Plays, playscripts, drama

Book SynopsisOleanna is Mamet's most celebrated and performed play, exploring male-female conflicts. This Student Edition is annotated, with a chronology of David Mamet's life and work, a discussion of various interpretations and notes on individual words and phrases in the text as well as questions for study.Trade ReviewJohn and Carol go to it with hand-to hand combat that amounts to a primal struggle for power. As usual with Mamet, the vehicle for that combat is crackling, highly distilled dialogue unencumbered by literary frills or phony theatrical ones. Frank Rich, International Herald Tribune An ear for reproducing everyday language has long been David Mamet's hallmark and he has now employed it to skewer the dogmatic, puritannical streak which has become commonplace on and off the campus. With Oleanna he continues an exploration of male-female conflicts begun with Sexual Perversity in Chicago in 1974. Oleanna cogently demonstrates that when free thought and dialogue are imperilled, nobody wins. Michael Wise, Independent

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis dark psychological drama depicts the evil machinations of a ruthless, nihilistic heroine. Readers will discover an exploration of the nature of evil and the tragedy that lies in human frailty.

Read more less

Book SynopsisTerry Pratchett''s infamous city of Ankh-Morpork is under threat from a 60-foot fire-breathing dragon, summoned by a secret society of malcontented tradesmen.Defending Ank-Morpork against this threat is the entire, underpaid, undervalued City Night Watch - a drunken and world-weary Captain, a cowardly and overweight Sergeant, a small opportunistic Corporal of dubious parentage...and their newest recruit, Lance Constable Carrot, who is upright, literal, law-abiding and keen. Aiding them in their fight for truth, justice and the Ankh-Morporkian way are a small swamp dragon and the Librarian of Unseen University (who just happens to be an orang-utan).Trade Review'Alle Thee Dysk's a Stage'

Read more less

Book Synopsis''The setting is a schoolroom near Manchester where an evening class of budding comics congregate for a final briefing from their tutor before facing an agent''s man from London. Telling jokes for money offers an escape from the building site or the milk round. But the humour is a deadly serious business that also involves anger, pain and truth.'' Financial Times ''Trevor Griffiths has not shown his brilliance as a writer more clearly than in Comedians.'' Daily Telegraph

Read more less

Book Synopsis''This remarkable play is about a nightmare all women must have dreamed at some time, and most men...''Ronald Bryden, Observer (1967)''Joe Egg is unlike any play I''ve seen; concerns about whether it''s dated fade next to the claims that can now be made for it. It''s in the collisions between pious and rogue thoughts that the play''s energy lies. We don''t know what to feel. Which is why, once seen, Joe Egg won''t go away.''Robert Butler, Independent on Sunday (1993)

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis second volume of plays by David Hare contains work from the 1970s and 1980s which confirmed him as one of the major contemporary playwrights in the English language. It includes Fanshen, his remarkable 1975 play which focused on the Chinese Revolution with Brechtian subtlety, his screenplay for Saigon: Year of the Cat, The Secret Rapture, his biting portrait of a family in crisis, and the plays A Map of the World and The Bay at Nice. The collection is introduced by the author.

Read more less

Book SynopsisSteven Berkoff is a phenomenon. Among the artists working in the theatre today he is probably the most theatrical - his special combination of speech, movement and spectacle is uniquely powerful. This first collection of his plays includes East, described by Berkoff as ''an outburst or revolt against the sloth of my youth and a desire to turn a welter of undirected passion and frustration into a positive form''. Also included in this collection are the plays West and Sink the Belgrano!

Read more less

Book SynopsisOld Times was first presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre, London, on 1 June 1971. It was revived at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in July 2004.''Old Times is a joyous, wonderful play that people will talk about as long as we have a theatre.'' New York Times''What am I writing about? Not the weasel under the cocktail cabinet . . . I can sum up none of my plays. I can describe none of them, except to say: that is what happened. This is what they said. That is what they did.'' Harold Pinter

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis third volume of Alan Ayckbourn plays includes Haunting Julia, Sugar Daddies, Drowning on Dry Land and Private Fears in Public Places, with an introduction by the author.Haunting Julia''A play for today. It touches on the failures of education and parenting, on media pressure and overdoses. Kurt Cobain comes to mind. More universally, Haunting Julia mourns how in adolescence and adulthood, we do our loves wrong.'' Financial TimesSugar Daddies''A timely warning about the dangers of role-playing and pretence . . . But the real fascination lies in watching Ayckbourn''s own transformation from social observer to impassioned moralist.'' GuardianDrowning on Dry Land''Ayckbourn at the top of his game.'' Guardian''A coruscatingly acid and funny play.'' The TimesPrivate Fears in Public Places''Ayckbourn''s construction has a masterly clarity; his writing coTrade Review"Haunting Julia 'Ayckbourn's gif for characterisation at its oblique best.' Financial Times; Sugar Daddies 'A timely warning about the dangers of role-playing and pretence.' Guardian; Drowning on Dry Land 'Ayckbourn at his best.' Sunday Times; Private Fears in Public Places A tale of the misheard, the unspoken and the sadly misunderstood."

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe year is 1878. The widowed Christopher Gore, his son David and their housekeeper Margaret, the woman with whom they are both in love, live at The Lodge in Ballybeg. But in this era of unrest at the dawn of Home Rule, their seemingly serene life is threatened by the arrival of Christopher''s English cousin, who unwittingly ignites deep animosity among the villagers of Ballybeg. The Home Place premiered at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, in February 2005.

Read more less

Book SynopsisGabriel:''A richly themed, enthralling new play.'' The TimesSilence (winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn award):''Silence is a beaut. Buffini is deliciously skilled at crafting lines.'' Financial TimesLoveplay:''Delightfully quirky, funny and touching. A hit if ever I saw one. Buffini has an appetite for history, and the most beguiling of dramatic voices.'' Daily TelegraphDinner:''A cracking black comedy that has you laughing uproariously one moment and jumping with shock the next . . . Dinner offers a delicious feast of comedy at its most heartless and macabre.'' Daily TelegraphBlavatsky''s Tower:''A refreshingly dizzying perspective on that cornerstone of dysfunction - the family.'' Time Out ''A truly remarkable play. Buffini is a startingly original voice and an outstanding talent.'' What''s OnTrade Review"Blavatsky's Tower 'A refreshingly dizzying perspective on that cornerstone of dysfunction - the family.' Time Out Gabriel 'A richly themed, enthralling new play.' The Times Silence (winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn award) 'Silence is a beaut. Buffini is deliciously skilled at crafting lines.' Financial Times Loveplay 'Delightfully quirky, funny and touching. A hit if ever I saw one. Buffini has an appetite for history, and the most beguiling of dramatic voices.' Daily Telegraph"

Read more less

Book SynopsisStuff happens... And it''s untidy, and freedom''s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.''The famous response of American Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to the looting of Baghdad at a press conference in 2003 provides the title for David Hare''s play about the extraordinary process leading up to the invasion of Iraq.Stuff Happens premiered at the National Theatre, London, in 2004 and has subsequently been performed around the world.''Stuff Happens may make you openly boo, hiss, cheer or even cry, but it will also remind you why this 2,500 year-old art form remains the best way for human beings to collectively experience and contemplate the effects of war.'' Los Angeles Times''A totally compelling play that ruthlessly exposes the dubious premises on which the Iraq war was fought... One comes out enriched, informed and moved by Hare''s ability to turn recent politics into

Read more less

Book SynopsisOn Raftery''s Hill''This is a play that howls to be seen; its courage is matched only by its dramatic power.'' Sunday IndependentAriel''An astonishing piece of theatre. Interweaving themes drawn from Irish, Greek and biblical myth, she spins a tale of power that is honest, emotional, dark and true . . . Die to see it.'' Irish ExaminerWoman and Scarecrow''Drama doesn''t come much richer or stranger than this death-bed lament. Ravishing in its dense, literary language, it is as visceral as it is intellectual. It lingers not only in the ear and brain, but in the imagination and the gut. An extraordinary brew, bittersweet and totally intoxicating.'' The TimesThe Cordelia Dream''A brave piece and clearly charged with deep feeling. . . This is certainly unsettling territory and Carr boldly goes for it.'' Financial TimesMarble''An extraordinary play that lures us in with a promise of

Read more less

Book SynopsisEigengrau / [ay-gen-gr-ow ] - noun. intrinsic light; the colour seen by the eye in perfect darkness Rose believes in true love and leprechauns. Her flatmate Cassie is engaged in a fervent struggle against patriarchal oppression. Across London, Mark believes in the power of marketing. His flatmate Tim Muffin is engaged in a fervent struggle against his own waistline. In a city where Gumtree can feel like your closest friend, looking for the right person can lead you all the wrong places.Penelope Skinner''s Eigengrau premiered at the Bush Theatre, London, in March 2010 in a Strawberry Vale production.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe brain builds a narrative to steady us from moment to moment, but it is absolutely an illusion. There is no me, there is no you, and there is certainly no self.Princeton, New Jersey. 1955. Thomas Stoltz Harvey performs the autopsy on Albert Einstein - and then steals his brain.Bath, England. 1953. Henry undergoes pioneering brain surgery. The surgery changes Henry''s life, and the history of neuroscience.London, England. The Present. Martha is a clinical neuropsychologist. When her marriage breaks down she starts to make radically different choices.Three interwoven stories exploring the nature of identity and how we are defined by what we remember, Incognito is an exhilarating exploration of what it means to be human.Nick Payne''s Incognito premiered at Live Theatre, Newcastle, in April 2014 in a co-production with nabokov and HighTide Festival Theatre.

Read more less

Book SynopsisFor sixty years Elizabeth II has met each of her twelve prime ministers in a weekly audience at BuckinghamPalace, a meeting like no other in British public life. It is private. Both parties have an unspoken agreement never to repeat what is said.The Audience breaks this contract of silence. It imagines a series of pivotal meetings between the Downing Street incumbents and their queen. From Churchill to Cameron, each prime minister has used these private conversations as a sounding board and a confessional - sometimes intimate, sometimes explosive. From young mother to grandmother, these private audiences chart the arc of the second Elizabethan Age. Politicians come and go through the revolving door of electoral politics, while she remains constant, waiting to welcome her next prime minister.The Audience by Peter Morgan premiered at the Gielgud Theatre, London, in March 2013. It returned to the Apollo Theatre, London, in this revised version in A

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe scandalous reputation of Laclos''s novel, first published in 1782, is based on its chilling portrayal of the mannered decadence and sexual cynicism of the French aristocracy in the last years of the ancien regime. Christopher Hampton has made a masterful adaptation for the stage of the conspiracy to corrupt a young girl barely out of her convent.Les liaisons dangereuses was premiered by Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, on 24 September 1985, and won Christopher Hampton the Evening Standard Award for Best Play and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play in 1986.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis third collection of Brian Friel''s work contains:Three Sisters (Chekhov) (1981)The Communication Cord (1982) Fathers and Sons (Turgenev) (1987) Making History (1988) Dancing at Lughnasa (1990)

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis fourth collection of Brian Friel''s work contains:The London Vertigo (after Macklin) (1992) (January)A Month in the Country (after Turgenev) (1992) (August) Wonderful Tennessee (1993) Molly Sweeney (1994) Give Me Your Answer, Do! (1997)

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis fifth collection of Brian Friel''s work contains:Uncle Vanya (after Chekhov) (1998) The Yalta Game (after Chekhov) (2001) The Bear (after Chekhov) (2002) Afterplay (after 2002) Performances (2003) The Home Place (2005) Hedda Gabler (after Ibsen) (2005)

Read more less

Book SynopsisFor years afterwards the farmers found them the wasted young, turning up under their plough blades. So run the blunt, grimly beautiful opening lines of the Welsh poet Owen Sheers's elegy for the men, 4,000 of them from the 38th (Welsh) Division, who were killed or wounded in the Battle of Mametz Wood in July 1916 Sheers revisits that chapter of carnage in a stirring, sprawling promenade show He draws on the writings of two survivors in particular. One is the poet David Jones whose fractured, enervated, modernist response to his war-time experiences, In Parenthesis, was hailed as a work of genius by TS Eliot. The other key influence is the writer Llewelyn Wyn Griffith driven to wondering how the sun could shine on this mad cruelty and on the quiet peace of an upland tarn near Snowdon... We end up in dark woods and a place of numb desolation, bombarded by words that pierce the heart and vignettes that capture the stomach-churning sacrifice The finest commemoration of the First

Read more less

Book SynopsisI''m as mad as hell, and I''m not going to take this anymore.Howard Beale, news anchorman, isn't pulling in the viewers. In his final broadcast he unravels live on screen. But when the ratings soar, the network seize on their newfound populist prophet, and Howard becomes the biggest thing on TV.Adapted for the stage by Lee Hall from the Paddy Chayefsky film, Network premiered at the National Theatre, London, in November 2017.

Read more less

Book SynopsisShould I run? This is the question Pauline Gibson is asking herself. She has spent her adult life as a doctor, the inspiring leader of a campaign for local health provision. When she crosses paths with her old boyfriend, Jack Gould, who has made his way in Labour party politics, she''s faced with an agonising decision.What's involved in sacrificing your private life and your peace of mind for something more than a single issue? Does she dare?David Hare was recently described by the Washington Post as the premiere political dramatist writing in English.' His explosive new play portrays the history of a twenty year intimate friendship and its public repercussions.David Hare's new play I'm not Running, premieres at the National Theatre, London, in October 2018.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis volume contains the complete short plays of Harold Pinter from The Room, first performed in 1960, to Celebration, which premiered in 2000.

Read more less

Book SynopsisWhen Dr Stockmann discovers the town's famous spa waters are poisoned, she expects to be treated as a hero for averting an environmental catastrophe. Instead, she's accused by her brother the mayor of threatening the town's livelihood. Public and media opinion divides and the community splits into factions. Tackling fake news, whistle-blowers and the corruption of power, Rebecca Lenkiewicz's contemporary take on Henrik Ibsen's classic premiered at the Nottingham Playhouse in September 2019.

Read more less

Book SynopsisFor forty uninterrupted years, Robert Moses was the most powerful man in New York. Though never elected to office, he manipulated those who were through a mix of guile, charm and intimidation.Motivated at first by a determination to improve the lives of New York City's workers, he created parks, bridges and 627 miles of expressway to connect the people to the great outdoors. But in the 1950s, groups of citizens began to organize against his schemes and against the motor car, campaigning for a very different idea of what a city should be.David Hare's blazing account of a man played by Ralph Fiennes whose iron will exposed the weakness of democracy in the face of charismatic conviction, premieres at the Bridge Theatre, London, in March 2022.

Read more less

Book SynopsisYou'd be surprised how a simple thing like locking up your husband in the same room as you, makes you aware of something. Of being alive.The Scent of Roses begins with a wife who takes her husband hostage in order to have an honest conversation. This simple, transgressive act, and her demand for a straight answer, sparks a chain of conversations, interrogations, obfuscations and revelations, as they and those around them try to discover what is real and who they can trust in a post-truth world.Zinnie Harris's The Scent of Roses premieres at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, in February 2022.

Read more less

Book SynopsisI've spent a lifetime in the ebb and flow of powerIt brings its giftsBut then it's an intoxicantOne must beware lest one consumes too muchThe monarch.Her most powerful subject.Two women meet once a week for eleven years. One believes there is no such thing as society. The other has vowed to serve it.Moira Buffini's wickedly funny hit comedy imagines what the world's most powerful women, Margaret Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth II, talked about behind closed palace doors.Winner of the 2014 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, Handbagged was first performed in September 2013 and returned to Kiln Theatre, London, in September 2022.A phenomenon.' Sunday TelegraphPerfectly pitched between the comic and the serious.' Guardian

Read more less

Book SynopsisI saw the streets, the lights, the cars, the people -Everything moving in different directions at the sametime. . .I wanted to make the map alive.In December 2008, an entrepreneur leaves a tech conference in Paris. As he stands on the street, unableto hail a cab, an idea lands with the falling snow: tap a button, get a ride.Ten years later, Mia drives nights in Manchester, Sean is recruited as the brightest new programmer and Tyler moves on to yet another new future.Brilliant Jerks tells the story of three people - a driver, a coder and a CEO - working for one tech monolith, but living worlds apart.Joseph Charlton''s sleek, gripping and revelatory play, based on the creation of a multi-billion-dollar app, premiered at VAULT Festival, 2018, and was revived at Southwark Playhouse, London, in March 2023.

Read more less

Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 CHRISTOPHER EWART-BIGGS MEMORIAL PRIZEAn outstanding evening, a landmark play, a thoroughly deserved five stars . . . Owen McCafferty's searing dramatisation is a political thriller with echoes of Greek drama.' Irish TimesOwen McCafferty examines the negotiations leading up to the Good Friday Agreement and weaves potent drama out of this complex, momentous event.what takes courage is to compete in the arena of democracyThe clock is ticking. It's April 1998 and representatives of the British Government, the Irish Government and the main political parties in Northern Ireland try to hammer out a deal that could pave the way for peace. Every word, every movement, every stare means something. This is the last chance saloon and no one is leaving until agreement is reached, one way or another.Agreement opened at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, in March 2023, and was revived there in March 2024.<

Read more less

Book SynopsisLenny Henry's playwriting debut is a poignant, hilarious portrait of a life affected by the terrible injustice of the Windrush Scandal.Yu see me? I was eight years old when I come to H'Inglan' I travel on my mother's passportAugust Henderson, fifty-two years in England, a proud West Bromwich Albion fan, part-owner of a fruit and veg emporium, and a devoted dad. He's got the gift of the gab, exaggerates his musical talents, has no head for paperwork and is about to marry the woman he loves. And then the Home Office threatens him with deportation. August won't go quietly.August in England opened at the Bush Theatre, London, in April 2023.Nominated for The Stage Debut Award for Best Writer.

Read more less

Book Synopsis- Have we met?- No: you''re unforgettable. Do you want to play primo or secondo, James?At St Pancras International, a woman sits at the piano and begins to play. The music captivates commuters, tourists and, following a viral clip, people around the world. Behind the music is the incredible story of a lifelong duet: the ballad of Hattie and James.Throughout their lives, Hattie and James find themselves inextricably linked, and cannot help but replay the experiences that have shaped them.Samuel Adamson''s virtuosic tale of friendship and music opened at Kiln Theatre, London, in April 2024.

Read more less

Book SynopsisMemory, open my heart. Let the past part my lips. The stars never lie. But how we misread them, bright drop after bright drop in the sea of night.Based on the letters of Mary Queen of Scots, Mary Said What She Said is the testimony of Mary Stuart as she awaits martyrdom, accused of involvement in the most notorious plots of the time. On the eve of her execution, after nineteen years in captivity, she tells of her passions and torments.Mary Said What She Said received its UK premiere at the Barbican Centre, London, in May 2024.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisA striking new ensemble drama based on the Jena Six; six Black students who were initially charged with attempted murder for a school fight after being provoked with nooses hanging from a tree on campus. This bold new play by Dominique Morisseau (Sunset Baby Detroit '67

Read more less

Book SynopsisL. W. Conolly is a leading authority on Shaw. He is Literary Advisor to the Shaw Estate, Vice-President of the International Shaw Society, a Corresponding Scholar of the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, and the author and editor of numerous essays and books on Shaw. Professor of English Literature at Trent University in Ontario, Dr Conolly is also a Senior Member of Robinson College, Cambridge, and is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.Trade Review'Compact but comprehensive...Students and general readers will find it both accessible and enlightening, Shaw scholars will regard it as an excellent resource, and directors of future productions of Pygmalion will wish they could hire Leonard Conolly as their dramaturg.' Shaw: The Annual Bernard Shaw Studies (September 2009) 'The prosicuity of shaw's drama of the fortunes of the cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle continues to coruscate.' Sam Marlowe, The Times, 19.05.10 'Pygmalion is not just about accents or class. It is about the battle of the sexes, of control.' Quentin Letts, Daily Mail, 19.05.10 'This is Shaw's most serious and politically provocative comedy, an elegant attack on a society at war with itself.' John Peter, Sunday Times, 23.05.10 'It's no great stretch of the imagination to discern that the play's ingenious arguments about poverty, accent, education and identity hold good for multicultural Britain today.' Dominic Cavendish, Daily Telegraph, 26.05.10

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisBodas de sangre is arguably the best-known work by the most celebrated of all twentieth-century Spanish writers. A passionate story of family feud and tragic elopement is played out in the setting of a poor country village, building up to a dramatic ending full of the intensely poetic symbolism characteristic of Lorca. -- .

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis edition of the multi-authored text The Witch of Edmonton offers a thorough reconsideration of the text, comprehensive notes and glossary, together with a complete transcription of the original pamphlet by Henry Goodcole.Table of ContentsIntroductionThe Witch of EdmontonAppendixNotes

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisTable of ContentsIntroduction by Preti TanejaFlowers for Otello: On the Crimes That Came Out of Jena

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis volume features a wide range of plays that reimagine Shakespeare works from Borderlands perspectives. For several decades, Chicanx and Indigenous theatermakers have been repurposing Shakespeare's plays to reflect the histories and lived realities of the USMexico Borderlands and to create space to tell stories of and for La Frontera. Celebrating this rich tradition, The Bard in the Borderlands: An Anthology of Shakespeare Appropriations en La Frontera brings a wide range of Borderlands Shakespeare plays together for the first time in a multi-volume open-access scholarly edition. This anthology celebrates the dynamic, multilingual reworking of canon and place that defines Borderlands Shakespeare, and it situates these geographically and temporally diverse plays within the robust study of Shakespeare's global afterlives. The editors offer a critical framework for understanding the artistic and political traditions that shape these plays and the place of Shakespeare within the mulTrade Review"The Bard in the Borderlands: An Anthology of Shakespeare Appropriations en La Frontera, Volume 1 features a wide range of plays that deftly re-imagine Shakespeare works from Borderlands perspectives. Unique, ground-breaking, exceptional, thought-provoking, and inherently fascinating, The Bard in the Borderlands is a distinctive, ground-breaking, and unreservedly recommended as an addition to personal, professional, community, college, and university library Shakespeare studies collections. Of special appeal and value for readers with an interest in Hispanic American Dramas & Plays." * Midwest Book Review *Table of ContentsGeneral Introduction: Tracing the Traditions of Borderlands Shakespeare, by Katherine Gillen, Adrianna M. Santos, and Kathryn Vomero SantosIntroduction to Volume I, by Katherine Gillen, Adrianna M. Santos, and Kathryn Vomero SantosPlaytexts and Introductions1. The Language of Flowers by Edit Villarreal2. Kino and Teresa by James Lujan3. The Tragic Corrido of Romeo and Lupe by Seres Jaime Magaña4. Hamlet, El Príncipe de Denmark by Tara Moses5. Ofélio by Joshua Inocéncio6. ¡O Romeo! by Olga Sanchez SaltveitGlossaryBibliography

Read more less

Book SynopsisOn a Japanese beach, teenage sisters Hanako and Reiko are caught up in a storm. Reiko survives while Hanako is lost to the sea. Their mother, however, can't shake the feeling her missing daughter is still alive, and soon family tragedy takes on a global political dimension.

Read more less

Book SynopsisWritten in 1836, Woyzeck is often considered to be the first truly modern play.The story of a soldier driven mad by inhuman military discipline and acute social deprivation is told in splintered dialogue and jagged episodes, which are as shocking and telling today as they were when first performed, almost a century after the author''s death, in Munich 1913.This edition contains introductory commentary and notes by Laura Martin from the University of Glasgow. METHUEN DRAMA STUDENT EDITIONS are expertly annotated texts of a wide range of plays from the modern and classic repertoires. A well as the complete text of the play itself, this volume contains: A chronology of the play and the playwright's life and work an introductory discussion of the social, political, cultural and economic context in which the play was originally conceived and created a succinct overview of the creation processes followed and subsequent performance history of the piece an analysis of, and commentary onTable of ContentsChronology Commentary: Historical and Social Contexts The Manuscripts Character and Caricature Genre and Themes: Social Drama, Madness, Existential Terror and Tragedy, The ‘Double Nature’ of the Human Animal, The Problem of Marie Conclusion The Play as Performance Academic Debate Publication and Production History Further Exploration WOYZECK Notes

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis revised Student Edition includes an introduction by Daniel Ciba, which looks in particular at the play as a piece of realism or experimentalism and considers the play through the lens of Queer Identity. The introduction includes discussion of very recent revivals and adaptations of the play across the world.The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams'' first great popular success and an autobiographical play about his mother and sister, launched the brilliant and controversial career of this ground-breaking American playwright. Set in St Louis during the depression era of the 1930s, it is the poignant drama of a family''s gradual disintegration, under pressure both from outside and within. METHUEN DRAMA STUDENT EDITIONS are expertly annotated texts of a wide range of plays from the modern and classic repertoires. A well as the complete text of the play itself, this volume contains: A chronology of the play and the playwright's life and work an introductory discussion of the Trade ReviewOne of Tennessee Williams's most beautiful, haunting and generous plays. * The Sunday Times *The most touching, tender and painful of his works. * The Daily Telegraph *Table of ContentsContents Chronology by Alison Walls Introduction Autobiography Tragedy or Comedy Realistic or Nonrealistic Memory Queer Identity Disability Further Reading The Glass Menagerie Notes

Read more less