is a new production from Maverick theatre-makers On Theatre, who are headed up by renowned theatre director Mick Gordon. In the tradition of previous On Theatre productions an intellectual theme is explored, specifically in Pressure Drop the theme of national identity.
Preston Bill (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Andy Smith‘Most of this story takes place here, in the north of England. This is it. This is the north of England.’ The Preston Bill is a new monologue from acclaimed theatre maker Andy Smith. Telling the story of the life of a man from this city, it reflects on the socio-political and historical shifts of the last eighty years by placing everyday moments alongside extraordinary global events. Commissioned and produced by Fuel for the New Theatre in Your Neighbourhood project, The Preston Bill can be presented in any room that can be turned into a theatre for its duration. It has been performed in a social club, a gallery, and around a pub table as well as in more conventional and traditional theatre spaces. This volume also contains the texts of two earlier works, commonwealth and all that is solid melts into air, which have also been presented as a double bill under the title two from a smith.
Preston Sturges: The Last Years Of Hollywood's First Writer-director
by Nick Smedley Tom SturgesFew directors of the 1930s and 40s were as distinctive and popular as Preston Sturges, whose whipsmart comedies have entertained audiences for decades. This book offers a new critical appreciation of Sturges’ whole oeuvre, incorporating a detailed study of the last ten years of his life from new primary sources.
Priapea: Poems for a Phallic God (Routledge Revivals)
by W. H. ParkerFirst published in 1988, Priapea is a collection of eighty Latin epigrams, English translated, that make up the corpus Priapeorum, which displays remarkable skill, artistry and wit. Their elegance of style contrasts strikingly with their indecent subject matter. The poems are mostly spoken by, or addressed to, the lewd god Priapus, famous for the size and tenseness of his erect membrum virile or phallus. A main theme is the threatened use of his formidable organ to assault obscenely any intruders that he may catch thieving, but requests and offsprings made to Priapus, and his comparison of himself with other deities, also figure prominently among the poems. This book will be of interest of literature, classical studies, and translation studies.
Priapea: Poems for a Phallic God (Routledge Revivals)
First published in 1988, Priapea is a collection of eighty Latin epigrams, English translated, that make up the corpus Priapeorum, which displays remarkable skill, artistry and wit. Their elegance of style contrasts strikingly with their indecent subject matter. The poems are mostly spoken by, or addressed to, the lewd god Priapus, famous for the size and tenseness of his erect membrum virile or phallus. A main theme is the threatened use of his formidable organ to assault obscenely any intruders that he may catch thieving, but requests and offsprings made to Priapus, and his comparison of himself with other deities, also figure prominently among the poems. This book will be of interest of literature, classical studies, and translation studies.
The Price: A Drama (Penguin Modern Classics)
by Arthur MillerVictor, a New York cop nearing retirement, moves among furniture in the disused attic of a house marked for demolition. Cabinets, desks, a damaged harp, an overstuffed armchair - the relics of a lost life of affluence he's finally come to sell. But when his brother Walter, who he hasn't spoken to in years, arrives, the talk stops being just about whether Victor's been offered a fair price for the furniture, and turns to the price that one and not the other of them paid when their father lost both his fortune and the will to go on ...
The Price (Student Editions)
by Arthur Miller"The Price is one of the most engrossing and entertaining plays that Miller has ever written." - The New Uork TimesWhen patriarch of the Franz family dies, his two sons return home to dispose of the furniture crammed in his attic: one is a successful surgeon, the other gave up everything to support their father following the Great Depression. As the pair sort through these abandoned belongings, frustrations, secrets and surprise guests are uncovered.With its touching and farcical presentation of American life beyond the Vietnam War and Great Depression, The Price is widely recognised as one of Miller's major works, earning him a Tony Award nomination in 1968.This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Yuko Kurahashi, with commentary and notes that explore the play's production history (including excerpts from interviews with the director and designers of the 2017 Arena Stage production) as well as the dramatic, thematic and academic debates that surround it.
The Price: The Misfits; After The Fall; Incident At Vichy; The Price; Creation Of The World; Playing For Time (Student Editions)
by Arthur Miller"The Price is one of the most engrossing and entertaining plays that Miller has ever written." - The New Uork TimesWhen patriarch of the Franz family dies, his two sons return home to dispose of the furniture crammed in his attic: one is a successful surgeon, the other gave up everything to support their father following the Great Depression. As the pair sort through these abandoned belongings, frustrations, secrets and surprise guests are uncovered.With its touching and farcical presentation of American life beyond the Vietnam War and Great Depression, The Price is widely recognised as one of Miller's major works, earning him a Tony Award nomination in 1968.This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Yuko Kurahashi, with commentary and notes that explore the play's production history (including excerpts from interviews with the director and designers of the 2017 Arena Stage production) as well as the dramatic, thematic and academic debates that surround it.
Prick Up Your Ears (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Simon BentA new play by Simon Bent. Inspired by John Lahr's biography and the diaries of Joe Orton. 1962. Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton - RADA graduates, aspiring playwrights, and sometime lovers - plot their rightful place at the centre of London’s literary scene. But after a short interlude at Her Majesty’s pleasure, Joe is about to become the greatest, and most notorious comic playwright since Oscar Wilde, whilst Ken stays indoors re-decorating, reduced to sharing Joe’s success with their neighbour, Mrs Corden, over tea and a slice of battenburg.Prick Up Your Ears - a darkly funny and moving play imagines what really happened when, after years of creative collaboration, the door slammed shut and Kenneth was home alone. It tells the sensational story behind the domestic life of Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, holed up in a tiny flat in Islington, trading well-trodden insults and hilarious put-downs like any old married couple.Prick Up Your Ears opened at the Comedy Theatre, London in September 2009, with a cast including Little Britain’s Matt Lucas and Chris New.
The Pride (Nhb Modern Plays Ser.)
by Alexi Kaye CampbellThe powerful debut play from Alexi Kaye Campbell, winner of an Olivier Award, the Critics' Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright, and the John Whiting Award for Best New Play. Alternating between 1958 and 2008, The Pride examines changing attitudes to sexuality, looking at intimacy, identity and the courage it takes to be who you really are. The 1958 Philip is in love with Oliver, but married to Sylvia. The 2008 Oliver is addicted to sex with strangers. Sylvia loves them both. The Pride was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs in November 2008. This edition of the play was published alongside its revival at the Trafalgar Studios in the West End in 2013. 'Marvellous, sad and blisteringly funny… a brave and rewarding drama that speaks to us all' - Guardian 'Ingenious and imaginative' - Evening Standard 'A remarkable debut from a daring dramatist' - Telegraph 'Stylish, zippy and surprisingly funny… a probing, troubled and often brilliant play' - Time Out
The Pride of Parnell Street
by Sebastian BarrySee, love between a man and a woman, it's - private. It happens where you never do see it. In rooms.Italy 1 - Ireland 0...The score that marked Ireland's demoralizing exit from Italia '90 took its toll. No more so than for Janet and Joe Brady of Parnell Street who lost far more than the match that night. Some years on, Joe and Janet reveal the intimacies of their love and the rupture of their marriage, through interconnecting monologues that also evoke their life-long love affair with Dublin city itself. Sebastian Barry's explores with vivid tenderness the devastating effects of public and private acts of violence. This is an intimate, heroic tale of ordinary and extraordinary life on the streets of Dublin. Fishamble's world premiere of The Pride of Parnell Street opened at the Tricycle Theatre, London, and as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival at the Tivoli Theatre, Dublin, in September 2007.
Priestley: Plays One (Oberon Modern Playwrights)
by J. B. PriestleyIncludes the plays Laburnum Grove, When We Are Married and Mr Kettle and Mrs MoonWith an introduction by Tom Priestley and a foreword by Roy Hattersley.These three domestic comedies display J B Priestley's talent for the ordinary situation turned sharply on its head. In Laburnum Grove George Radfern's friends and relations want a share of his wealth - until they find out where it's come from. When We Are Married features three high-minded couples who gather to celebrate their silver wedding anniversaries, only to discover they were never properly married at all.And in Mr Kettle and Mrs Moon an unassuming bank manager turns rebel when a voice tells him to pack in his position and stay at home.In these mischievous depictions of respectability gone awry, the proud and the prejudiced battle against emerging truths and potential scandal. J B Priestley proves himself a skilled craftsman and presents his characters with rich humour, warmth and humanity.
Priestley: Plays Two (Oberon Modern Playwrights)
by J. B. PriestleyIncludes the plays They Came to a City, Summer Day's Dream and The Glass CageWith an introduction by Tom Priestley.All three dramas in this second volume of J B Priestley's plays investigate the question of an individual's responsibility towards his or her family and community. In They Came to a City, written at the height of the Second World War, a mixed bag of Britons mysteriously find themselves outside a strange city. What kind of 'New Jerusalem' is this, and will it suit everybody?Summer Day's Dream, first performed in 1949, is set in the future - 1975. In a Britain bombed back into pre-industrial past, three representatives of the new world order disturb the tranquil lives of three generations of an English family. The themes of hypocrisy and redemption are brought to the fore in The Glass Cage, when three black sheep of a respectable Toronto clan are grudgingly welcomed back into the family home.
Priestley Plays Four: The Thirty-first Of June; Jenny Villiers (Oberon Modern Playwrights)
by J. B. PriestleyTwo little known Priestley plays, which, while they are quite different, have important features in common. The 31st of June is a comedy set partly in an advertising agency and partly in a medieval castle; Jenny Villiers is a serious play set backstage in an old provincial theatre. But both exploit elements of Time. In the 31st of June scenes switch between modern times and the middle ages, while characters move between both. There are kings, company bosses, princesses, fashion models, dwarves and two rival magicians. causing confusion and romance. Jenny Villiers examines life in the Theatre. The doubts of the present are confronted by players from the past, and a jaded playwright recovers his faith in the Theatre. Both plays were performed on the stage, but later rewritten and published as novels.
Primetime: Young Writers Festival and Peckham Young Playwrights Project (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Various AuthorsPack your bags and hold on tight and you’re whisked away on a whirlwind of adventure. And get ready to meet a host of captivating characters, including a talking sausage roll, a troop of cocktail-loving monkeys and a long-nosed hippo called Gary, who will win you over with their charm whether you’re 8 or 80. The Primetime plays were developed during the Young Writers Festival and Peckham Young Playwrights project in 2012, with the help of Royal Court playwrights Nick Payne and Rachel De-lahay. The plays were performed in the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs in 2013, as part of a programme called Kids Court, where children took over the theatre. A selection of the plays were then performed for the Royal Court’s Primetime Schools Tour in London primary schools in 2014.
The Prince (Modern Plays)
by Abigail ThornAll the world's a stage.Have you ever been trapped in a bad relationship, playing a role that doesn't suit you? Jen and Sam are also trapped … in a multiverse of Shakepeare's complete works.On their quest to discover the doorway back to reality they notice something unusual about Henry 'Hotspur' Percy. Now Jen and Sam must decide; do they risk losing their way home to help someone who might be like them – someone who does not yet know who she truly is?The Prince is a sharp new play that weaves through Henry IV Part One and other of the Bard's works, providing fun for the audience whether they be Shakespeare scholars or verse virgins. With sword fighting, lesbianism, and disappointed parents, this thrilling new work was written by Abigail Thorn,celebrated creator of Philosophy Tube.This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at London's Southwark Playhouse, in September 2022.
The Prince (Modern Plays)
by Abigail ThornAll the world's a stage.Have you ever been trapped in a bad relationship, playing a role that doesn't suit you? Jen and Sam are also trapped … in a multiverse of Shakepeare's complete works.On their quest to discover the doorway back to reality they notice something unusual about Henry 'Hotspur' Percy. Now Jen and Sam must decide; do they risk losing their way home to help someone who might be like them – someone who does not yet know who she truly is?The Prince is a sharp new play that weaves through Henry IV Part One and other of the Bard's works, providing fun for the audience whether they be Shakespeare scholars or verse virgins. With sword fighting, lesbianism, and disappointed parents, this thrilling new work was written by Abigail Thorn,celebrated creator of Philosophy Tube.This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at London's Southwark Playhouse, in September 2022.
The Prince and the Pauper (Modern Plays)
by Jemma KennedyYou are a Prince, not a pauper. And before too long the whole of England will be in your hands...Jemma Kennedy's stage adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper is a dynamic and fast-paced adaptation of Mark Twain's 1881 classic novel of confused identities. Set in a gritty, vibrant Tudor London, the poverty-stricken Tom Canty has a chance meeting with the young heir to the throne, Prince Edward, and – by pure coincidence – they find they look almost identical.The Prince and the Pauper tells the story of what happens when one person is mistaken for the other and what happens to them in the long-term: Tom Canty is forced into the world of the court and power, while Edward is cast down into a world of poverty and thieves, from which he must fight his way back to the court.First produced at the Unicorn Theatre, the UK's leading theatre for young audiences aged 2 – 21 from the 25th November 2012 to the 13 January 2013.
The Prince and the Pauper (Modern Plays)
by Jemma KennedyYou are a Prince, not a pauper. And before too long the whole of England will be in your hands...Jemma Kennedy's stage adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper is a dynamic and fast-paced adaptation of Mark Twain's 1881 classic novel of confused identities. Set in a gritty, vibrant Tudor London, the poverty-stricken Tom Canty has a chance meeting with the young heir to the throne, Prince Edward, and – by pure coincidence – they find they look almost identical.The Prince and the Pauper tells the story of what happens when one person is mistaken for the other and what happens to them in the long-term: Tom Canty is forced into the world of the court and power, while Edward is cast down into a world of poverty and thieves, from which he must fight his way back to the court.First produced at the Unicorn Theatre, the UK's leading theatre for young audiences aged 2 – 21 from the 25th November 2012 to the 13 January 2013.