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Resurrection Blues (Penguin Modern Classics)
by Arthur MillerArthur Miller's penultimate play, Resurrection Blues, is a darkly comic satirical allegory that poses the question: What would happen if Christ were to appear in the world today? In an unidentified Latin American country, General Felix Barriaux has captured an elusive revolutionary leader. The rebel, known by various names, is rumoured to have performed miracles throughout the countryside. The General plans to crucify the mysterious man, and the exclusive television rights to the twenty-four-hour reality-TV event have been sold to an American network. An allegory that asserts the interconnectedness of our actions and each person's culpability in world events, Resurrection Blues is a comedic and tragic satire of precarious morals in our media-saturated age.
Wedekind Plays: Spring Awakening: A Children's Tragedy, Lulu: A Monster Tragedy (World Classics)
by Frank WedekindWedekind's expressionist plays influenced the whole course of modern dramaA moralist who wore the mask of an immoralist, Wedekind was the terror of the German bourgeoisie. His work was censored and the original Lulu play was not even published during his lifetime; Wedekind toned it down and adapted it to make two plays: Pandora's Box and Earth-Spirit. The version in this volume, Lulu: A Monster Tragedy, is based on the first manuscript, presenting the original sexually voracious heroine to a British audience for the first time. The volume also contains Spring Awakening, "a work of great compassion that still has a lot to teach us about the dangers of battening down adolescent sex..." (Guardian). The translation of Spring Awakening ("scrupulously faithful both to Wedekind's irony and his poetry" The Times) was commissioned by the National Theatre and that of Lulu: A Monster Tragedy ("the Bonds' version is sharper and funnier than its predecessors" Guardian) was toured nationally. Both plays are complemented by the translators' historically illuminating introductions.
Martine: Piece En Cinq Tableaux (1922) (Oberon Modern Plays)
by John Fowles Jean-Jacques Bernard‘When you’re away I can’t survive without her, I keep talking to her about you. And I hurt her. I seem to have to do it.’ The Great War is over. It is the summer of 1920, in rural France. By a dusty road, a girl is sitting under the shade of an apple tree. She sees someone walking towards her. He is a young man, just back from fighting in Syria. He joins her under the tree, and a tragic love story begins. Often compared to Chekhov, and much admired by Harold Pinter, Jean-Jacques Bernard creates a unique emotional landscape of beauty and longing, desire and disappointment. Martine was written in 1922 and John Fowles wrote this translation for a revival at the National Theatre in 1985.
Restoring Shakespeare: A Critical Analysis of the Misreadings in Shakespeare's Works (Routledge Revivals)
by Leon KellnerThe genius of Shakespeare is not always accessible or easily understandable to readers and audiences. Leon Kellner points out that sometimes Shakespeare’s languages does not make sense at all but this is not necessarily because his metaphors are too complex. Rather, the printing of his works is often filled with errors. Originally published in 1925, Kellner’s work explores the reasons and potential mistakes which may account for the unintelligible passages in Shakespeare such as handwriting, abbreviations, and the confusing of pronouns. This title will be of interest to students of English Literature and Linguistics.
Restoring Shakespeare: A Critical Analysis of the Misreadings in Shakespeare's Works (Routledge Revivals)
by Leon KellnerThe genius of Shakespeare is not always accessible or easily understandable to readers and audiences. Leon Kellner points out that sometimes Shakespeare’s languages does not make sense at all but this is not necessarily because his metaphors are too complex. Rather, the printing of his works is often filled with errors. Originally published in 1925, Kellner’s work explores the reasons and potential mistakes which may account for the unintelligible passages in Shakespeare such as handwriting, abbreviations, and the confusing of pronouns. This title will be of interest to students of English Literature and Linguistics.
The Plough and the Stars
by Sean O'CaseyThis educational edition, with the full play text and an introduction to the playwright, features a detailed analysis of the language, structure and characters of the play, and textual notes explaining difficult words and references. It contains:- The full playtext- An introduction to the playwright, his background and his work- A detailed analysis of language, structure and characters in the play- Features of performance- Textual notes explaining difficult words and references
Reflections From Shakespeare: A Series of Lectures (Routledge Library Editions: Study of Shakespeare)
by Lena AshwellOriginally published in 1926, this title was edited from a series of lectures the author gave to raise money for her theatre group the Lena Ashwell Players. Through her work as a producer the author gained a deeper knowledge of a number of Shakespeare’s plays and in order to support her work gave a number of lectures on "Women in Shakespeare". This title was perhaps the first book by a woman of the profession, appealing to the public for a larger and deeper understanding of Shakespeare: the man, his life, and that group of tragedies in which he fathomed Hell, then scaled the Heavens.
Reflections From Shakespeare: A Series of Lectures (Routledge Library Editions: Study of Shakespeare)
by Lena AshwellOriginally published in 1926, this title was edited from a series of lectures the author gave to raise money for her theatre group the Lena Ashwell Players. Through her work as a producer the author gained a deeper knowledge of a number of Shakespeare’s plays and in order to support her work gave a number of lectures on "Women in Shakespeare". This title was perhaps the first book by a woman of the profession, appealing to the public for a larger and deeper understanding of Shakespeare: the man, his life, and that group of tragedies in which he fathomed Hell, then scaled the Heavens.
Brecht Collected Plays: Man Equals Man; Elephant Calf; Threepenny Opera; Mahagonny; Seven Deadly Sins (World Classics)
by Bertolt Brecht John Willett Ralph ManheimPublished by Methuen Drama, the collected dramatic works of Bertolt Brecht are presented in the most comprehensive and authoritative editions of Brecht's plays in the English language.This second volume of Brecht's Collected Plays brings together some of his most glittering Berlin successes including The Threepenny Opera, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, The Seven Deadly Sins, Man Equals Man and The Elephant Calf. The Threepenny Opera is the story of the mercurial beggar turned entrepeneur Peachum and his battles with the criminal Mac 'the Knife'; Mahagonny, an operatic satire on the search for an American capitalist utopia; The Seven Deadly Sins is a ballet with songs that predicts the downfall of the petty bourgeosie and was first performed as the Nazis planned their book burning exercise. Man equals Man is an exploration of the theory of equality and The Elephant Calf is a play within a play based on an Indian folk story.The translators include W H Auden and Chester Kallman, Ralph Manheim, Gerhard Nellhaus and John Willett. The translations are ideal for both study and performance. The volume is accompanied by a full introduction and notes by the series editor John Willett and includes Brecht's own notes and relevant texts as well as all the important textual variants.
Waste: A Tragedy, In Four Acts (Modern Plays)
by Harley Granville BarkerA scandal half-stifled is worse than a scandal. One is at everybody's mercy.Backstage at a hung parliament, visionary Independent Henry Trebell is co-opted by the Tories to push through a controversial Bill. Pursuing his cause with missionary zeal, he's barely distracted by his brief affair with a married woman until she suffers a lethal backstreet abortion. Threatened by public scandal, the Establishment closes ranks and coolly seals the fate of an idealistic man.Famously banned by the censors in 1907, Harley Granville Barker's controversial masterpiece gathers a large ensemble to expose a cut-throat, cynical world of sex, sleaze and suicide amongst the political elite of Edwardian England.This edition was published for the National Theatre's revival in November 2015.
Mercer Plays: Where the Difference Begins; A Suitable Case for Treatment; The Governor's Lady; On the Eve of Publication; The Cellar and the Almond Tree; Emma's Time; After Haggerty (Contemporary Dramatists)
by David MercerThe first volume of stage and TV plays by one of the best British TV writersWhere the Difference Begins, a naturalist play for television, is about the "difference" between thirties deprivation and fifties affluence, between material prosperity and its accompanying spiritual and political apathy, as embodied by sixty-year-old railwayman Wilf and his sons; A Suitable Case for Treatment, a play for television, portrays a man who, on account of his communist beliefs, is unable to conform to the world around him and associates more with the gorilla he sees in the zoo than with his own wife; The Governor's Lady is set in colonial Africa focussing on a reactionary central figure; broadcast on BBC TV during the lates 60s and early 70s The Kelvin trilogy (On the Eve of Publication, The Cellar and the Almond Tree and Emma's Time) moves between Britain and Eastern Europe, the the past and the present.After Haggerty, Mercer's first major stage success is, in the playwright's own words "an intervention and a commentary on the supposed revolutionary theatre of 1968 and after."Mercer "demands in my mind the saem love and esteem I feel for Gorky. They share a generosity of spirit, a desire for change, and a savage compassion for those who must be changed." David Jones (director)
An Outline History of the Japanese Drama (Routledge Revivals)
by Frank Alanson LombardStudents of international drama are turning more and more to the study of Japanese drama, desirous to know to what extent its development duplicates or differs from the evolution of drama in other countries. Stimulated by the colour, originality, power, and poetry, they are interested to know more. This title, first published in 1928, traces the general development of the drama of the Japanese. This book will be of interest to students of drama, theatre studies and Asian Studies.
An Outline History of the Japanese Drama (Routledge Revivals)
by Frank Alanson LombardStudents of international drama are turning more and more to the study of Japanese drama, desirous to know to what extent its development duplicates or differs from the evolution of drama in other countries. Stimulated by the colour, originality, power, and poetry, they are interested to know more. This title, first published in 1928, traces the general development of the drama of the Japanese. This book will be of interest to students of drama, theatre studies and Asian Studies.
Art, Truth and Politics: The Nobel Lecture
by Harold PinterArts, Truth and Politics is Harold Pinter's lecture on receipt of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Three Plays for Puritans: The Devil's Disciple, Caesar And Cleopatra, And Captain Brassbound's Conversion...
by George Bernard Shaw Michael BillingtonShaw believed that theatre audiences of the 1890s deserved more than the hollow spectacle and sham he saw displayed on the London stage. But he also recognized that people wanted to be entertained while educated, and to see purpose mixed with pleasure. In these three plays of ideas, Shaw employed traditional dramatic forms - Victorian melodrama, the history play and the adventure story - to turn received wisdom upside down. Set during the American War of Independence, The Devil's Disciple exposes fake Puritanism and piety, while Caesar and Cleopatra, a cheeky riposte to Shakespeare, redefines heroism in the character of the ageing Roman leader. And in Captain Brassbound's Conversion, an expedition in Morocco is saved from disaster by a lady explorer's skilful manipulation of the truth.
The Roundabout (Oberon Modern Plays)
by J. B. Priestley‘Communism’s all right for a gentleman like yourself, but you’ll get over it.’ The Kettlewells are a dysfunctional family. Richard is an old Etonian whose business ventures are failing. Over one crowded weekend, his daughter Pamela, whom he hardly knows, returns from Russia, a passionate communist; his ex-wife and mistress both turn up; and his butler has a big win at the races. The Roundabout is a funny, touching, highly perceptive look at England in the 1930s, when it looked, just possibly, as if the social order might be changing.
Ben Jonson (Routledge Revivals)
by John PalmerOriginally published in 1934, Palmer’s biography of famous playwright Ben Jonson delves into his life and works and what he achieved in both. As first poet laureate of England, Jonson’s life presents a fascinating look into the state of literature and theatre in renaissance Britain which Palmer presents in great detail. This title will be of interest to students of literature.
Ben Jonson (Routledge Revivals)
by John PalmerOriginally published in 1934, Palmer’s biography of famous playwright Ben Jonson delves into his life and works and what he achieved in both. As first poet laureate of England, Jonson’s life presents a fascinating look into the state of literature and theatre in renaissance Britain which Palmer presents in great detail. This title will be of interest to students of literature.
Brecht and the Writer's Workshop: Fatzer and Other Dramatic Projects (World Classics)
by Bertolt Brecht Tom KuhnBrecht was never inclined to see any of his plays as completely finished, and this volume collects some of the most important theatrical projects and fragments that were always to remain 'works in progress'. Offering an invaluable insight into the writer's working methods and practices, the collection features the famous Fatzer as well as The Bread Store and Judith of Shimoda, along with other texts that have never before been available in English.Alongside the familiar, 'completed' plays, Brecht worked on many ideas and plans which he never managed to work up even once for print or stage. In pieces like Fleischhacker, Garbe/Büsching and Jacob Trotalong we see how such projects were abandoned or interrupted or became proving grounds for ideas and techniques. The works collated here span over thirty years and allow the reader to follow Brecht's creative process as he constantly revised his work to engage with new contexts.This treasure-trove of new discoveries is also annotated with dramaturgical notes to present readable and useable texts for the theatre.The volume is edited by Tom Kuhn and Charlotte Ryland, with the translation and dramaturgical edition of each play provided by a team of experienced writers, scholars and translators.
John Bull's Other Island: And Major Barbara [and How He Lied To Her Husband]
by George Bernard ShawShaw’s story is rife with such ‘beyond opinions’, as an Anglo-Irish Protestant, a Dubliner in London, and a socialist living in the aftermath of the industrial revolution. In one sense, as a Protestant choosing to live in London, he is a John Bull, yet he remains Irish – an Irish Bull, something alluded to in his one play set in Eire, John Bull’s Other Island.
Pygmalion: A Romance In Five Acts (classic Reprint)
by George Bernard Shaw Nicholas GrenePygmalion both delighted and scandalized its first audiences in 1914. A brilliantly witty reworking of the classical tale of the sculptor Pygmalion, who falls in love with his perfect female statue, it is also a barbed attack on the British class system and a statement of Shaw's feminist views. In Shaw's hands, the phoneticist Henry Higgins is the Pygmalion figure who believes he can transform Eliza Doolittle, a cockney flower girl, into a duchess at ease in polite society. The one thing he overlooks is that his 'creation' has a mind of her own.
The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet and Fanny's First Play
by Dan Laurence George Bernard Shaw‘A tearing, flaring, revivalist drama’ was how Desmond MacCarthy described The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet. Set in America’s Wild West and aptly subtitled ‘A Sermon in Crude Melodrama’, this single-act play concerns the conversion of a horse thief desperate to ‘keep the devil’ in him and die game. Published in 1909, it brought Shaw into conflict with the Lord Chamberlain of England, who banned it on the grounds of alleged blasphemy, and it was twelve years before the play was performed in a London theatre. In an interview Shaw commented, ‘I am sorry that Fanny’s First Play has destroyed the cherished legend that I am an unpopular playwright … for the first time I have allowed a play of mine to run itself to death … And the worst of it is it will not die.’ First performed in 1911, the play is a delightful farce in which Shaw debates some of his favourite subjects: middle-class morality, marriage, parents and children and women’s rights. And, deliberately concealing his authorship, Shaw took the opportunity to satirize contemporary drama critics who, he claimed, ‘do not know dramatic chalk from dramatic cheese when it is no longer labelled for them.’
The New Soviet Theatre (Routledge Revivals)
by Joseph MacleodFirst Published in 1943, The New Soviet Theatre presents Joseph Macleod’s take on the development and rapid changes in the Soviet Theatre since late 1930s. Through scattered articles and reports, books and bulletins, and his own visits to the USSR, Macleod showcases what we know as ‘Socialist Realism’. He brings themes like the shortcomings of the old theatre; the audience beyond the Caucasus; new socialist audiences; Alexey Popov of the Central Theatre of the Red Army; new writers and new plays; and popularity of Shakespeare both in the central theatres and in remoter and unexpected places. Written graphically but founded on scholarship this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of history of theatre, European theatre, theatre and performance studies.
The New Soviet Theatre (Routledge Revivals)
by Joseph MacleodFirst Published in 1943, The New Soviet Theatre presents Joseph Macleod’s take on the development and rapid changes in the Soviet Theatre since late 1930s. Through scattered articles and reports, books and bulletins, and his own visits to the USSR, Macleod showcases what we know as ‘Socialist Realism’. He brings themes like the shortcomings of the old theatre; the audience beyond the Caucasus; new socialist audiences; Alexey Popov of the Central Theatre of the Red Army; new writers and new plays; and popularity of Shakespeare both in the central theatres and in remoter and unexpected places. Written graphically but founded on scholarship this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of history of theatre, European theatre, theatre and performance studies.
Androcles and the Lion: Overruled; Pygmalion
by Dan Laurence George Bernard ShawAndrocles and the Lion is a 1912 play written by George Bernard Shaw.Androcles and the Lion is Shaw's retelling of the tale of Androcles, a slave who is saved by the requited mercy of a lion. In the play, Shaw makes Androcles out to be one of many Christians being led to the Colosseum for torture. Characters in the play exemplify several themes and takes on both modern and supposed early Christianity, including cultural clash between Jesus' teachings and traditional Roman values.