Literary studies: plays and playwrights Books

Book SynopsisThe famously private Sam Shepard gave a significant number of interviews over the course of his public life, and the interviewers who respected his boundaries found him to be forthcoming on a wide range of topics. The selected interviews here begin in 1969 when Shepard was twenty-six and end in 2016, eighteen months before his death.

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Book Synopsis"The indispensable critic on the indispensable writer." -Geoffrey O'Brien, New York Review of Books A landmark achievement as expansive, erudite, and passionate as its renowned author, this book is the culmination of a lifetime of reading, writing about, and teaching Shakespeare. Preeminent literary critic-and ultimate authority on the western literary tradition, Harold Bloom leads us through a comprehensive reading of every one of the dramatist's plays, brilliantly illuminating each work with unrivaled warmth, wit and insight. At the same time, Bloom presents one of the boldest theses of Shakespearean scholarships: that Shakespeare not only invented the English language, but also created human nature as we know it today.Trade Review"The most original literary critic in America." --The New York Times"No critic in the English language since Samuel Johnson has been more prolific." --The Paris Review"Bloom is all literature, (he) positively lives it." --Alfred Kazin

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Book SynopsisAt Work in the Early Modern English Theater: Valuing Labor explores the economics of the theater by examining how drama seeks to make sense of changing conceptions of labor. With the growth of commerce and market relations in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England came the corresponding degradation and exploitation of workers, many of whom made their frustrations known through petitions and pamphlets. Poverty affected all sectors of society in early modern England and many laborers, even London citizens from more prosperous trades, could expect to experience periods of impoverishment. This group of precarious laborers included actors and playwrights, many of whom had direct connections to London’s more established trades and occupations. Scholars have argued that dispossessed laborers turned to other forms of labor in lieu of their traditional livelihoods, including brigandage, piracy, begging, and cozening. To this list of alternative communities and applications of labor in the early modern period, Matthew Kendrick’s scholarship adds the London theaters. Each chapter is guided by the central premise that anxiety over the objectification and dispossession of labor in its various forms is enacted on stage, and that drama helps to formulate, by merit of the theater’s socioeconomic identity, an emerging laboring subjectivity engendered by the violent development of capitalism. As the nexus of a declining feudal social structure and an emerging capitalist regime of commodity production, a location in which dispossessed labor intersected with traditions of skilled labor and the unwieldy consumerist energies of the marketplace, the space of the theater was uniquely situated to channel and give dramatic form to the growing antagonisms and tensions that shaped labor. The stage offers a space in which to negotiate the value and meaning of labor in an increasingly exploitative society.Trade ReviewKendrick is willing to go father and be more explicitly in his Marxist analysis than has been typical of scholars writing on similar topics. Though this study is not the first to argue that the early modern period is more than simply a precursor to the development of oppositional classes during the industrial era, it makes a particularly thoughtful and often refreshingly polemical case that the absence of a fully formed bourgeoisie and proletariat during the period should not be confused with laborers' passivity to the commodification and alienation of their labor. * Comparative Drama *Kendrick’s book provides the reader with a clear outlook about labor and laborers in the early modern English theatre. * Sixteenth Century Journal *Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter One: The Theater between Craft and Commodity Chapter Two: Crafty Performance in City Comedy: Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour and Chapman, Jonson, and Marston’s Eastward Ho! Chapter Three: Casting Apprentices in Beaumont’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle Chapter Four: Thinking with the Feet in Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday and Rowley’s A Shoemaker, A Gentleman Chapter Five: Labor and Theatrical Value on the Shakespearean Stage: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest Afterword: Performing Laboring Subjectivity Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe hundreds of biblical references in Shakespeare's plays give ample evidence that he was well acquainted with Scripture. Not only is the range of his biblical references impressive, but also the aptness with which he makes them. Hamlet and Othello each have more than fifty biblical references. No study of Shakespeare's plays is complete that ignores Shakespeare's use of scripture. The Bibles that Shakespeare knew, however, were not those that are in use today. By the time the King James Bible appeared in 1611, Shakespeare's career was all but over, and the Anglican liturgy that is evident in his plays is likewise one that few persons are acquainted with. This volume provides a comprehensive survey of the English Bibles of Shakespeare's day, notes their similarities and differences, and indicates which version the playwright knew best. The thorny question of what constitutes a valid biblical reference is also discussed. This study of Shakespeare's biblical references is not based on secondary sources. The author owned one of the world's largest collections of early English bibles, including over one hundred copies of the Geneva bible and numerous editions of other Bibles, prayer books, and books of homilies of Shakespeare's day. To be of real worth, a study of Shakespeare's biblical references should also enable the reader to determine which references Shakespeare borrowed from his plot sources and which he added from his own memory as part of his design for the play. The author studies every source that Shakespeare is known to have read or consulted before writing each play and has examined the biblical references in those sources. Shaheen then points out which biblical references in his literary sources Shakespeare accepted, and how he adapted them in his plays. This information is especially valuable when assessing the theological meanings that are sometimes imposed on his plays, meanings that often go beyond what Shakespeare intended or what his audience must have understood. Biblical References in Shakespeare's Plays is considerably broader in scope than any other study of its kind and provides the scholarly checks and balances in dealing with the subject that previous studies lacked.

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Book SynopsisNo Laughing Matter is a wide-ranging collection of new studies of the comic theatre of Athens, from its origins until the 340s BCE. Fifteen international scholars employ an array of approaches and methodologies that will appeal to Classics and Theatre scholars while still remaining accessible to students. By including discussions of fragmentary authors alongside Aristophanes, the collection provides a broad understanding of the richness of Athenian comedy. The collection showcases the best of the new scholarship on Old and Middle Comedy, using the most up-to-date texts and tools. No Laughing Matter has been prepared in tribute to Professor Ian Storey of Trent University (Peterborough, Ontario), whose work on Athenian comedy will continue to shape scholarship for many years to come.Table of ContentsIntroduction - George Kovacs and C.W. Marshall Part I: Comedy and Athens 'From the Wagons', 'Parade Abuse' and the Ritual Context of Old Comic Invective - Eric Csapo (University of Sydney) Was Crates Criticizing Philosophy? The Case of the Thêria - David Konstan (Brown University) Will the Real Socrates Please Stand Up? - Hallie Rebecca Marshall (University of British Columbia) From Paracomedy to Metacomedy: Storey versus Sidwell on the Interaction between Aristophanes and Eupolis - - Keith Sidwell (University College, Cork/University of Calgary) Father-beaters and Avian Justice in Aristophanes' Birds - Judith Fletcher (Wilfred Laurier University) Politics and the City in Aristophanes' Lysistrata - S. Douglas Olson (University of Minnesota) Playing on Remorse: Arginousai, Theramenes and Aristophanes' Frogs - Arlene Allan (University of Otago) Part II: Comedy and Tragedy Pursuing Nemesis: Cratinus and Mythological Comedy - Jeff Henderson (Boston University) The Paratragic Muse: Aristophanes and Genre - Greg Dobrov (Loyola University of Chicago) The Eleusinian Mysteries and the Public Status of Comedy in Aristophanes' Frogs - Donald Sells (University of Toronto) Notes on Aristophanes' Frogs - Alan Sommerstein (University of Nottingham) The Slave's Tale: Cario's Narrative in Aristophanes' Wealth - Robert Tordoff (York University) Axionicus, The Euripides Fan - Elizabeth Scharffenberger (Columbia University) Timocles fr. 6 and the Consolations of Tragedy - Ralph M. Rosen (University of Pennsylvania) Index

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Book SynopsisWhen the seemingly perfect Tartuffe ingratiates himself with the wealthy Orgon and his mother Madame Pernelle, he is soon welcomed into their home and into their lives. His combination of charm, respectability and religious authority proves so irresistible that he is eventually promised the hand of Orgon’s daughter in marriage. But the rest of Orgon’s family have grave doubts – is there more to Tartuffe than meets the eye? When the threat of eviction for the family and imprisonment for Orgon become apparent, is it all too late to find out? This hilarious and irreverent whirlwind of lies, religious hypocrisy and family feuds features one of theatre’s most perfect comedy creations, the beguiling Tartuffe.

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Book SynopsisOntroerend Goed is a Belgian, Ghent-based theatre performance group of international renown. The group is made of young creators who explore the space between theatre and performance, writing their own texts from a strong basic concept and adapting familiar formats from various media. From sensorial experiences with blindfolded, individual audience members, over anarchistic teenage performances up to shows that profoundly explore what it means to be a theatre-goer, the group continues to create work that is equally challenging and treacherously shallow. A lot of contemporary plays cannot be experienced unless you’ve attended them and many of those performances are hard to transcribe on paper, because of their visual and physical nature. Of course, it’s always possible to make a video recording, but watching that is a diminished experi­ence. Although Ontroerend Goed embrace the ‘nowness’ of theatre and its visual and physical possibilities, the group wanted to take an extra step to share its work. In this book, Ontroerend Goed explore different forms to convey a theatrical experience on paper. Each performance has its own way of approaching the audience, so each text has its own way to address the reader. This book is not made to turn the page and docu­ment the performances as a past experience, but for people to use it as a tool. A tool to play, adapt, oppose, relive, challenge and inspire.Trade ReviewCovers similar territory to Tim Crouch's The Author in its examination of the role and responsibilities of the audience - undoubted power - fascinating and slippery. * Guardian on The Audience *This isn't a lecture, it doesn't have a message: and yet it looks very like the networked future of political theatre: cool, determined and inside the nerve centre of political thought. * Exeunt Magazine on All That Is Wrong *

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Book SynopsisTwo hapless understudies occupy their time backstage, trying to understand art, life, theatre and their precarious existence within it. Described as “delectable” by The New York Times and “gleefully absurd” by Time Out New York this hilariously witty comedy ponders Beckett, showbiz and just what on earth it’s all about. Turns out, the only people who truly understand Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, are the understudies.

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Book Synopsis"The religious fraud Tartuffe has wormed his way into the affections and household of rich merchant, Orgon, with pantomime piety and counterfeit zeal. So comprehensively has he hoodwinked Orgon that he looks set to succeed in driving away the son, marrying the daughter, seducing the wife and imprisoning Orgon. Moliere's classic satire was denounced on its first performance as a sacrilegious outrage and banned from further public view. Only after petition to Louis XIV was the ban lifted, and the play's trenchant mockery of human frailties has ensured its popularity ever since."Trade Review"Much of the credit for the evening's success belongs to Bolt's superb translation.' Guardian 'Bolt's irreverent, colloquial translation, in neat, octosyllabic rhyming couplets, is blessed with a filthy wit' Daily Telegraph"

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Book SynopsisAdapted from Mervyn Peake's gothic trilogy. In one evening of physical theatre you enter a world of ritual and drama.

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Book Synopsis'In Iraq, a wedding is not a wedding unless shots get fired. It's like in England where a wedding is not a wedding unless someone pukes or tries to fuck one of the brides' maids. That's just the way it goes.'Against a backdrop of London and war-torn Baghdad, three friends grapple with their sexual, cultural and political identity. This is a surprising first play from Iraqi writer Hassan Abdulrazzak.

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Book SynopsisThis book presents a comprehensive introduction to Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" - introducing its critical history, performance history, the current critical landscape and new directions in research on the play. "Doctor Faustus" is Christopher Marlowe's most popular play and is often seen as one of the overwhelming triumphs of the English Renaissance. It has had a rich and varied critical history often arousing violent critical controversy. This guide offers students an introduction to its critical and performance history, surveying notable stage productions from its initial performance in 1594 to the present and including TV, audio and cinematic versions. It includes a keynote chapter outlining major areas of current research on the play and four new critical essays. Finally, a guide to critical, web-based and production-related resources and an annotated biography provide a basis for further individual research. "Continuum Renaissance Drama" offers practical and accessible introductions to the critical and performative contexts of key Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Each guide introduces the text's critical and performance history but also provides students with an invaluable insight into the landscape of current scholarly research through a keynote essay on the state of the art and newly commissioned essays of fresh research from different critical perspectives.Trade Review"This volume represents much of the star power in Marlowe Studies over recent decades, including three past presidents of the Marlowe Society of America along with two current officers. Readers may be assured that the scholarly assessments in this volume are well informed, judicious, insightful, and forward-looking." - Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, USA; President, Marlowe Society of America"This wide-ranging book provides food for thought for readers of all levels: it helps orient the beginner with useful surveys of the critical territory and it caters to more advanced readers with stimulating scholarly essays on topics such as postcolonialism, print culture and the occult. Andrew Duxfield approaches Renaissance hermeticism in an admirably clear and user-friendly way; Georgia Brown imaginatively examines writing/printing as both a context for and a theme of the play; and Andrew Hartley's experience of directing Dr Faustus provides brilliant and pithy insights about the play's theatricality and applicability to audiences and readers today. There are extensive (and helpfully annotated) reading lists to guide all readers through the critical maze. Every chapter is full of useful information and observations. This is a valuable addition to the library of every school or university - and to the bookcase of every student." - Laurie Maguire, Professor of English, University of Oxford, UK"Doctor Faustus: A Critical Guide offers meticulously detailed and lucid overviews of the vexed textual, critical, and performance history of Marlowe's most widely read and performed play, devoting an entire chapter to recent trends in scholarship and interpretation. For these reasons, and because of its deliberate emphasis on the relatively neglected area of performance studies of Doctor Faustus, it is an exceptionally ambitious and valuable work." - Constance Brown Kuriyama, Professor of English, Texas Tech University, USA"Scholars of English literature introduce students to some features of the play written by British playwright Christopher Marlowe (1564-93) in 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada. They cover the critical backstory, the performance history, current critical research, Renaissance hermeticism, imperialism as devilry in a postcolonial reading, staging Faustus on campus, and the other black arts of printing and writing. A final chapter surveys resources." -Eithne O'Leyne, BOOK NEWS, Inc.This guide offers a clear picture of the critical landscape of past and current scholarly research on Doctor Faustus, both textual and performative... the volume is a useful resource for students and for scholars who are either just beginning their research or interested in surveying the various rudimentary critical scholarship of the day. -- Sixteenth Century Journal‘[This book] aiming to be useful to teachers and students, views the play from varied perspectives. Starting with a useful "Timeline," which begins with Marlowe's life and continues to the present, cataloguing significant stage and publication history, it includes an introduction and eight chapters.'—The Shakespeare NewsletterThe guide serves a dual purpose, offering on the one hand survey chapters detailing the critical and performance heritage, current critical trends, and available resources, and on the other, four 'New Directions' chapters which engage in original critical and contextual analysis of the play. Deats's introduction, as well as providing an overview of the volume's contents, offers the reader a grounding in the play's historical and literary sources and a broad account of the critical divide between orthodox moralistic and tragic heroic interpretations of the play. * Years Work in English Studies, vol 91, no 1, 2012 *Table of ContentsSeries Introduction; Timeline; Introduction, Sara Munson Deats (University of South Florida, USA); 1. The Critical Backstory, Bruce T. Brandt (South Dakota State University, USA); 2. The Performance History, David Bevington (University of Chicago, USA); 3. The State of the Art - Current Critical Research, Robert A. Logan (University of Hartford, USA); 4. New Directions: Doctor Faustus and Renaissance Hermeticism, Andrew Duxfield (Sheffield Hallam University, UK); 5. New Directions: Imperialism as Devilry: A Postcolonial Analysis of Doctor Faustus, Toni Francis (The College of the Bahamas); 6. New Directions: "What means this show?" Directing a Student Faustus, Andrew James Hartley (University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA); 7. New Directions: The Other Black Arts: Doctor Faustus and the Inky Words of Printing and Writing Georgia Brown (London, UK); 8. A Survey of Resources, Sarah K. Scott (Mount St. Mary's University, USA); Notes on Contributors; Index.

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Book SynopsisAn accessible and entertaining journey through the life, times, and work of the Bard - Enigma. Master of language. The greatest comedian in history? The most famous writer in the world. But isn't he a little bit boring? This is an essential guide for anyone who has previously avoided the Bard, and is the perfect introduction for first time students or seasoned theatre lovers. The book contains a full commentary of all the plays by bestselling and reknowned writer Peter Ackroyd as well as full descriptions of the cast and the drama; not forgetting the best speeches, and the wit and wisdom from across the works. There is also an opportunity to explore the poems and a complete set of sonnets, as well as an investigation of who the dark lady might have been.Contains:The complete sonnets; the greatest speeches; the best lines.Perfect for students struggling through their first play or for theatre lovers anywhere.Entertaining, accessible, Shakespeare without the boring bits.

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Book SynopsisWhen Jon Fosse had his playwright début with And We Shall Never Part at the National Theatre in Bergen in 1994, he was already an established author of several novels, collections of poetry and children’s books. Since his breakthrough in 1996 with the world premiere of Someone Will Arrive at the Norwegian Theatre he has written over twenty more plays and has become the world’s most performed contemporary European playwright. Oberon Books publishes Nightsongs, The Girl on the Sofa and I Am the Wind, together with his other plays in five collections. Fosse was made a Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite of France in 2007 and received The International Ibsen Award in 2010. ‘Since the early 1990s, Jon Fosse’s plays have been produced in countless venues internationally, and have been translated into dozens of languages – winning awards, inspiring critical adulation, and intriguing and inspiring theatregoers throughout the world. Strangely, however, his work remains largely unknown to English-speaking audiences – an oversight that Leif Zern’s The Luminous Darkness will do much to redress. In twelve short chapters, the book explores Fosse’s career, offering a lucid and insightful argument that is enriched by Zern’s intimate knowledge of the plays in production. The result is an important and timely study of a playwright who demands and deserves our attention.’ - Patrick Lonergan, National University of Ireland GalwayTrade Review"""A study that should help put Fosse on the map in English-speaking countries."" - The Stage ""[Fosse's] lyrical writing, deep themes and abstract ideas haven't engaged British audiences. Yet. In anticipation that he will soon be on the scene, you might like to prepare. Leif Zern, a Swedish journalist, analyses Fosse's plays and poetry in this clear, manageable guide."" - What's On Stage "

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Book SynopsisIn this new student introduction to a Greek tragedy, Isabelle Torrance looks at what makes Iphigenia among the Taurians a successful tragedy in ancient Greek terms, and how dramatic excitement is achieved through the exotic setting, the cast of characters, and the chorus. Assuming no knowledge of Greek, and with students in mind, the central themes of ethnicity and gender relations are examined to show how Euripides manipulates established stereotypes. The play was one of Aristotle’s favourites and his enthusiasm derived from the fact that, in spite of its ostensibly happy ending, the play presents the audience with an exquisitely constructed reversal of events: when Iphigenia recognizes that she has been about to sacrifice her long-lost brother, kin-murder is avoided and the plot turns into an escape drama. Other significant concerns of the play surround ritual and the gods, and these are discussed to highlight how the drama asks probing theological questions. Finally, the vast reception history of the play in a variety of genres, such as ancient comedy, Roman philosophy, European opera, and 20th century theatre, is sketched out from antiquity to the present day.Trade ReviewCondensing all this material in less than 130 pages and presenting it clearly without implications to facilitate understanding of even the most naive reader is a remarkable undertaking, and the result is certainly appreciable. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *Table of ContentsPreface List of Illustrations 1. Setting, Action, Plot 2. Characters and Chorus 3. Ethnicity and Gender 4. Ritual and the Gods 5. Reception Glossary of Greek and Technical Terms Guide to Further Reading Selected Chronology Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisPart of the Bristol Classical Press series of Spanish texts, this is Buero Vallejo's play "El Tragaluz". The series is designed to meet the needs of the fast-growing A Level and undergraduate market for texts in the Spanish language. Each text comes with English notes and vocabulary, and with an introduction by an editor with an expert knowledge both of the work and of its literary and cultural context. Set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, this play occupies an important place in Buero Vallejo's theatre incorporating earlier metaphysical preoccupations with a later historical and political dimension.

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Book Synopsis'Revenge is a kind of wild justice...' (Francis Bacon). Euripides' "Hecuba" is dominated by the vengeance which Hecuba takes on the faithless Polymestor, and explores in a complex and profound manner the potential for revenge as a subject for tragedy. The sacrifice of Polyxena is in counterpoint to the revenge action; the whole is set in the chaotic aftermath of the fall of Troy. The combination of plots creates one of Euripides' most effective dramas, full of pathos, suspense and excitement. This study of the play in English argues that it has been greatly undervalued by critics who have failed to appreciate the power of its rhetoric, the subtlety of its characterisation, and the beauty of its choral odes.

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Book SynopsisDavid Stuttard has directed his own translations and adaptations of Greek drama throughout the UK and in classical theatres in Turkey and Albania. His publications include An Introduction to Trojan Women (2005) and, AD 410, The Year That Shook Rome (2010).

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