Plays, playscripts, drama
Faber & Faber Airswimming Contemporary Classics Plays
Book SynopsisThis first collection of plays by Charlotte Jones includes her multi-award winning Humble Boy (Susan Smith Blackburn Award 2001, the Critics'' Circle Best New Play Award 2002, and the People''s Choice Best New Play Award 2002).''Charlotte Jones . . . one of our most accomplished and entertaining young playwrights.'' Financial TimesAirswimming''The structure and writing - admirably clear and unsentimental - both trip the light fantastic too, effortlessly gliding from the desperately funny to the desperately sad.'' GuardianIn Flame''Watching Charlotte Jones''s play, In Flame, is an experience of pleasure virtually unalloyed. It is funny, but with depth; painful, but with delicacy.'' Financial Times''A play about life and death, love and lust, guilt and hope and dreams and the whole damn thing. It has some of the best writing I have come across recently: vigorous, poetic and lethally funny, probing
£15.19
Faber & Faber Alan Ayckbourn Plays 3 Haunting Julia Sugar
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."
£17.09
Faber & Faber The House of Bernarda Alba
Book SynopsisFinished just two months before the author''s murder on 18 August 1936 by a gang of Franco''s supporters, The House of Bernarda Alba is now accepted as Lorca''s great masterpiece of love and loathing.Five daughters live together in a single household with a tyrannical mother. When the father of all but the eldest girl dies, a cynical marriage is advanced which will have tragic consequences for the whole family. Lorca''s fascinatingly modern play, rendered here in an English version by David Hare, speaks as powerfully as a political metaphor of oppression as it does as domestic drama. The House of Bernarda Alba premiered at the National Theatre, London, in March 2005.
£10.44
Faber & Faber By the Bog of Cats
Book SynopsisA modern classic by one of Ireland''s greatest contemporary playwrights, reissued in a beautiful typographic jacket.I was born on the Bog of Cats and on the Bog of Cats I'll end me days. I've as much right to this place as any of yees, more, for it holds me to it in ways it has never held yees.As Hester Swane embarks on a terrible journey of vengeance through the mysterious, mythic landscape of the bogs of rural Ireland, the dark secrets of her tangled history are slowly revealed.By the Bog of Cats . . . premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 1998.Carr has an extraordinary ability to move between the mythic and the real.' GUARDIANA great play . . . a great work of poetry.' INDEPENDENTSwane's irrepressible personality is the play's driving force, a firestorm of contradictory emotions breaking across the stage in waves of love and fear. Her fierce attachment to her home, to her family and to her way of life comes up hard against the desires and prejudices of her community. As dark as the play is, it is also tender and funny in its attempts to represent a spectrum of human experience much broader than its characters' accents.' IRISH TIMES
£9.49
Faber & Faber The Home Place
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.
£9.49
Faber & Faber Collected Shorter Plays
Book SynopsisThs volume contains all of Beckett''s less-than-full-length works (or ''Dramaticules'') for the stage, radio and television. Arranged in chronological order of composition, these shorter plays demonstrate the laconic means and compassionate ends of Beckett''s dramatic vision.Contents: All That Fall, Act Without Words, Krapp''s Last Tape, Roughs for Theatre, Embers, Roughs for Radio, Words and Music, Cascando, Play, Film, The Old Tune (adapted from Pinget), Come and Go, Eh Joe, Breath, Not I, That Time, Footfalls, Ghost Trio, ...but the clouds..., A Piece of Monologue, Rockaby, Ohio Impromptu, Quad, Catastrophe, Nacht und Traume, What Where.
£17.09
Faber & Faber Moira Buffini Plays 1
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"
£17.09
Faber & Faber Heroes Le Vent des Peupliers
Book SynopsisOne must strive a little for the epic, old boy.It''s 1959 and Philippe, Gustave and Henri, three veterans from the first world war, dream of making their escape from the soldiers'' home, if not to Indochina then at least as far as the poplar trees on the hill...Gérald Sibleyras''s Le Vent des Peupliers premiered at the Wyndham''s Theatre, London, in October 2005 as Heroes, an English-language version by Tom Stoppard. It received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 2006.
£10.44
Faber & Faber Unicorns Almost
Book SynopsisUnicorns, Almost portrays the short life of World War II poet Keith Douglas, from his childhood through four engagements to his fighting in the Western desert, his accelerated education as a poet and his early death three days after the Normandy D-Day landings at the age of twenty-four. It is the story of his Faustian pact with a war that would nurture his unique poetic voice before taking it away. It is also the story of his desperate race to see his poems in print.Widely recognised as the finest poet of World War Two, Keith Douglas was championed by Ted Hughes as an important influence. Hughes wrote the introduction to Douglas's Collected Poems, published by Faber.Unicorns, Almost by Owen Sheers opened at The Swan Hotel, Hay-on-Wye, in May 2018.
£9.89
Faber & Faber There Came a Gypsy Riding
Book SynopsisThe McKenna family convenes at their remote West Ireland holiday home to mark the 21st birthday of their late son Gene. Eccentric cousin Bridget appears along the causeway, inviting herself for birthday cake and conversation, and ready to expose a family secret. Even Margaret, the unstoppable mother, and Leo, the ever-calm father, can''t hold things together in the face of an unexpected visit from the past.There Came a Gypsy Riding premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London, in January 2007.
£8.54
Faber & Faber The Vertical Hour
Book SynopsisNadia Blye is a young American war reporter turned academic who teaches Political Studies at Yale. A brief holiday with her boyfriend brings her into contact with a kind of Englishman whose culture and background is a surprise and a challenge, both to her and to her relationship. For thirty five years, David Hare has written plays which catch the flavour of our times, the interconnection between our secret motives and our public politics. Now, at last, he writes about an American, seeking to illustrate how life has subtly changed for so many people in the West in the new century.The Vertical Hour received its world premiere at the Music Box Theater, Broadway, on November 30, 2006, and received its UK premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on 17 January 2008.
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Faber & Faber Stuff Happens Faber Plays
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
£10.44
Faber & Faber Selected Plays 19992009
Book SynopsisDavid Greig: Plays 1 brings together four key plays by the playwright described by the Daily Telegraph as ''one of the most interesting and adventurous British dramatists of his generation''. In Outlying Island two young Cambridge ornithologists are sent to a remote island. Together with its authoritarian leaseholder and his niece they observe an innocence that is about to be destroyed forever. San Diego offers a strange and occasionally nightmarish journey into the heart of the contemporary American dream, weaving together stories of illegal immigrants, of film stars and whores, and even of the playwright himself. Pyrenees follows a man found lying in the snow in the foothills as he tries to piece together his identity. In The American Pilot a crash-landing in a remote valley in a distant country raises questions about how the world sees America and how America sees the world. The collection also includes a trilogy of short
£16.14
Faber & Faber The Seagull by Anton Chekhov in a new version by
Book Synopsis''Young girl lives on shore of lake since childhood - like you. Loves the lake - like the seagull. Is happy and free - like the seagull. Then one day a man turns up, sees her, and mindlessly destroys her.'' Martin Crimp''s pared down version of Chekhov''s first great play reveals the full force of its comedy and cruelty - whether it''s love, sex, incredible fame, or simply a trip into town, each character is denied the thing they most crave. The Seagull, in a new version by Martin Crimp, premieres at the National Theatre, London, in June 2006.
£10.44
Faber & Faber The Flags
Book Synopsis
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Faber & Faber Venus
Book SynopsisWith VENUS, Hanif Kureishi turns his piercing gaze onto the pains of old age. Maurice (Peter O''Toole) and Ian (Leslie Phillips) are veteran stage actors whose slow, inevitable decline is disrupted by the arrival in their lives of Ian''s niece Jessie (Jodie Whittaker). While Jessie''s housekeeping skills make for a bone of contention with Ian, Maurice finds himself attracted to her. Kureishi has crafted a disturbing, wry and profoundly moving swansong for his characters. Also included in this volume is an Introduction by Kureishi in which he describes the inspiration he drew from the Japanese master Tanizaki.
£8.54
Faber & Faber Leaves
Book SynopsisWe are where we come from?'' That''s not true. That''s not true because if that''s true there''s no hope for any of us.Lori is coming home from her first term at university. It''s only been a few weeks and already things have gone badly wrong. But none of the rest of the family knows, or understands, what really happened.In this fiercely observed family drama, three teenage girls struggle to define who they are, and why, and where they might be going.Leaves won the George Devine Award 2006, the premier award for new writing by an emerging playwright in the UK and Ireland. The play opened at the Druid Theatre, Galway in March 2007 before transferring to the Royal Court Theatre, London.
£10.44
Faber & Faber Dying For It
Book SynopsisHallway-dwelling Semyon is unemployed and disheartened with life. On the night of the deed, a party grows towards a glorious climax.Moira Buffini has freely adapted Nikolai Erdman's The Suicide, which was banned by Stalin before a single performance, to create Dying For It.
£10.44
Faber & Faber The Permanent Way
Book SynopsisIn 1991, before an election they did not expect to win, the Conservative government made a fateful decision to privatize the railways. As a result, the taxpayer subsidizes rail more lavishly then ever before. In The Permanent Way, David Hare, working with actors from the Out of Joint Company, tells the intricate, madcap story of a dream gone sour, by gathering together the first-hand accounts of those most intimately involved - from every level of the system.
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Faber & Faber The Bacchae In a New Version
Book SynopsisOne of the greatest of all Greek tragedies - savage, comic and intensely lyrical - The Bacchae powerfully dramatises the conflict between the emotional and rational sides of the human psyche. The magnetic young Dionysus - icon, hedonist, god - returns home with his cult of female followers to exact his revenge, unleashing the full force of female sexuality on the city.David Greig''s version of The Bacchae premiered at the King''s Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2007 in a co-production between the Edinburgh International Festival and the National Theatre of Scotland.
£10.99
Faber & Faber War Horse
Book SynopsisI want you to do yourself proud, Joey. You go and drive those Germans back where they''ve come from, and then come home to me.At the outbreak of World War one, Joey, young Albert''s beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. Caught up in enemy fire, fate takes Joey on an extraordinary odyssey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no man''s land. But Albert cannot forget Joey and, still not old enough to enlist, he embarks on a treacherous mission to find him and bring him home.War Horse was revived for a major UK tour in 2024-2025. The playtext has a brand new cover to coincide with the tour, but it still contains the original text, first published in 2007. Nick Stafford''s adaptation for the stage of the celebrated novel by the Children''s Laureate (2003-05) Michael Morpurgo leads us on a gripping journey through history. War Horse premiered at the National Theatre, London, in October 2007.
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Faber & Faber David Hare Plays 3
Book SynopsisThis is a new collection of some of David Hare''s finest work, including Skylight (Winner of the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play, 1996), Amy''s View, The Judas Kiss and My Zinc Bed.
£17.09
Faber & Faber Her Naked Skin
Book SynopsisLove is just fear I suppose. Masquerading as a fever. Then you explore each other and suddenly you have licence to become totally pedestrian. And ultimately abusive.The first original play by a living female playwright to be performed on the National Theatre''s main stage. London, 1913. The Suffragette Movement is at its height. Thousands of women of all classes serve time in Holloway Prison in their fight to gain the vote. Amongst them is Lady Celia Cain, shackled by both the policies of the day and a frustrating marriage. Inside, she meets a young seamstress, Eve Douglas, and her life spirals into an erotic but dangerous chaos.Her Naked Skin premiered at the National Theatre, London, 2008.''Rebecca Lenkiewicz''s outstanding play is a remarkable testament to the courage of a band of sisters who were vilified and viciously repressed in their quest for representation and emancipation . . . Her Naked Skin marries epic public
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Faber & Faber Land of the Dead Helter Skelter AND Helter
Book Synopsis
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Faber & Faber Oedipus
Book SynopsisGod is on fire - his fever is plague.All that was sweet is spilt and gone.The people of Thebes look to Oedipus to lift a terrible curse from them and their city. He consults the oracle and learns that he must root out the late king''s murderer. But his relentless interrogation of one man after another leads inexorably, and in the space of a single day, to his own savage conclusion.You are who you are seeking to find. Frank McGuinness''s version of Sophocles'' Oedipus premiered at the National Theatre, London, in October 2008.
£30.56
Faber & Faber The Wall
Book SynopsisIn the small Ayrshire town of Stewarton, the school holidays are like a microwave. So much happens and it all happens so fast. Norma Gordon has got a problem. She''s going to be in big trouble if her dad finds out. Norma needs to find Rab McGuire fast. Her big brother Barry''s no use. He''s in love for the first time. Michelle Montgomery loves Barry too but her mum and Aunt Alice just won''t let them be together. This summer everything''s changing in Stewarton. The Wall premiered at Tron Theatre, Glasgow, in February 2008, in association with Borderline Theatre Company. It is the first part of a trilogy that includes The Ducky and The Chooky Brae.Trade Review"It is an unalloyed pleasure to discover fresh talent. On the evidence of this, his first full-length, fully staged play, D.C. Jackson, from Ayreshire, is going to be a voice to be reckoned with", The times. "As confident as it is funny, it promises great things from this writer", Guardian.
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Faber & Faber Hedda Gabler In a Version
Book SynopsisHedda Gabler returns, dissatisfied, from a long honeymoon. Bored by her aspiring academic husband, she foresees a life of tedious convention. And so, aided and abetted by her predatory confidante, Judge Brack, she begins to manipulate the fates of those around her to devastating effect.Brian Friel''s version of Ibsen''s Hedda Gabler premiered at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, in September 2008, to celebrate the theatre''s birthday, eighty years after the Gate''s inaugural production of Ibsen''s Peer Gynt.
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Faber & Faber Nova Scotia
Book SynopsisThirty years since we last met him and Lucille in the Garden of Remembrance, Phil McCann faces the New Millennium with fortitude and good humour. The leading arts correspondent of the day is on her way to the far north to record a radio profile, which Paul is confident will relaunch his career as a painter and establish him once and for all as a colossus of contemporary Caledonian culture.There are, however, a number of stumbling blocks on the road to Phil''s rediscovery and the recognition of his genius, not least of which is his rocky marriage to much younger Didi, a video artist of some renown, who has just been nominated for the Turner Prize.Then there''s the old pal, Spanky, who turns up out of the blue with new bride, Lucille, on his arm...Nova Scotia premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in April 2008.
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Faber & Faber The Pride of Parnell Street
Book SynopsisOLD GOD''S TIME (MARCH 2023), SEBASTIAN BARRY''S STUNNING NEW NOVEL, AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOWSee, love between a man and a woman, it''s - private. It happens where you never do see it. In rooms.Italy 1 - Ireland 0...The score that marked Ireland''s demoralizing exit from Italia ''90 took its toll. No more so than for Janet and Joe Brady of Parnell Street who lost far more than the match that night. Some years on, Joe and Janet reveal the intimacies of their love and the rupture of their marriage, through interconnecting monologues that also evoke their life-long love affair with Dublin city itself. Sebastian Barry''s explores with vivid tenderness the devastating effects of public and private acts of violence. This is an intimate, heroic tale of ordinary and extraordinary life on the streets of Dublin. Fishamble''s world premiere of The Pride of Parnell Street opened at the Tricycle Theatre, London, and as part
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Faber & Faber That Face
Book SynopsisWritten when Polly Stenham was nineteen years old, That Face is a savagely funny dissection of the lives of the rich, reissued in Faber Drama''s elegant new series design.You're shaking. It's too much, isn't it? You only like good clean torture.Mia is at boarding school. She has access to drugs. They are Martha's. Henry is preparing for art college. He has access to alcohol. From Martha. Martha controls their lives. Martha is their mother.That Face premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, 2007, winning the TMA Award for Best New Play. Polly Stenham won the Charles Wintour Award and the Critics' Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright.''One of the most astonishing debuts I have seen in more than thirty years.'' DAILY TELEGRAPH''Polly Stenham is a modern successor to Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee . . . an intensely moving, skilfully crafted piece.'' DAILY EXPRESS''Stenham's god-given gift i
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Faber & Faber Happy Days
Book SynopsisHappy Days was written in 1960 and first produced in London at the Royal Court Theatre in November 1962.WINNIE: [ . . .] Well anyway - this man Shower - or Cooker - no matter - and the woman - hand in hand - in the other hands bags - kind of big brown grips - standing there gaping at me [...] - What''s she doing? he says - What''s the idea? he says - stuck up to her diddies in the bleeding ground - coarse fellow - What does it mean? he says - What''s it meant to mean? - and so on - lot more stuff like that - usual drivel - Do you hear me? He says - I do, she says, God help me - What do you mean, he says, God help you? (stops filing nails, raises head, gazes front.) And you, she says, what''s the idea of you, she says, what are you meant to mean?
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Faber & Faber Fall
Book SynopsisIs the settling of scores a necessary step towards restoring peace after a bloody conflict?Set against a war-crimes trial at the end of a civil war, Fall explores the thin line between justice and revenge.Fall is the last play in a trilogy by Zinnie Harris that examines the transforming effects of war. Solstice and Midwinter were performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2004/05, and are also published by Faber.
£9.49
Faber & Faber Peter Gill Plays 2 Cardiff East Certain Young Men
Book SynopsisCardiff East ''As scene melts into scene, one''s appetite for knowing more and more about these people is constantly whetted, even for the ones one would avoid in real life. Each and every [character] rings true and resonates further... A play which is never less than gripping.'' Mail on Sunday Certain Young Men ''The play is marked by a fast turnover of scenes, lots of brusque, vivid, wryly funny dialogue... articulate, arresting and as freshly performed as anything in town.'' The Times The York Realist: Winner of the London Critics'' Circle Award for Best New Play ''As a love story, The York Realist is riveting and heart-rending, performed with fine-tuned naturalism that''s quiet and unhurried. Gill is always terrifically perceptive about male tenderness. Overall, the personal and political are subtly united in a study of English masculinity, class and culture. Such outstanding work.''Indep
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Faber & Faber Marina Carr Plays 2 On Rafterys Hill Ariel Woman
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
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Faber & Faber Tusk Tusk
Book SynopsisCome on troops. Let''s take check: Finn Bar, slightly ruffled but still in fighting form. Maggie, could do with a full night''s sleep but otherwise all in order... Stay here. Don''t answer the door. I''ll go out and get some proper food.In a new flat, three children play hide and seek. Eliot wears a crown, little Finn, King of the Wild Thing''s, draws on the walls. Maggie climbs them. Hiding from the world, needing to be found, their one shared focus a mobile phone. Will it ring? Who will call? And what are they waiting for?Tusk Tusk is a tale of family loyalty as an uncertain future circles. Polly Stenham''s second play premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in March 2009.
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Faber & Faber The Cherry Orchard
Book SynopsisLiubov Ranevskya, a widowed landowner returns home more or less insolvent after five years abroad. Everything appears just as she remembers, but hers is a diminishing world. Her vast and beautiful cherry orchard is soon to be sold off against her mounting debts. The insistent warnings of Lopakhin, a peasant''s son turned wealthy businessman, go unheeded, and more than the family estate is sacrificed as Trofimov, the ''eternal student'' who hopes to inherit the future, tells her, The whole of Russia is our orchard.Tom Stoppard''s adaptation of Chekhov''s last play is a poignant snapshot of the great, slow-rolling change that came to a head with the Russian revolution in 1917. Tom Stoppard''s English version of Chekhov''s The Cherry Orchard had its first New York performance at the Harvey Theater, Brooklyn in January 2009, and its first London performance at the Old Vic Theatre in May 2009.
£10.44
Faber & Faber BerlinWall FSG Classics
Book SynopsisBerlin/WallIn two contrasted readings for the stage, David Hare visits a place where a famous wall has come down; then another where a wall is going up.BerlinFor his whole adult life, David Hare has been visiting the city which so many young people regard as the most exciting in Europe. But there''s something in Berlin''s elusive character that makes him feel he''s always missing the point. Now, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the reunification, he offers a meditation about Germany''s restored capital - both what it represents in European history, and the peculiar part it has played in his own life.WallThe Israeli/Palestine security fence will one day stretch 486 miles, from one end of Israel to the other. It will be four times as long as the Berlin wall, and in places twice as high. In this second monologue, the playwright recalls his trips to both Israel and the Palestinian territory and offers a history of the wall''s bui
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Faber & Faber Midsummer a play with songs Faber Drama
Book SynopsisMidsummer''s weekend in Edinburgh. It''s raining. Bob''s a failing car salesman on the fringes of the city''s underworld. Helena''s a high-powered divorce lawyer with a taste for other people''s husbands. She''s totally out of his league; he''s not her type at all. They absolutely should not sleep together. Which is, of course, why they do. Midsummer is the story of a great lost weekend of bridge-burning, car chases, wedding bust-ups, bondage miscalculations, midnight trysts and self-loathing hangovers.A collaboration between playwright David Greig and singer-songwriter Gordon McIntyre, Midsummer opened at the Traverse Theatre in October 2008 and was revived for an international tour in the summer of 2009.
£9.89
Faber & Faber Simon Gray Plays 1
Book SynopsisButley ''What is so wondrous about a play so basically defeatist and hurtful is its ability to be funny. The stark, unsentimental approach to the homosexual relationship, the cynical send-up of academic life, the skeptical view of the teacher-pupil associations are all stunningly illuminated by continuous explosions of sardonic, needling, feline, vituperative and civilised lines.'' Evening Standard
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Faber & Faber Simon Gray Plays 2
Book Synopsis''A superbly written play, a funny play, an agonising play. It is, moreover, a play of truth and insight. A play to savour.'' Punch on Otherwise Engaged''Life in the theatre hasn''t brought me anything more rewarding than directing Simon Gray''s plays.'' Harold PinterPlaintiffs and DefendantsExceptionally good... the play gave such a rending picture of married mess that it was hard to know where to look.'' Clive James, Observer''Simon Gray is the one [TV playwright] whose work I most relish seeing for his acerbic wit, wonderful ironies and above all for his care with our mother tongue.'' Dennis Potter
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Faber & Faber Simon Gray Plays 3
Book Synopsis''The brave little lives that Gray so compassionately illuminates could be lived by any of us, and that''s why they arouse emotions that are anything but small.''New York Times on Quartermaine''s Terms
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Faber & Faber Simon Gray Plays 4
Book Synopsis''Sharp, funny and clever . . . What a pleasure to re-encounter a play that combines unabashed intelligence and zinging wit with a rare generosity of spirit.''Daily Telegraph on The Common Pursuit''Gray''s stature as one of the handful of great tragi-comic English dramatists of the second half of the twentieth century would appear now to be undisputed.'' Howard Jacobson, Critical QuarterlyHidden Laughter''A sad divine comedy, superbly written. Gray nurses his characters and cares for them, but he never pampers them, or pities them, or presumes to use them as his spokesman. In this respect, he has become an English Chekhov... At the same time, Gray dispenses some of the incandescent malice and moral savagery of Coward at his acid best... But, of course, comparisons can only help you get your bearings. Gray is entirely his own man in this painful, querulous, warm, hard and mature play.'' Sunday Times
£14.44
Faber & Faber The Habit of Art
Book SynopsisAuden often said that metre and rhyme led him down unexpected paths to thoughts he wouldn''t otherwise have had, and in this respect versification and fornication are not so different. Benjamin Britten, sailing uncomfortably close to the wind with his new opera, Death in Venice, seeks advice from his former collaborator and friend, W H Auden. During this imagined meeting, their first for twenty-five years, they are observed and interrupted by amongst others their future biographer and a young man from the local bus station.You are a rent boy. I am a poet. Over the wall lives the Dean of Christ Church. We all have our parts to play.Alan Bennett''s new play is as much about the theatre as it is about poetry or music. It looks at the unsettling desires of two difficult men, and at the ethics of biography. It reflects on growing old, on creativity and inspiration, and on persisting when all passion''s spent: ultimately, on the habit of art. <
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Faber & Faber Pains of Youth
Book SynopsisYou could do insane twenty hours shifts in theatre. You could be mother of ten children. You could be toughest whore on the block. You contain all possibilities. You are the ultimate cliché of youth''s incredible potential.Promiscuous, pitiless and bored, six sexually entangled medical students restlessly wander in and out of a boarding house, cramming, drinking, taunting, spying. Freder sets about savagely experimenting with the young, pretty maid, with half an eye on his former lover Desiree, a wild, disillusioned aristocrat. Petrell abandons Marie for the ruthless underdog Irene. Marie doesn''t waste any time weeping - Desiree wants her. Bourgeois existence or suicide. There are no other choices. Vienna, 1923. A discontented post-war generation diagnose youth to be their sickness and do their best to destroy it. A shocking, erotically charged play by Austrian writer Ferdinand Bruckner, presented in a compelling new version by Martin Crimp.
£9.89
Faber & Faber Eigengrau
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.
£10.44
Faber & Faber Welcome to Thebes
Book SynopsisHe put this gun into my hand and made me human once again.Faced with an impoverished population, a shattered infrastructure and a volatile army, the first democratic president of Thebes, Eurydice, promises peace to her nation. Without the aid of Theseus, the leader of the vastly wealthy state of Athens, she doesn''t stand a chance. But Theseus is arrogant, mercurial and motivated by profit. A swaggering opposition circles, impatient for insurrection. The body of the former dictator lies unburied. Set in the present day but inspired by ancient myth, Welcome to Thebes offers a passionate exploration of an encounter between the world''s richest and the world''s poorest countries in the aftermath of a brutal war.Moira Buffini''s Welcome to Thebes premiered at the National Theatre, London, in June 2010.
£10.44
Faber & Faber Greta Garbo Came to Donegal
Book SynopsisIn the summer of 1967 Greta Garbo comes to Donegal.Ireland is on the verge of violent change. Two couples are on the verge of parting. A woman tries to save her family, while a girl tries to save her future. Seemingly above it all is the loveliest and loneliest of all women, the great Garbo. But when the gods arrive, they can cause havoc, not least to themselves, as the divine Greta is to learn.Frank McGuinness''s Greta Garbo Came to Donegal premiered at the Tricycle Theatre, London, in January, 2010.
£9.49
Faber & Faber Haunted
Book Synopsis''A beguiling memory play of such subtle and elusive beauty, you feel it might disintegrate if you were to put your finger on it. But the action forms a delicate tissue of loss and regret as the bewitching Hazel causes Mr Berry to reflect on the wife he has lost and the child he never had.'' Guardian''Combines youthful freshness with a wise, rich, wholly lived-in quality. O''Brien digs deep, like elaborate crochet-work where the needles lance to the heart.'' Daily Telegraph''An enchanting exploration of desire and regret.'' ObserverHaunted premiered at Manchester''s Royal Exchange in 2009 and transfers to the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, in February 2010 before a UK tour.
£9.49
