Literary studies: plays and playwrights Books

Book SynopsisA unique book of criticism that brings both theatre and film studies within a single theoretical framework

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Book SynopsisBased on the real events that took place in the ancient Yoruba city of Nigeria in 1946, this play tells how Simon Pilkings, a district officer, intervenes to prevent the ritual suicide demanded by the death of the King. There follow drastic repercussions in both indigenous and colonial communities.Trade Review'This rich turbulent piece, which starts as folk comedy and ends as Greek tragedy, takes on board an abundance of ideas: identity, tradition, the passage from life to death... Soyinka's play is as much philosophical as political.' Michael Billington, Guardian, 9.4.09 'Based on events in 1940s Nigeria, the story attains a more classically tragic power in showing two forces unable to understand each other. On one side there is the Yoruba culture, in which the death of a king is followed by the suicide of his favoured liegeman...on the other, the powers that be with their contrary code that suicide is illegal and to be prevented, even if it costs more lives.' Ian Shuttleworth, Financial Times, 13.4.09 'Wole Soyinka's play is one of the great creations of twentieth-century theatre: it has the fire, grandeur, cruelty and humanity of Greek tragedy, the moral cutting edge of modern political thinking, and the African writer's take on his own people's values: loving mocking, ironical and ruthlessly observant... Soyinka writes with the moral ambivalence and relentless questioning of Shakespeare' John Peter, Sunday Times, 19.4.09

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Book SynopsisMartin McDonagh's first play The Beauty Queen of Leenane was nominated for six Tony awards, of which it won four, and the Laurence Olivier Award. In 2003, his play The Pillowman had its world premiere at the Royal National Theatre and received the 2004 Olivier Award. In 2006, Martin McDonagh won an Oscar for his short film Six Shooter.Trade Review'The play combines manic energy and physical violence in a way that is both hilarious and viscerally exciting' Daily Telegraph 'Martin McDonagh is both a powerful writer of staying power and an individual talent within a powerful tradition ... His is a voice you will want to hear again.' The Sunday Times

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Book SynopsisThe Student Edition of Frayn's multi-award winning play includes a full commentary and notes.Trade Review"I think it's probably the best play about science ever written in English drama, because what it does is explicate science, the nuclear process, and relate it to a highly volatile emotional situation and more." The Guardian {Review}, May 31 2008 'It's [the] newborn sense of uncertainty - of strangeness, subjectivity and mystery at the heart of mathematics and science - that drives Michael Frayn's magnificent 1998 play Copenhagen.' Joyce McMillan, Scotsman, 23.4.09 'Forget the physics. The greatest experiment in Michael Frayn's threehander is the dramatic form itself.' Mark Fisher, Guardian, 27.4.09 'Michael Frayn is one of the great playwrights of our time.' Play Collections- Contemporary Dramatists (December 2010)

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 2004. English stage comedy has weathered centuries of social and theatrical change. How did it survive? English Stage Comedy 1490â1990 is a unique and beautifully written study of the comedy of the English stage from the Tudor period to the late twentieth century. Organized thematically, it shows how this remarkably enduring genre has dealt with the tensions of social life, using its conventions as tools for social inquiry. Through an examination of comedy Alexander Leggatt demonstrates that an approach through genre, neglected in recent criticism, can have much to say about our current concerns with the relations between literature and society. English Stage Comedy 1490â1990 surveys five centuries of classic comic drama, focusing on major playwrights such as: Shakespeare, Jonson, Etherege, Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Goldsmith, Sheridan, Wilde, Shaw, Coward, Orton, Ayckbourn and many lesser-known figures.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Five centuries of a genre, 1 Getting control, 2 Watching society, 3 Loners, 4 Other places, 5 Parents and children, 6 Negotiations, 7 Comedy against itself, Conclusion

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 2002. This is Volume II of the collected works of G.Wilson Knight and this revised looks at the Shakespearian Tempest and includes a Chart of Shakespeare's Dramatic Universe.Table of ContentsChapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 The Histories, Early Tragedies, and Poems; Chapter 3 The Romantic Comedies; Chapter 4 The Tragedies; Chapter 5 The Final Plays; Chapter 6 Conclusion;

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Book SynopsisThis part of the G. Wilson Knight collected works, Volume VI looks at his view on Shakespearian production with special reference to the Tragedies.Table of ContentsPreface to the Third Edition [1963] Preface to the First Edition [1936] Part I [ 1936] I The Shakespearian Play II The Theory of Production III Some Actual Productions IV The Ideal Production With a 1963 addition V Shakespeare and Ritual Part II [1949 and1963] VI The Body Histrionic VII Timon of Athens and Shylock VIII Tree and Craig; Poel and Barker IX Contemporary Presentations With notes on the Filming of Shakespeare (1936;1963) X Afterthoughts, Postscript: The Stratford Ontario Festival

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Book SynopsisShakespeare's potent use of garden imagery has captivated successive generations of readers and inspired the making of gardens across the globe. Laced with quotations and abounding with illustrations drawn from sources including Elizabethan gardening books, embroidered fabrics and hand-coloured herbals, The Quest for Shakespeare's Garden tells the story of the Bard's own garden at New Place in Stratford-upon-Avon, revealing its place in garden history.Trade Review'This elegant little book takes on the character of a detective story as Strong […] uncovers the way Shakespeare became a gateway for early gardening historians' - Daily Telegraph'Artily produced [with] an unmissable text by Sir Roy Strong' - Robin Lane Fox, Financial Times'A total delight, rich with quotations and sumptuous images' - Birmingham Mail'Wholly original … thoughtfully illustrated' - Archives of Natural History

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Book SynopsisDr Tom Lockwood, Lecturer in English at the University of Birmingham.His article The Sheridans at Work' was awarded The Review of English Studies Essay Prize and his book Ben Jonson in the Romantic Age is published by Oxford University Press.

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Book SynopsisAuthoritative, surprising, evocative and original, Shakespeare: staging the world offers a completely new approach to one of the most exceptional creative imaginations in history.

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Book SynopsisThis book is new in the way it tackles the problem of imagining performances of Shakespeare as you read his plays.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements; A note on style; Chronology; Introduction; How Shakespeare's works come down to us; Part One. Dramatic Genres; Chapter One. Comedies: A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595) and Much Ado About Nothing (1598); Transformation, translation, and plays to pass the time; Much Ado About Nothing; Soldiers turned lovers; Determining genre; Dirty jokes and sexual mores; Chapter Two. Histories: Richard 2 and Henry 5; This England; Providence; Serialized history and the Tudor Myth; The order of composition; What kind of king is Henry 5?; Chapter Three. Tragedies: Hamlet and Othello; Large and small affairs in Hamlet; Sex, suicide, and scepticism; Testing the supernatural; The character of Othello in isolation; The character of Othello in the world; Racial difference -- cultural difference -- multiculturalism; Chapter Four. Problem plays and Romances: All's Well that Ends Well and The Winter's Tale; Not Hamlet in a dress, nor Helen in breeches; Choosing among the men; Helen's quest; Unsuitable husbands; Do Hermione and Polixenes paddle palms?; The Winter's Tale as proto-novel; Summer/Winter -- Man/Woman -- Land/Class; Part Two. Critical Approaches; Chapter Five. Authority and authorship: Measure for Measure; History: Then; Proposing to Isabella; Being a nun; Meaning: Now; Recovering Shakespeare's version; Chapter Six. Performance: Macbeth; The witches; The timing of exits and entrances; The bipolar stage; The apparitions; Indeterminacy; Chapter Seven. Identities: The Tempest; The identity of Caliban; Nature/Nurture; The New World; Colonialism in general; Ariel as subaltern; Chapter Eight. Materialism: Timon of Athens; Base and superstructure; Timon as unaccommodated man; Money, gold, and g(u)ilt: Shakespearian alchemy; The second law of thermodynamics; The new materialism versus Gaia; Conclusion; Student Resources; Electronic Resources and Reference Resources; Glossary; Guide to Further Reading.

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Book SynopsisThis study looks at the epistemological significance of maternity in early modern England.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements; Note on the Text; List of Illustrations; Introduction: Constructing Maternal Knowledge; 1. Flesh and Stone: Dissecting Maternity in the Theatre of Anatomy; 2. The Cabinet of Wonders: Monstrous Conceptions in the Theatre of Nature; 3. Strange Labours: Maternity and Maleficium in the Theatre of Justice; 4. Speaking Stones: Memory and Maternity in the Theatre of Death; Postscript; Selected Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the development of contemporary theatre in the United States in its historical, political and theoretical dimensions. It focuses on representative plays and performance texts from the 1940s to the present that experiment with both form and content.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements; Chronology; Introduction; Chapter 1: Experimental Innovations After World War II; Chapter 2: Revisiting the American Dream; Chapter 3: African-American Theater: Voices from the Margins; Chapter 4: Avant-Garde Theater Groups: Revolutions in Performance; Chapter 5: Postmodern Presentations: Questioning Boundaries of Representation; Chapter 6: The Politics of Identity and Exclusion; Chapter 7: Fragmented Representations of American Identity in the Theater of the Vietnam War; Chapter 8: The 'NEA Four' and Performance Art: Making the Invisible Visible; Conclusion; Guide to Further Reading; Glossary.

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Book SynopsisIn these essays, brought together here for the first time, world-renowned critic Catherine Belsey puts theory to work in order to register Shakespeare's powers of seduction.Trade ReviewThese are essays of love, as well as about love, and this makes them unusually sensitive...Belsey's insistence on the anarchy of desire seems both timely and genuinely radical. -- Peter Holbrook Times Literary Supplement 'All of the essays attest to Belsey's career-long commitment to theory and its ability to deliver new ways of reading ! Her attention in this collection to materiality and wordplay is indicative of her considerable skills as a close reader. Shakespeare Survey These are essays of love, as well as about love, and this makes them unusually sensitive...Belsey's insistence on the anarchy of desire seems both timely and genuinely radical. 'All of the essays attest to Belsey's career-long commitment to theory and its ability to deliver new ways of reading ! Her attention in this collection to materiality and wordplay is indicative of her considerable skills as a close reader.Table of ContentsPreface; 1. Introduction: Practising with Theory; 2. Psychoanalysis and Early Modern Culture: Lacan with Augustine and Montaigne; 3. Love as Trompe-l'oeil: Taxonomies of Desire in Venus and Adonis; 4. Tarquin Dispossessed: Expropriation and Consent in The Rape of Lucrece; 5. Antinomies of Desire and the Sonnets; 6. Peter Quince's Ballad: Shakespeare, Psychoanalysis, History and A Midsummer Night's Dream; 7. The Illusion of Empire: Elizabethan Expansionism and Shakespeare's Second Tetralogy; 8. Making Histories Then and Now: Shakespeare from Richard II to Henry V; 9. The Case of Hamlet's Conscience; 10. Iago the Essayist; Notes; Index.

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Book SynopsisWithin a theoretical framework that makes use of history, psychoanalysis and anthropology, The Early Modern Corpse and Shakespeare''s Theatre explores the relationship of the public theatre to the question of what constituted the ''dead'' in early modern English culture.Susan Zimmerman argues that concepts of the corpse as a semi-animate, generative and indeterminate entity were deeply rooted in medieval religious culture. Such concepts ran counter to early modern discourses that sought to harden categorical distinctions between body/spirit, animate/inanimate - in particular, the attacks of Reformists on the materiality of ''dead'' idols, and the rationale of the new anatomy for publicly dissecting ''dead'' bodies. Zimmerman contends that within this context, theatrical representations of the corpse or corpse/revenant - as seen here in the tragedies of Shakespeare and his contemporaries - uniquely showcased the theatre''s own ideological and performative agency.Trade ReviewSusan Zimmerman delivers an elegant and concise reading of what it meant to be, or to present, or to observe, a dead body on the early modern Englih stage. -- Bruce Boehrer Zimmerman performs a tour de force of interpretation in this important book ... Advanced scholars will find it an indispensable contribution to the growing scholarship interrogating the significance of dead bodies on stage and page. A powerful demonstration of how Protestantism, anatomy, and drama were engaged in a struggle over the meaning to be attached to the material body...an illuminating exposition of theories of the corpse with an historical account of its shifting status...an outstanding project. -- Professor Peter Stallybrass, Walter and Leonore Annenberg Professor of the Humanities, University of Pennsylvania An ambitious project that represents a genuine extension of our understanding of the historical and theatrical contexts of these plays - Zimmerman provides a new and exciting theoretical framework in Walter Benjamin's treatment of tragedy. -- Professor John Drakakis, Department of English Studies, University of Stirling The considerable strengths of this book lie in its analysis of the effect of reformation ideology on the theater's representation of the corpse and Zimmerman's subtle invocation of pschoanalytic theory as a way of understanding early modern culture. Renaissance Quarterly ...a provocative and careful study ... it is clear from Zimmerman's considerable efforts in this study that there is a lively and far-reaching cultural life in the dead bodies she considers. The Sixteenth Century Journal An ambitious historicist combination of anthropology, medical history, religious and folk beliefs, and literary theory and criticism. Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance Susan Zimmerman delivers an elegant and concise reading of what it meant to be, or to present, or to observe, a dead body on the early modern Englih stage. Zimmerman performs a tour de force of interpretation in this important book ... Advanced scholars will find it an indispensable contribution to the growing scholarship interrogating the significance of dead bodies on stage and page. A powerful demonstration of how Protestantism, anatomy, and drama were engaged in a struggle over the meaning to be attached to the material body...an illuminating exposition of theories of the corpse with an historical account of its shifting status...an outstanding project. An ambitious project that represents a genuine extension of our understanding of the historical and theatrical contexts of these plays - Zimmerman provides a new and exciting theoretical framework in Walter Benjamin's treatment of tragedy. The considerable strengths of this book lie in its analysis of the effect of reformation ideology on the theater's representation of the corpse and Zimmerman's subtle invocation of pschoanalytic theory as a way of understanding early modern culture. ...a provocative and careful study ... it is clear from Zimmerman's considerable efforts in this study that there is a lively and far-reaching cultural life in the dead bodies she considers. An ambitious historicist combination of anthropology, medical history, religious and folk beliefs, and literary theory and criticism.Table of Contents; Chapter 1; Dead Bodies; (theoretical introduction: Bataille, Douglas, Kristeva, Lacan, Benjamin); Chapter 2; Body Imaging and Religious Reform: The Corpse as Idol; (historicist analysis of shifts in sacramental, iconographic, and theological imaging of the corpse from the late medieval to the early modern periods in England); Chapter 3; Animating Matter: The Corpse as Idol in The Second Maiden's Tragedy and The Duke of Milan; (includes analysis of English public theatre);; Chapter 4; Invading the Grave: Shadow Lives in The Revenger's Tragedy; and The Duchess of Malfi; (includes analysis of English funerary customs and the practice of anatomical dissection); Chapter 5; Killing the Dead: Duncan's Corpse and Hamlet's Ghost; Epilogue: Last Words.

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Book SynopsisThis authoritative and innovative volume explores the place of Shakespeare in relation to a wide range of artistic practices and activities, past and present.Trade ReviewThis remarkable collection is the most comprehensive and up-to-date Companion to Shakespeare ever assembled. With thirty essays all by distinguished or cutting-edge scholars, covering every significant mode of Shakespearean production and adaptation from the early modern period to the present, such as in music, comics, television, dance, visual arts, radio, film, as well as on the stage, there is no better book for undergraduate Shakespeare courses to contextualize and complement the Bard's own work. -- Professor Bryan Reynolds, University of California, Irvine This is a capacious book on a capacious subject: Shakespearean culture. From comic books to sculpture, poetic language to silent film, the Renaissance stage to the internet, this book shows the ways in which Shakespeare inhabits myriad art forms across time and space. Not only do the thirty topics covered by the contributors illuminate Shakespeare's use for novelists, poets, musicians, artists, dancers and filmmakers but they also locate Shakespeare in his own age and on his own stage. There is no Companion like this! -- Laurie Maguire, University of Oxford This remarkable collection is the most comprehensive and up-to-date Companion to Shakespeare ever assembled. With thirty essays all by distinguished or cutting-edge scholars, covering every significant mode of Shakespearean production and adaptation from the early modern period to the present, such as in music, comics, television, dance, visual arts, radio, film, as well as on the stage, there is no better book for undergraduate Shakespeare courses to contextualize and complement the Bard's own work. This is a capacious book on a capacious subject: Shakespearean culture. From comic books to sculpture, poetic language to silent film, the Renaissance stage to the internet, this book shows the ways in which Shakespeare inhabits myriad art forms across time and space. Not only do the thirty topics covered by the contributors illuminate Shakespeare's use for novelists, poets, musicians, artists, dancers and filmmakers but they also locate Shakespeare in his own age and on his own stage. There is no Companion like this!Table of ContentsIntroduction Mark Thornton Burnett, Adrian Streete and Ramona Wray Part 1: Shakespeare and the Book 1 Textual Shakespeare Sonia Massai 2 Shakespeare and Poetry Peter Holbrook 3 Shakespeare and the Novel Marianne Novy 4 Shakespeare and Translation Alexander C. Y. Huang 5 Shakespeare Anthologized Kate Rumbold 6 Shakespeare and Biography David Bevington Part 2: Shakespeare and Music 7 Shakespeare and Early Modern Music Christopher R. Wilson 8 Shakespeare and Opera Adrian Streete 9 Shakespeare and Classical Music Julie Sanders 10 Shakespeare and Musical Theatre Fran Teague 11 Shakespeare, Ballet and Dance Rodney Stenning Edgecombe 12 Shakespeare and Popular Music Adam Hansen Part 3: Shakespeare on Stage and in Performance 13 Shakespeare and Drama Lucy Munro 14 Shakespeare and the Renaissance Stage Edel Lamb 15 Shakespeare and the Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Stage Fiona Ritchie 16 Shakespeare and the Victorian Stage Richard Foulkes 17 Shakespeare and the Modern Stage Christie Carson 18 Shakespeare and Contemporary Performance Spaces Andrew James Hartley Part 4: Shakespeare and Youth Culture 19 Shakespeare for Children Amy Scott-Douglass 20 Shakespeare and Teenagers Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. 21 Shakespeare and the Comic Book Michael P. Jensen Part 5: Shakespeare, Visual and Material Culture 22 Shakespeare, Portraiture, Painting, and Prints Erin C. Blake 23 Shakespeare, Sculpture and the Material Arts Balz Engler 24 Shakespeare Exhibition and Festival Culture Mark Thornton Burnett Part 6: Shakespeare, Media and Culture 25 Shakespeare and Silent Film Judith Buchanan 26 Shakespeare on Film, 1930-1990 Anne-Marie Costantini-Cornede 27 Shakespeare on Film, 1990-2010 Ramona Wray 28 Shakespeare on Television Stephen Purcell 29 Shakespeare and Radio Susanne Greenhalgh 30 Shakespeare on the Internet and in Digital Media Michael Best Notes on Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisIn these essays, brought together here for the first time, world-renowned critic Catherine Belsey puts theory to work in order to register Shakespeare's powers of seduction.Trade ReviewAll of the essays attest to Belsey's career-long commitment to theory and its ability to deliver new ways of reading ! Her attention in this collection to materiality and wordplay is indicative of her considerable skills as a close reader. Shakespeare Survey These are essays of love, as well as about love, and this makes them unusually sensitive...Belsey's insistence on the anarchy of desire seems both timely and genuinely radical. -- Peter Holbrook Times Literary Supplement All of the essays attest to Belsey's career-long commitment to theory and its ability to deliver new ways of reading ! Her attention in this collection to materiality and wordplay is indicative of her considerable skills as a close reader. These are essays of love, as well as about love, and this makes them unusually sensitive...Belsey's insistence on the anarchy of desire seems both timely and genuinely radical.Table of ContentsPreface; 1. Introduction: Practising with Theory; 2. Psychoanalysis and Early Modern Culture: Lacan with Augustine and Montaigne; 3. Love as Trompe-l'oeil: Taxonomies of Desire in Venus and Adonis; 4. Tarquin Dispossessed: Expropriation and Consent in The Rape of Lucrece; 5. Antinomies of Desire and the Sonnets; 6. Peter Quince's Ballad: Shakespeare, Psychoanalysis, History and A Midsummer Night's Dream; 7. The Illusion of Empire: Elizabethan Expansionism and Shakespeare's Second Tetralogy; 8. Making Histories Then and Now: Shakespeare from Richard II to Henry V; 9. The Case of Hamlet's Conscience; 10. Iago the Essayist; Notes; Index.

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Book SynopsisCombines historical rigour with an analysis of dramatic contexts, themes and formsThe 17 contributors explore the longstanding and vibrant Scottish dramatic tradition and the important developments in Scottish dramatic writing and theatre, with particular attention to the last 100 years.The first part of the volume covers Scottish drama from the earliest records to the late twentieth-century literary revival, as well as translation in Scottish theatre and non-theatrical drama. The second part focuses on the work of influential Scottish playwrights, from J. M. Barrie and James Bridie to Ena Lamont Stewart, Liz Lochhead and Edwin Morgan and right up to contemporary playwrights Anthony Neilson, Gregory Burke, Henry Adams and Douglas Maxwell.Table of ContentsIntroduction Ian Brown 1 Scottish drama until 1650 Sarah Carpenter 2 Public and private performance: 1650-1800 Ian Brown 3 Folk Drama in Gaelic Scotland Michael Newton 4 The National Drama and the Nineteenth Century Barbara Bell 5 Twentieth-Century Popular Theatre Paul Maloney 6 Drama, Language, and Late Twentieth-Century Literary Revival Randall Stevenson 7 History in Contemporary Scottish Theatre David Archibald 8 Translated Drama in Scotland John Corbett 9 J.M. Barrie R.D.S. Jack 10 The Mid-Century Dramatists Donald Smith 11 James Bridie, Theatre and Scotland Gerard Carruthers 12 Poets in the Theatre: Ure, Kay, Conn, Morgan Anne Varty 13 Women playwrights from the 1970s and 1980s Tom Maguire 14 The Traverse, 1985-1997: Arnott, Clifford, Hannan, Harrower, Greig and Greenhorn Steve Cramer 15 Liz Lochhead Ksenija Horvat 16 Identity and Difference in Post-Devolutionary Drama Trish Reid 17 The Experience and Contexts of Drama in Scotland David Hutchison Endnotes Further Reading Notes on Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisHow is it that biographies of Shakespeare can continue to appear when so little is known about him, and what is known has been in the public domain for so long? Why is it that a majority of the biographies published in the last decade have been written by distinguished Shakespeareans who ought to know better? This book aims to solve this puzzle.

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Book SynopsisIntroduces and analyses stage performances of texts by Italian Modernist writer Carlo Emilio Gadda, Italy's own Joyce. Includes the Italian texts (with English translation) and the dvd of the Italian performance (with English subtitles).

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Book SynopsisA study that examines the representation of gesture in modernist writing, performance and cinema. It provides close readings of major and neglected work by Kafka, Joyce, Henry James, Wyndham Lewis, Nabokov and Beckett, revealing their complex relations with both theatre and cinema.

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Book SynopsisThe book focuses on a philosophical trajectory that not only had a profound impact on critical thought of the 20th and now 21th centuries, but on cosmopolitan, contemporary culture more broadly and on artistic experiment and expression in particular.

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Book Synopsis Of the many dynamic, young playwrights to be associated with the In-Yer-Face burst of creative talent on the British stage in the mid-1990s, Joe Penhall has challenged Britain''s status quo the most. Penhall believes his plays should constantly provoke and enrage not only the institutions he targets, but also his audience. This critical book discusses the argumentative nature of Penhall''s plays, while also placing them within the context of contemporary British society and the modern dramatic tradition. His eight plays are discussed in detail, and particular attention is paid to male identity, the nature of grief, the variety of females, domestic drama, and the role of autobiography in his work.

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Book SynopsisThis book reveals the philosophy which enabled Shakespeare to write of such universal themes as the harmony and disharmony between nations and princes, and the inner conflicts of mind and soul in men and women whose natures and desires are not confined to any particular age.

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Book SynopsisAn Illustrated History of British Theatre and Performance chronicles the history and development of theatre from the Roman era to the present day. As the most public of arts, theatre constantly interacted with changing social, political, and intellectual movements and ideas, and Robert Leach's masterful work restores to the foreground of this evolution the contributions of women, gay people, and ethnic minorities, as well as the regional theatres of Wales and Scotland.Highly-illustrated chapters trace the development of theatre through major plays from each period; evaluations of playwrights; contemporary dramatic theory; acting and acting companies; dance and music; the theatre buildings themselves; and the audience, while also highlighting enduring features of British theatre, from comic gags to the use of props. 

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Book SynopsisDavid Christenson is Professor of Classics at the University of Arizona, USA.Trade ReviewPlautus: Casina is an exceptional and extraordinary book. It exceeds my high hopes. I recommend it warmly to every teacher, student, library, and director interested in teaching, reading, or staging Plautus’ play. * The Classical Outlook *Christenson's reading of Casina justifies the popularity of this highly entertaining yet provocative comic drama of Plautus and illustrates its allure to audiences and actors across time. * CJ Online *This accessible and smart companion includes deft accounts of comic performance and nuanced discussions of social and historical context that bring Plautus’ play vividly to life for modern audiences. -- Catherine Connors, Professor of Classics, University of Washington, USAChristenson offers a clear, thoroughly informative explication of the Casina in translation, including figures of speech, cultural references, and even key Latin terms. Students will find a readable and reliable guide to the play’s historical and literary context. -- Ariana Traill, Associate Professor of Classics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USAAn engaging and accessible introduction to one of Plautus’ most unusual and entertaining comedies ... [This] book is a valuable resource for both students and scholars alike. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *This little book is a marvelous introduction to Plautus’ Casina that has much to offer undergraduates reading the play in the original or in translation. Its bibliography and synthesis of existing scholarship also make this text useful for graduate students looking to orient themselves in the discourse ... does what it sets out to do very well indeed.'' * Gnomon *Table of ContentsList of Titles and Abbreviations: Plautus’s Plays Preface 1. Introduction to Plautine Comedy 2. The Social-Historical Context 3. Casina in Performance 4. Main Themes 5. Reception Appendix: The Structure of Casina Notes Guide to Further Reading and Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisMark Ravenhill is one of the most distinctive contemporary UK playwrights. He burst on to the theatre scene in 1996 with the huge hit Shopping and Fucking. He has continued to garner critical acclaim for plays that include Some Explicit Polaroids, Mother Clap's Molly House, Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat, The Cut, Product, pool (no water), Citizenship, Ten Plagues, The Coronation of Poppea, Candide, Faust is Dead, Handbag, A Life in Three Acts, A Life of Galileo and Over There.Trade ReviewAn omen of the new century * Evening Standard *Harshly, wittily, Shopping and Fucking connects commerce and pleasure in graphic modern terms ... Ravenhill is one of the most arresting talents to have arrived in the British theatre during the 1990s * Financial Times *Plunges you into a world of disposability, disconnection and dysfunction, where relationships to be trusted have to be reduced to transactions ... Strong stuff * Independent *A contemporary classic * Sunday Telegraph *A theatrical phenomenon * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisThis powerful anthology brings together reflective and raw plays by American playwrights surrounding the psychic and political boundaries of the many faces and shadows of terrorism. Allan Havis's introduction addresses a variety of terrorism cases from the last 25 years, examines several theories of the root causes of modern terrors, and underscores how theatre forms a unique contour to social and philosophical thought on terrorism. With a foreword from Robert Brustein, the anthology features: Break of Noon by Neil LaBute7/11 by Kia CorthronOmnium Gatherum by Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten-VassilarosColumbinus by PJ Paparelli and Stephen KaramWhy Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them by Christopher DurangTable of ContentsForeword by Robert Brustein Introduction by Allan Havis Break of Noon by Neil LaBute 7/11 by Kia Corthron Omnium Gatherum by Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gestern-Vassilaros Columbinus by PJ Paparelli and Stephen Karam Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them by Christopher Durang

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Book SynopsisWith the recent turn to science studies and interdisciplinary research in Shakespearean scholarship, Shakespeare and Science: A Dictionary, provides a pedagogical resource for students and scholars. In charting Shakespeare's engagement with natural philosophical discourse, this edition shapes the future of Shakespearean scholarship and pedagogy significantly, appealing to students entering the field and current scholars in interdisciplinary research on the topic alongside the non-professional reader seeking to understand Shakespeare's language and early modern scientific practices.Shakespeare's works respond to early modern culture's rapidly burgeoning interest in how new astronomical theories, understandings of motion and change, and the cataloging of objects, vegetation, and animals in the natural world could provide new knowledge. To cite a famous example, Hamlet's letter to Ophelia plays with the differences between the Ptolemaic and Copernican notions of the earth's movemenTable of ContentsSeries Editor's Preface Abbreviations Introduction A-Z Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisOffering for the first time a student introduction to Aristophanes' most explosive political satire, this volume is an essential guide to the context, themes and later reception of Cavalry. The ancient comedy is a fascinating insight into demagoguery and political rhetoric in classical Athens. These are subjects that resonate with a modern audience more now than ever before.Originally performed in 424 BCE, Cavalry was the first play Aristophanes directed himself and it was awarded first prize. It targets the Athenian demagogue, Cleon, who had risen to prominence since the death of Pericles and to pre-eminence after an audacious victory over Sparta in 425 BCE. In Cavalry, Aristophanes attacks Cleon's popularity with the masses, but also criticises the democracy itself as guilty of gullibility, self-interest and political shortsightedness. As the play shows, the only hope of escape from the crisis is for Athens to find a leader even more popular CleTable of ContentsList of Figures Preface A Note on the Spelling of Ancient Greek words in English A Note on the Play’s Title List of Abbreviations 1. Aristophanes and drama in Classical Athens 2. Aristophanes’ Cavalry and Cleon 3. Cavalry 1-302: Prologue scene and parodos 4. Cavalry 303-610: First agon and parabasis 5. Cavalry 611-996: Report of off-stage action and second agon 6. Cavalry 997-1150: Divination contest and ‘duet’ 7. Cavalry 1151-1315: Competition in public service and second parabasis 8. Cavalry 1316-1408: Closing episodes and exodos 9. Modern reception and performance Notes Bibliography Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisYuichi Tsukada is Associate Professor of English at Doshisha University, Japan. He received his BA and MA from the University of Tokyo and his PhD from King's College London. His journal articles on Shakespeare have won him fellowships and awards, including the Young Scholar Award of Special Merit from the English Literary Society of Japan.Trade ReviewTsukada (Doshisha Univ., Japan) offers a thoroughgoing political reading of four plays Shakespeare wrote in the period from 1606 to 1610: Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Cymbeline. Tsukada views each work as reflecting aspects of the contemporaneous response to the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603. Thus the “two Caesarean prophecies” in the Scottish play “dramatically stage the replacement of the diseased, barren mother with the fertile father in a way that recalls James’s political vision of launching Jacobean England from Elizabeth’s barren body politic” (p. 50). Tsukada demonstrates the vigor of debate in these years over Elizabeth: some authors looked back with nostalgia on her warlike female stance, whereas others mocked her courtly poses and preferred the pacific posture assumed by her successor. Some of Tsukada’s readings have been offered before, as the fine full notes duly indicate; others will be new even to specialists. Shakespeare is seen as reflecting views of the age, unlike other writers cited, all of whom seem to come down on one side or the other of the debate. This volume will prove useful to those eager to ponder the merits and limits of such thoroughgoing political interpretation. Summing Up: Recommended. * Choice *This is an exciting re-evaluation of Shakespeare’s engagement with the icon of Elizabeth I in his Jacobean plays. It examines the tropes of Elizabeth as a warlike queen, an imperilled princess and a bringer of peace as they were contested within Jacobean politics and culture. The book reveals a much more subtle and ambivalent response to Elizabeth by Jacobean Shakespeare than has previously been acknowledged. -- Jane Kingsley-Smith, University of Roehampton, London, UKThough Tsukada's book approaches the topic of Jacobean politics through an analysis of Shakespeare's work, it would be a good read for anyone interested in early modern politics and drama. * Renaissance Quarterly *Yuichi Tsukada’s insightful Shakespeare and the Politics of Nostalgia reexamines the dead queen’s reputation during the early years of the reign of her successor. He does not seek, however, merely to read Shakespeare’s characters as versions of Elizabeth, but to examine the plays’ participation in debates about cultural memory and representation. * SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 *Through this engaging and methodical study, Yuichi Tsukada illustrates just how nebulous and complex the evocations of Elizabeth I could be in Jacobean drama. Although Shakespeare is the primary focus, the readings of other contemporary texts are also compelling and vividly, if briefly, drawn, and it is clear by the end of the study that the ghost of Elizabeth I would, contrary to the authors seeking to silence her, continue to haunt her successor and her country. * Theatre Journal *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements A Note on Texts Introduction 1 Macbeth: Performing a Caesarean Section on the Mother Country 2 Antony and Cleopatra: The Competition for Representing the Queen 3 Coriolanus: Disarming the Memory of Elizabethan England 4 Cymbeline: The Politics of Remembering the Besieged Heroine Epilogue Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisAimée K. Michel is Associate Professor of Theater at Bard College at Simon's Rock, USA. She was the Artistic Director of the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival for over 10 years where she produced new American plays. Before this, she was Artistic Director of the Drama League's Directors Project in New York City where she created the New Directors/New Works program. As a freelance director, she has directed in theaters all over the country. She was a recipient of both the Drama League's Directors Project Fellowship and the Boris Segal Directing Fellowship at Williamstown Theater Festival.Wesley Brown is Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University and teaches literature and creative writing at Bard College at Simon's Rock, USA. He co-edited the multicultural anthologies, Imagining America' (fiction), Visions of America' (non-fiction), edited the Teachers & Writers Guide to Frederick Douglass and wrote the narration for a segment of the PBS Trade ReviewThis important collection from unjustifiably less well-known American theatre giants confirms their place in the Western theatrical and literary canon, and crucially champions women's voices and vision on stage over a fifty year period. * Drama Magazine *This much-needed collection fills a major gap in our sense of the writers for the American theatre. Here assembled are not just the “greatest hits” among the plays written by women, but a coherent and thorough examination of the many careers and voices that have shaped the stage for the last century. * Melia Bensussen, Artistic Director at Hartford Stage, USA *In this exciting new anthology, Wesley Brown and Aimée K. Michel bring together six wonderfully teachable plays by some of the greatest American women dramatists of the past fifty years-- Ntozake Shange, Suzan-Lori Parks, Paula Vogel, Lynn Nottage, Beth Henley, and Susan Yankowitz. The editors provide a helpful Introduction to the last 100 years of theatrical activity, from suffrage and anti-lynching plays, through the explosive 1960s, to recent Broadway triumphs, highlighting women’s struggle—a struggle that continues--to put their vision and voices on the American stage. * Elin Diamond, Rutgers University, USA *Table of ContentsForeword Introduction Introduction to Susan Yankowitz by Wesley Brown Gun by Susan Yankowitz Introduction to Ntozake Shange by Wesley Brown Spell #7 : geechee jibara quik magic trance manual for technologically stressed third world people by Ntozake Shange Introduction to Beth Henley by Aimée K. Michel The Jacksonian by Beth Henley Introduction to Paula Vogel by Aimée K. Michel The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel Introduction to Suzan-Lori Parks by Wesley Brown In the Blood by Suzan-Lori Parks Introduction to Lynn Nottage by Aimée K. Michel Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage

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Book SynopsisA comedy about tragedy and a play about playmaking, Aristophanes' Frogs (405 BCE) is perhaps the most popular of ancient comedies. This new introduction guides students through the play, its themes and contemporary contexts, and its reception history. Frogs offers sustained engagement with the Athenian literary scene, with the politics of Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War, and with the religious understanding of the fifth-century city. It presents the earliest direct criticism of theatre and a detailed description of the Underworld, and also dramatizes the place of Mystery cults in the religious life of Athens and shows the political concerns that galvanized the citizens. It is also genuinely funny, showcasing a range of comic techniques, including literary and musical parody, political invective, grotesque distortion, wordplay, prop comedy, and funny costumes. Frogs has inspired literary works by Henry Fielding, George Bernard Shaw, and Tom StopparTrade ReviewThis volume is a perfect companion to Frogs: essential and joyful for anyone reading, teaching or performing Aristophanes, or really any ancient Greek play. -- Wilfred Major, Associate Professor of Classics, Louisiana State University, USATable of ContentsList of Figures Preface Hopping: Some Ways to Read this Book 1. Dionysus 2. Lenaia 3. Aristophanes 4. Hero 5. Names 6. Costumes (Frogs 1-51) 7. Yearning (Frogs 52-107) 8. Underworlds (Frogs 108-66) 9. Warships (Frogs 167-208) 10. Croaking (Frogs 209-68) 11. Monsters (Frogs 269-322) 12. Eleusis (Frogs 323-459) 13. Disguise (Frogs 460-604) 14. Torture (Frogs 605-73) 15. Parabasis (Frogs 674-737) 16. Xanthias (Frogs 738-829) 17. Contest (Frogs 830-94) 18. Teachers (Frogs 895-1098) 19. Prologues (Frogs 1099-1247) 20. Songs (Frogs 1248-1364) 21. Scales (Frogs 1365-1410) 22. Alcibiades (Frogs 1411-66) 23. Aeschylus (Frogs 1467-1533) 24. Euripides: a Heresy 25. Reperformance 26. Afterlife 27. Translations 28. Twentieth-Century Frogs 29. Seriously Readings Bibliography

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Book SynopsisDavid McInnis is Associate Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at the University of Melbourne, Australia.Contributors include Claire M. L. Bourne (Pennsylvania State University, USA), Matthew Dimmock (University of Sussex, UK), Peter Kirwan (University of Nottingham, UK), Tom Rutter (University of Sheffield, UK), Liam E. Semler (University of Sydney, Australia), M. L. Stapleton (Purdue University, USA), Sydnee Wagner (City University of New York, USA) and Sarah Wall-Randell (Wellesley College, USA).Trade ReviewThe true genius of this collection is in its Janusian perspective ... Tamburlaine: A Critical Reader serves as a concise but impressive review of Tamburlaine’s history in past decades, a time capsule recording the current state of the field, and an optimistic forecast of what we may see in decades to come. * Marlowe Society of America *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Series Introduction Notes on Contributors Introduction David McInnis, University of Melbourne, Australia 1 Tamburlaine, 1587-2000: A Reception History M. L. Stapleton, Purdue University, USA 2 ‘The Critical Landscape, 2000-Present’ Sarah Wall-Randell, Wellesley College, USA 3 ‘High astounding terms’: Tamburlaine and Tamburlaine on stage Peter Kirwan, University of Nottingham, UK 4 New Directions: Mending Tamburlaine Claire M. L. Bourne, Pennsylvania State University, USA 5 New Directions: Tamburlaine the Weather Man Tom Rutter, University of Sheffield, UK 6 New Directions: Towards a Racialized TamburlaineSydnee Wagner, The Graduate Center, CUNY, USA 7 New Directions: Retooling Timür Matthew Dimmock, University of Sussex, UK 8 Three Tents for Tamburlaine: Resources and Approaches for Teaching the Play Liam E. Semler, University of Sydney, Australia Works Cited and Selected Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisThis revised edition of King Richard II: Critical Tradition increases our the play was received and understood by critics, editors and general readers. Updated with a new introduction providing a survey of critical responses to Richard II since the 1990s to the present day, this volume offers, in separate sections, both critical opinions about the play across the centuries and an evaluation of their positions within and their impact on the reception of the play. The updated introduction offers an overview of recent criticism on the play in relation to feminist theory, queer theory, performance theory and ecocriticism. The chronological arrangement of the text-excerpts engages the readers in a direct and unbiased dialogue, whereas the introduction offers a critical evaluation from a current stance, including modern theories and methods. Featuring criticism by A.C. Swinburne, Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde and W.B. Yeats, this volume makes a major contribution to our undeTable of ContentsGENERAL EDITOR'S PREFACE PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION TO REVISED EDITION INTRODUCTION 1 EDWARD CAPELL, various notes on Richard II, 1780 2 EDMOND MALONE and others, supplementary remarks on Richard II, 1780 3 THOMAS DAVIES, on the deposition scene in Richard II, 1784 4 EDMOND MALONE, edition of Shakespeare, 1790 5 JOSEPH RITSON, Shakespeare's part-authorship of Richard II and other notes, 1793 6 GEORGE STEEVENS, notes on Richard II, 1793 7 GEORGE CHALMERS, on the date and political significance of Richard II, 1799 8 CHARLES DIBDIN, Richard II inferior to Richard III, 1800 9 FRANCIS DOUCE, Richard II and the memento mori tradition, 1807 10 CHARLES LAMB, Marlowe's Edward II compared to Richard II, 1808 11 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, on Richard II and the history play, 1813 12 WILLIAM HAZLITT, a critique of Edmund Kean as Richard II, 1815 13 RICHARD WROUGHTON, advertisement of an adaptation of Richard II, 1815 14 A.W. VON SCHLEGEL, Richard II and the unity of Shakespeare's history plays, 1815 15 NATHAN DRAKE, a sympathetic view of Richard II, 1817 16 WILLIAM HAZLITT, characterization in Richard II, 1817 17 JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS, the poetry of Richard II and the other histories, 1817 18 AUGUSTINE SKOTTOWE, Richard II and the truth of history, 1824 19 GEORGE DANIEL, prefatory remarks on Richard II, 1831 20 HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE, another version of Coleridge on Richard II, 1836 21 HENRY HALLAM, on the scene of Aumerle's pardon in Richard II, 1837-9 22 THOMAS CAMPBELL, general comments on Richard II, 1838 23 THOMAS PEREGRINE COURTENAY, Richard II and history, 1838 24 CHARLES KNIGHT, the pictorial edition of Richard II, 1838 25 JOHN PAYNE COLLIER, on the existence of two plays on Richard II’s reign, 1842 26 HERMANN ULRICI, kingship and the morality of Richard II, 1846 27 GULIAN C. VERPLANCK, critical remarks on Richard II, 1847 28 HARTLEY COLERIDGE, a comment on Richard II, 1851 29 FRANCOIS P.G. GUIZOT, history, character, and divine right in Richard II, 1852 30 HENRY N. HUDSON, historical truth and characterization in Richard II, 1852 31 HENRY REED, history as tragedy in Richard II, 1855 32 WILLIAM WATKISS LLOYD, the political morality of Richard II, 1856 33 RICHARD GRANT WHITE, Richard II, Daniel's Civil Wars, and the play's date, 1859 34 G.G. GERVINUS, the characterization and artistry of Richard II, 1863 35 JOHN A. HERAUD, the play's divided authorship and Shakespeare's attitude to divine right, 1865 36 HENRY N. HUDSON, further observations on Richard II, 1872 37 RICHARD SIMPSON, Richard II and Elizabethan politics, 1874 38 EDWARD DOWDEN, the immaturity of Richard II and the realism of Bolingbroke, 1875 39 A.C.SWINBURNE, an unsympathetic view of Richard II, 1875 40 FJ. FURNIVALL, the topicality of Richard II and the character of its protagonist, 1877 41 DENTONJ. SNIDER, Richard II and the right of revolution, 1877 42 P.A. DANIEL, time problems in Richard II, 1879 43 OSCAR WILDE, Shakespeare's concern with costume in Richard II, 1885 44 A.W. VERITY, Marlowe's influence on Richard II, 1886 45 RICHARD GRANT WHITE, Richard II/and Richard II compared, 1886 46 HAVELOCK ELLIS, on the inferiority of Richard II to Marlowe's Edward II, 1887 47 FRANK A. MARSHALL, the theatrical weakness of Richard II, 1888 48 WALTER PATER, ritual and lyricism in Richard II, 1889 49 P.A. DANIEL, a nonpolitical reason for omitting the deposition scene from the early quartos of Richard II, 1890 50 CYRIL RANSOME, character disclosure and dramatic symmetry in Richard II, 1890 51 E.K. CHAMBERS, the artistry of Richard II, 1891 52 C.H. HERFORD, miscellaneous comments on Richard II, 1893 53 BEVERLEY E. WARNER, characterization and history in Richard II, 1894 54 BARRETT WENDELL, Richard II as an archaic masterpiece, 1894 55 FREDERICK S. BOAS, diseased will and sentimentalism in Richard II, 1896 56 GEORGBRANDES, Edward II and Richard II contrasted, 1898 57 C.E. MONTAGUE, on F.R. Benson's portrayal of Richard II, 1899 58 SIDNEY LEE, Benson's Richard II and the acting of minor roles, 1900 59 W.B. YEATS, Richard II and Henry V as emblems of refinement and vulgarity, 1901 60 FREDERICKS. BOAS, the relation of Woodstock to Richard II, 1902 61 FELIX E. SCHELLING, Shakespeare's independence in Richard II, 1902 62 H.F. PREVOST BATTERSBY, on Herbert Beerbohm Tree's Richard II, 1903 63 RICHARD G. MOULTON, Richard II, the divine right of kings, and the pendulum of history, 1903 64 A.C. SWINBURNE, an iconoclastic view of Richard II, 1903 65 A.C. BRADLEY, on Richard II and tragedy, 1904 66 STOPFORD A. BROOKE, purgation through tragic suffering in Richard II, 1905 67 MORTON LUCE, Richard II a disappointing failure, 1905 68 GEORGE PIERCE BAKER, Richard II and the weaknesses and strengths of the chronicle play, 1907 69 SIR WALTER RALEIGH, weakness and the philosophic strain in the character of Richard II, 1907 70 GEORGE SAINTSBURY, Richard II as an imperfect but rhetorically unique drama, 1907 71 ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE, structure, style, and characterization in Richard II, 1908 72 A.C. BRADLEY, further comments on Richard II, 1909 73 G.S. GORDON, patriotism and the absence of moral order in Richard II, 1909 74 CHARLOTTE PORTER, the subtle artistry of act I, 1910 75 C.F. TUCKER BROOKE, miscellaneous comments on Richard II, 1911 76 JOHN MASEFIELD, Richard II as a tragedy of double treachery, 1911 77 HARDIN CRAIG, from an introduction to Richard II, 1912 78 IVOR B.JOHN, from an introduction to Richard II, 1912 79 BRANDER MATTHEWS, dramaturgical weakness and psychological strength in Richard II, 1913 80 LACY COLLISON-MORLEY, Alessandro Manzoni's anti-classical perspective on Richard II, 1916 81 WILHELM CREIZENACH, miscellaneous comments on Richard II, 1916 82 J.A.R. MARRIOTT, historical context and Richard II as a tragedy of political amateurism, 1918 NOTES SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

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Book SynopsisPat Kinevane is a native of Cobh, Co. Cork. He has worked as an actor in theatre, film, television and radio for 27 years. ?In 2016 Pat won a Laurence Olivier Award in London for his Outstanding Achievement as an Actor and a Writer this year. This prestigous award was shared with Fishamble and Jim Culleton who have been integral to the Production and Direction of Pat's three Solo Shows. As a writer he completed his first full length play The Nun's Wood in 1997 which won a BBC Stewart Parker Trust Award and was produced by Fishamble. Fishamble then produced his second play The Plains of Enna (Dublin Theatre Festival 1999). Pat wrote The Death of Herod for Mysteries 2000 at the SFX. In 2008 his piece Evangeline Elsewhere premiered in New York in the First Irish Festival.Pat has been touring since 2006 with his three solo pieces Forgotten (Irish Times Theatre Award Nominee) and Silent (Scotsman Fringe First, Herald Angel and Brighton Argus Angel Award) and Underneath (Scotsman Fringe First and Adelaide Fringe Awards) all produced by Fishamble.Pat is deeply thankful to Fishamble for all of their work and endless support..Trade ReviewPassionate one-man show…Mr. Kinevane interprets Valentino’s highly theatrical screen presence to stunning effect…carefully wrought production…[he] doesn’t just demand [the audience’s] attention, he commands it. And that difference is what makes Mr. Kinevane an artist of the theater. -- Ben Brantley * Bne Brantley, New York Times (on Silent) *Kinevane moves, in a striking performance under Jim Culleton’s effective direction, with the elegance of a dancer and the engaged poise of a boxer. It’s a startling combination…the caress of poetry and the disarming direct address of stand-up…a moving story, which, until its end, pulses with the erratic noise of life. * Irish Times (on Silent) *EXTRAORDINARY… sit back and enjoy * New York Times (on Underneath) *CRITIC’S CHOICE… RIVETING… finely tuned direction… Psychological insight, compassion and darkly comic wit. * LA Times (on Underneath) *Skillfully crafted…fabulously choreographed…impeccable sound and lighting…visually exciting * Sunday Times *

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