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This is Paradise
by Michael John O'NeillI feel so fucking sillybut I thought they meant real peacefucking hell KateyI thought they meant that even my bodyit might stopbreakingNorthern Ireland, 1998. The Good Friday Agreement has just been signed, politicians are shaking hands and declaring peace in our time, when Kate receives an urgent phone call. As she travels to the coastal town of Portbenoney to confront an old lover, dark memories of their time together rise in her like a river.This is Paradise by Michael John O'Neill speaks in a fierce and powerful voice. With brutal lyricism, it examines the legacy of violence and asks how we can begin to mend in its wake. The play opened at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in July 2022.
This Is Shakespeare: How to Read the World's Greatest Playwright (Pelican Books)
by Emma Smith'I admire the freshness and attack of her writing, the passion and curiosity that light up the page. The book does something very important - it makes you impatient to see or re-read the plays at once' Hilary MantelA genius and prophet whose timeless works encapsulate the human condition like no others. A writer who surpassed his contemporaries in vision, originality and literary mastery. Who wrote like an angel, putting it all so much better than anyone else.Is this Shakespeare? Well, sort of.But it doesn't really tell us the whole truth. So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant, deflecting us from investigating the challenges of his inconsistencies and flaws. This electrifying new book thrives on revealing, not resolving, the ambiguities of Shakespeare's plays and their changing topicality. It introduces an intellectually, theatrically and ethically exciting writer who engages with intersectionality as much as with Ovid, with economics as much as poetry: who writes in strikingly modern ways about individual agency, privacy, politics, celebrity and sex. It takes us into a world of politicking and copy-catting, as we watch him emulating the blockbusters of Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd, the Spielberg and Tarantino of their day; flirting with and skirting round the cut-throat issues of succession politics, religious upheaval and technological change. The Shakespeare in this book poses awkward questions rather than offering bland answers, always implicating us in working out what it might mean.This is Shakespeare. And he needs your attention.
This Island's Mine (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Philip Osment1988. THATCHER’S BRITAIN. Seventeen-year-old Luke runs away to London – away from homophobic playground slurs, headlines that scream ‘Don’t Teach Our Children To Be Gay’ and a family who wouldn’t understand him – to Uncle Martin, who he once saw with his arms around another man at a march. In the capital, Mark is sacked because of fears about colleagues working with ‘someone like him’. His boyfriend, Selwyn, faces being beaten up both by the police and at home by his own stepbrother. Meanwhile, Debbie battles with her son, who doesn’t want to live with her and her girlfriend. And retired piano teacher Miss Rosenblum – who once found refuge in this country from a terror that swept away half her family in 1930s Vienna – has seen this sort of hatred and fear before. Soon, these individual stories – of first loves and old flames, alliances and abandonment, missed opportunities and new chances – intertwine to paint a vivid picture of Eighties Britain. This Island’s Mine was originally performed by Gay Sweatshop in 1988. Now, three decades after the introduction of Section 28 banning positive representations of homosexuality, Philip Osment’s passionate and lyrical play, of outsiders, exiles and refugees, is all too resonant.
This Land (Modern Plays)
by Siân OwenAnd strange smells would arrive on the wind. So it seemed that there was some kind of magic in this field. Some said that there was a dragon underneath that had been woken by the lightning. Some said there was treasure down there too. Fracking. How far down do you own the land beneath your feet? How much does where you live inform the person you become? What happens when someone else comes along and stakes their claim?For young couple Bea and Joseph this is a story of fracture: of fractured hearts, lives and lands.This Land digs down through the history – and the future – of a patch of earth and everything that has and will happen there. This programme text edition was published to coincide with the play's premiere by Pentabus Theatre Company, Shropshire, in March 2016.
This Land (Modern Plays)
by Siân OwenAnd strange smells would arrive on the wind. So it seemed that there was some kind of magic in this field. Some said that there was a dragon underneath that had been woken by the lightning. Some said there was treasure down there too. Fracking. How far down do you own the land beneath your feet? How much does where you live inform the person you become? What happens when someone else comes along and stakes their claim?For young couple Bea and Joseph this is a story of fracture: of fractured hearts, lives and lands.This Land digs down through the history – and the future – of a patch of earth and everything that has and will happen there. This programme text edition was published to coincide with the play's premiere by Pentabus Theatre Company, Shropshire, in March 2016.
This Might Not Be It (Nhb Modern Plays Ser.)
by Sophia Chetin-LeunerJay's new. He's just started as a temp in NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. He arrives with little more than a fledgling desk plant and well-meaning plans to change the broken system. Angela's been working here for over thirty years and nothing seems to faze her – except Jay. Exhausted and worn down by archaic protocol, Jay starts bending the rules in a desperate attempt to help their patients. But when professional boundaries are crossed and trust is shattered, he discovers the harsh reality of what's truly at stake. Sophia Chetin-Leuner's play This Might Not Be It is a candid portrayal of human lives at the mercy of our crumbling NHS. The play was longlisted for the Verity Bargate Award and shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Playwriting. It was premiered at the Bush Theatre, London, in 2023, directed by Ed Madden and produced by Broccoli Arts and Jessie Anand Productions. 'The beauty of this piece is that it speaks in a universal language about the way people find ways of co-existing in an office where space is tight and time is short' - The Times 'Intriguing and immensely engaging' - Guardian 'Timely and compelling& the characters are startlingly vivid, filled with hopes, flaws and intriguing contradictions' - The Stage 'Affecting, with much to admire' - Telegraph
This Other City (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Daragh CarvilleIn the newest play from this prolific Northern Irish writer, Carville turns his attention to the demons beneath the shiny surface of the new, metropolitan Belfast. This Other City plays out against a backdrop of coffee shops, beauty salons and overpriced apartments. It’s a Belfast where dodgy deals are done in boutique hotel rooms with a view.
This Restless House: an adaptation of Aeschlyus' Oresteia (Faber Drama Ser.)
by Zinnie HarrisAeschylus' Oresteia opens with Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter to the gods; an act which sets in motion a bloody cycle of revenge and counter-revenge. When he in turn is killed at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra, their son Orestes takes up the mantle of avenging his father, continuing the bloodshed until peace is ultimately found in the rule of law.Zinnie Harris reimagines this ancient drama, using a contemporary sensibility to rework the stories, placing the women in the centre. Orestes' leading role is replaced by his sister Electra, who as a young child witnesses her father's murder and is compelled to take justice into her own hands until she too must flee the Furies. This Restless House premiered at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, in April 2016 in a co-production with the National Theatre of Scotland.
This Will End Badly (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Rob HayesYou can’t even shit. Animals shit. Dogs. Insects. Microbes. You’re being outskilled by the most primitive lifeforms on Earth. Repressed rage. Entrenched isolation. Compacted bowels. Rob Hayes’ trio of interwoven monologues offers a funny, disturbing, and brutally honest assault on the illusion of modern masculinity.
Thom Pain: (based On Nothing) (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Will EnoFrom the last lonely wilderness, the last dark corner of these overlit times, in the camouflage of the common man, Thom Pain takes the stage, fumbling with his heart, squinting into the light. With terrible timing and impeccable regret, over-educated in the wrong ways, and wounded in the right ones, he appears. Teeth bared, as he picks a piece of lint off his suit.Listen to the language writhe, as he tries to say hello. Meet Thom Pain. A man who has only had, by his own reckless reckoning, three or four things happen to him in life. A man who is, by his own admittedly uninformed admission, a man much like a man or woman like you.Thom Pain opened at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2004, with a transfer to the Soho Theatre later that year.
Thomas Eccleshare: I'm Not Here Right Now; Heather; Instructions for Correct Assembly (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Thomas EccleshareCollected together for the first time are four works by young British playwright Thomas Eccleshare, whose plays have been performed to national and international acclaim over the past decade. Plays One includes Pastoral (winner of the Verity Bargate Award, 2011), I'm Not Here Right Now, Heather, as well as Instructions for Correct Assembly, Eccleshare's most recent play, which premiered downstairs at the Royal Court in 2018. Exploring themes including parenthood, the power of stories, and the meaning of truth in the modern world, this collection presents one of the bright new writing talents in UK theatre.
Thomas Hamblin and the Bowery Theatre: The New York Reign of "Blood and Thunder” Melodramas
by Thomas A. BogarThis book recounts the personal and professional life of Thomas Souness Hamblin (1800-1853), Shakespearean actor and Bowery Theatre manager. Primarily responsible for the popularity of “blood and thunder” melodramas with working class audiences in New York City, Hamblin discovered, trained and promoted many young actors and, especially, actresses who later became famous in their own right. He also epitomized the “sporting man” of mid-nineteenth century life, conducting a scandalous series of affairs and visits to Manhattan brothels, which cost him his marriage to Elizabeth Blanchard Hamblin (1799-1849) and made him the brunt of moralist, religious and journalistic crusades, notably that of James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald. His machinations and perseverance through trying challenges, including several destructions of the Bowery Theatre by fire, extensive financial and legal complications, and the untimely deaths of several young protégées, earned him equal measures of admiration and opprobrium.
Thomas Hamblin and the Bowery Theatre: The New York Reign of "Blood and Thunder” Melodramas
by Thomas A. BogarThis book recounts the personal and professional life of Thomas Souness Hamblin (1800-1853), Shakespearean actor and Bowery Theatre manager. Primarily responsible for the popularity of “blood and thunder” melodramas with working class audiences in New York City, Hamblin discovered, trained and promoted many young actors and, especially, actresses who later became famous in their own right. He also epitomized the “sporting man” of mid-nineteenth century life, conducting a scandalous series of affairs and visits to Manhattan brothels, which cost him his marriage to Elizabeth Blanchard Hamblin (1799-1849) and made him the brunt of moralist, religious and journalistic crusades, notably that of James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald. His machinations and perseverance through trying challenges, including several destructions of the Bowery Theatre by fire, extensive financial and legal complications, and the untimely deaths of several young protégées, earned him equal measures of admiration and opprobrium.
Thomas Hardy on Stage
by K. Wilson'Meticulously researched and lucidly written, this volume will likely become and remain the definitive study of the history of works Hardy adapted for the stage and of the Hardy Players who, in the main, performed them.' - John J. Conlon, English Literature in Transition 'Much new research informs this first full-length study of Hardy's involvement in stage productions based on his own works. The result is a closely reasoned account of the conflict between his desire to see his plots and characters brought to the stage, and his awareness of the attending difficulties.' - M.S. Vogeler, Choice Despite Hardy's lifelong interest in the theatre, this is the first comprehensive study of all aspects of his involvement with the stage, the only area of his literary activities left substantially unexplored. It discusses his own experiments at crafting scenarios and plays, all productions, both amateur and professional, with which he had any involvement, and his troubled negotiations with adapters, producers, and actors. It is fascinating for what it reveals about both the artist and the man, and offers particular insight into the paradoxical connections between the retiring Dorchester celebrity and the international man of letters.
Thomas Heywood and the classical tradition
by Tania Demetriou Janice Valls-RussellThis volume offers the first in-depth investigation of Thomas Heywood’s engagement with the classics. Its introduction and twelve essays trace how the classics shaped Heywood’s work in a variety of genres across a writing career of over forty years, ranging from drama, epic and epyllion, to translations, compendia and the design of a warship for Charles I. Close readings demonstrate the influence of a capaciously conceived classical tradition that included continental editions and translations of Latin and Greek texts, early modern mythographies and the medieval tradition of Troy. They attend to Heywood’s thought-provoking imitations and juxtapositions of these sources, his use of myth to interrogate gender and heroism, and his turn to antiquity to celebrate and defamiliarise the theatrical or political present. Heywood’s better-known works are discussed alongside critically neglected ones, making the collection valuable for undergraduates and researchers alike.
Thomas Heywood and the classical tradition
by Tania Demetriou and Janice Valls-RussellThis volume offers the first in-depth investigation of Thomas Heywood’s engagement with the classics. Its introduction and twelve essays trace how the classics shaped Heywood’s work in a variety of genres across a writing career of over forty years, ranging from drama, epic and epyllion, to translations, compendia and the design of a warship for Charles I. Close readings demonstrate the influence of a capaciously conceived classical tradition that included continental editions and translations of Latin and Greek texts, early modern mythographies and the medieval tradition of Troy. They attend to Heywood’s thought-provoking imitations and juxtapositions of these sources, his use of myth to interrogate gender and heroism, and his turn to antiquity to celebrate and defamiliarise the theatrical or political present. Heywood’s better-known works are discussed alongside critically neglected ones, making the collection valuable for undergraduates and researchers alike.
Thomas Hood and nineteenth-century poetry: Work, play, and politics (PDF)
by Sara LodgeThis is the first modern critical study of Thomas Hood, the popular and influential nineteenth-century poet, editor, cartoonist and voice of social protest. Acclaimed by Dickens, the Brownings and the Rossettis, Hood’s quirky, diverse output bridges the years between 1820 and 1845 and offers fascinating insights for Romanticists and Victorianists alike. Lodge’s timely book explores the relationship between Hood’s playfulness, his liberal politics, and contemporary cultural debate about labour and recreation, literary materiality and urban consumption. Each chapter examines something distinctive of interdisciplinary interest, including the early nineteenth-century print culture into which Hood was born; the traditional, urban and political ramifications of the grotesque art and literature aesthetic; the cultural politics of Hood’s trademark puns; theatre, leisure and the ‘labour question’. Lively and accessible, this book will appeal to scholars of nineteenth-century English Literature, Visual Arts and Cultural Studies.
Thomas Hood and nineteenth-century poetry: Work, play, and politics
by Sara LodgeThis is the first modern critical study of Thomas Hood, the popular and influential nineteenth-century poet, editor, cartoonist and voice of social protest. Acclaimed by Dickens, the Brownings and the Rossettis, Hood’s quirky, diverse output bridges the years between 1820 and 1845 and offers fascinating insights for Romanticists and Victorianists alike. Lodge’s timely book explores the relationship between Hood’s playfulness, his liberal politics, and contemporary cultural debate about labour and recreation, literary materiality and urban consumption. Each chapter examines something distinctive of interdisciplinary interest, including the early nineteenth-century print culture into which Hood was born; the traditional, urban and political ramifications of the grotesque art and literature aesthetic; the cultural politics of Hood’s trademark puns; theatre, leisure and the ‘labour question’. Lively and accessible, this book will appeal to scholars of nineteenth-century English Literature, Visual Arts and Cultural Studies.
Thomas ‘Jupiter’ Harris: Spinning dark intrigue at Covent Garden theatre, 1767–1820 (Manchester University Press Ser.)
by Warren OakleyThis is the first biography of Thomas Harris: confidant of George III, ‘spin doctor’, philanthropist, sexual suspect, brothel owner, and the man who controlled Covent Garden theatre for nearly five decades.
Thomas ‘Jupiter’ Harris: Spinning dark intrigue at Covent Garden theatre, 1767–1820
by Warren OakleyThis is the first biography of Thomas Harris: confidant of George III, ‘spin doctor’, philanthropist, sexual suspect, brothel owner, and the man who controlled Covent Garden theatre for nearly five decades.
Thomas Mann and Shakespeare: Something Rich and Strange (New Directions in German Studies)
by Ewan Fernie Tobias DöringBringing together scholars from diverse disciplines and countries, Thomas Mann and Shakespeare is the first book-length study to explore the always fascinating, if sometimes disturbing, connections between Shakespeare and Mann. It establishes startling resonances between the central works of these two authors, pairing, for instance, Der Zauberberg with The Tempest, Der Tod in Venedig with The Merchant of Venice, Tonio Kröger with Othello and Love's Labour's Lost with Doktor Faustus. Showing how the conjunction of Shakespeare and Mann affords new, alternative perspectives on fundamental issues such as modernity, irony, art, desire, authorship and religion, Thomas Mann and Shakespeare challenges the increasingly walled-in specialism of literary topics and periodization and demonstrates the scope for new ways of reading in literary studies.
Thomas Mann and Shakespeare: Something Rich and Strange (New Directions in German Studies)
by Ewan Fernie Tobias DöringBringing together scholars from diverse disciplines and countries, Thomas Mann and Shakespeare is the first book-length study to explore the always fascinating, if sometimes disturbing, connections between Shakespeare and Mann. It establishes startling resonances between the central works of these two authors, pairing, for instance, Der Zauberberg with The Tempest, Der Tod in Venedig with The Merchant of Venice, Tonio Kröger with Othello and Love's Labour's Lost with Doktor Faustus. Showing how the conjunction of Shakespeare and Mann affords new, alternative perspectives on fundamental issues such as modernity, irony, art, desire, authorship and religion, Thomas Mann and Shakespeare challenges the increasingly walled-in specialism of literary topics and periodization and demonstrates the scope for new ways of reading in literary studies.
Thomas Middleton: Women Beware Women, The Changeling, The Roaring Girl and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (New Mermaids)
by Thomas MiddletonThis New Mermaids anthology brings together the four most popular and widely studied of Thomas Middleton's plays - Women Beware Women; The Changeling; The Roaring Girl and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside - with a new introduction by William Carroll, examining the plays in the context of early modern theatre, culture and politics, as well as their language, characters and themes. On-page commentary notes guide students to a better understanding and combine to make this an indispensable student edition ideal for study and classroom use from A Level upwards.
Thomas Middleton: Women Beware Women, The Changeling, The Roaring Girl and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (New Mermaids)
by Thomas MiddletonThis New Mermaids anthology brings together the four most popular and widely studied of Thomas Middleton's plays - Women Beware Women; The Changeling; The Roaring Girl and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside - with a new introduction by William Carroll, examining the plays in the context of early modern theatre, culture and politics, as well as their language, characters and themes. On-page commentary notes guide students to a better understanding and combine to make this an indispensable student edition ideal for study and classroom use from A Level upwards.
Thomas Sheridan of Smock-Alley
by Esther K. SheldonThis account of Thomas Sheridan's career as theater manager has been based on biographies written by his contemporaries, on 18th-century newspapers and pamphlets, and on letters written to and by Sheridan. The author also gives us much new information about Sheridan’s relations with David Garrick. In an appendix, the author has included a Smock-Alley Calendar, giving a daily record of performances and casts. Most of the material in the Calendar has not been collected before and should be invaluable to theater historians.Originally published in 1967.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.