Compiles more than eighty scenes by such modern playwrights as Williams, Slade, Miller, Zindel, and Feiffer for two men, two women, and one man and one woman
Dr Sanders' book grew out of uneasiness over commonly accepted ways of talking about Elizabethan literature. Phrases like 'world picture', 'received ideas' are so easily used that we bypass important questions: A picture of whose word? Ideas received by whom? and in what way? The heart of Dr Sanders' book is a critical account of seven plays by Marlowe and Shakespeare (The Massacre at Paris, The Jew of Malta, Edward II, Dr Faustus, Richard II, Richard III and Macbeth). In his examination, Dr Sanders is at pains to analyse the nature of the intellectual and cultural environment in which the plays were written, to define the ways in which this environment influenced Marlowe and Shakespeare and thus to come to a full understanding of the manner in which a work of art can be simultaneously 'of an age' and 'for all time'.
Reality and fantasy are interwoven with terrifying power as two actors on tour—brother and sister—find themselves deserted by the trope in a decrepit "state theatre in an unknown state."
In this interpretation of the seven extant tragedies of Sophocles, Professor Winnington-Ingram provides not so much a straightforward account of Sophocles as an exploration of his tragic vision of the world. The Sophoclean 'hero' lies at the centre of this vision. Taking the plays individually but without losing sight of the single consistent mind behind them, the author faces the questions of how the hero is to be regarded, what we are to make of the fates he suffered and the divine powers who controlled those fates. He proceeds by a detailed study of what Sophocles wrote, by close attention to form and recurrent themes, and especially by close analysis of a number of choral odes. Students of Greek drama will find that this detailed study provides invaluable insights into the meaning of the tragedies. Greek in the text is translated or paraphrased, so that the book will also be of interest to students of the literature and drama of other cultures.
These six plays span nearly twenty years of theatre and display the range of Lillian Hellman's dramatic gifts. The Children's Hour (1934), her first play, was considered shocking at the time; it conce
Dr Dover Wilson examines Falstaff's role in the two parts of Henry IV and his relationship to the Prince. Like most other Shakespearean scholars he had accepted, Bradley's portrait as shown in The Rej
Menander, the dominant figure in New Comedy, wrote over 100 plays. By the Middle Ages they had all been lost. Happily papyrus finds in Egypt during the past century have recovered one complete play,
Available until now only in verse translation, it has been newly rendered for the American stage by Diana Stone Peters and Frederick G.Peters.A work of profound psychological insight, Prince Friedric
For a full understanding of any text, careful consideration must be given to its life in performance. In this rewarding study of four of Chekhov's major plays - Uncle Vanya, The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard and Three Sisters - J. L. Styan demonstrates the development of Chekhov's skills as a dramatist and discusses stage action, portrayal of character, differing twentieth-century productions and the audience reactions they evoked.
This volume contains everything Behan wrote in dramatic form in English. First come the three famous full-length plays: The Quare Fellow, set in an Irish prison, is "something very like a masterpiece
Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New
Together in this volume are two plays by the Scandinavian geniuses of modern drama, which focus on a single theme–the reality of death. Translated and edited by Thaddeus L. Torp, this edition contains
In this 1976 introduction to Brecht's theatre and theory, Ronald Gray explores the dramatist's interacting roles as a committed Marxist seeking to influence audiences and as one of the most innovative craftsmen ever to work in the theatre. Dr Gray traces the development of Brecht's dramatic work in the context of his life and time and discussed its significance, devoting chapters to reappraisals of the major plays. Particular attention is paid to Brecht's dramatic theories and their relationship to Hegelian and Marxist philosophy, to the tradition of political theatre in Germany in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and to the influence Brecht had on English and American post-war drama. There are also detailed accounts of how many of the plays appeared in Brecht's own productions, and frequent references to actual performances in widely differing theatrical styles.