Plays, playscripts, drama

Book SynopsisThis is a comprehensive introduction to Thomas Middleton's "Women Beware Women" - introducing its critical history, performance history, the current critical landscape and new directions in research on the play. Thomas Middleton's intense study of betrayal, corruption, lust and violence, "Women Beware Women", is one of the revenge tragedies most commonly studied and performed today. This guide offers students an introduction to its critical and performance history, including notable stage productions, TV, audio and film versions and dramatic and text adaptations. It includes a keynote chapter outlining major areas of current research on the play and four new critical essays. Finally, a guide to critical, web-based and production-related resources and an annotated bibliography provide a basis for further individual research. "Continuum Renaissance Drama" offers practical and accessible introductions to the critical and performative contexts of key Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Each guide introduces the text's critical and performance history but also provides students with an invaluable insight into the landscape of current scholarly research through a keynote essay on the state of the art and newly commissioned essays of fresh research from different critical perspectives.Trade ReviewThis comprehensive collection of essays, beginning with Andrew Hiscock's historical account of Women Beware Women, combines fresh research, provocative new interpretations and a useful account of performances of one of Middleton's most powerful plays. Such established scholars as Helen Wilcox, Robert C. Evans and Coppelia Kahn join new voices for pioneering work on a major English playwright. -- Arthur F. Kinney, Thomas W. Copeland Professor of Literary History and Director of the Center for Renaissance Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amhers, USAWomen Beware Women: A Critical Guide provides a comprehensive critical and historical overview of the play, as well as views on the genre, the teaching of the text, and the performance techniques employed in staging the play. -- Gul Kurtulus * Sixteenth Century Journal *Table of ContentsSeries Introduction; Timeline; Introduction; 1. The Critical Backstory, Robert Evans (Auburn University at Montgomery, USA); 2. Performance History, Paul Innes (University of Glasgow, UK); 3. The State of the Art - Current Critical Research, Joost Daalder (Flinders University, Australia); 4. New Directions 1: Edward Gieskes (University of South Carolina, USA); 5. New Directions 2: Coppelia Kahn (Brown University, USA); 6. New Directions 3: Anne McLaren (University of Liverpool, UK); 7. New Directions 4: Helen Wilcox (University of Wales Bangor, UK); Resources. Liz Oakley-Brown (University of Lancaster, UK); Notes on Contributors; Index.

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Book SynopsisThis is one of the seven plays of Sophocles in the full editions by R.C. Jebb, all of which will be reissued under the BCP imprint. They have occasionally been reprinted but never before in affordable paperback versions. In this set, each volume contains a foreword by P.E. Easterling, concerned with Jebb and his contribution to Sophoclean scholarship; there follows an introduction by a noted Sophoclean scholar dealing with Jebb's treatment of the individual play and its value for - and contrast with - subsequent interpretations, for which a select bibliography is included.

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Book SynopsisAt the beginning of his career Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) wrote vigorous poetry, and plays which in their form and vehement characterisation resemble the later work of Samuel Beckett. This volume includes major works: One-Way Song, and Enemy of the Stars in its two very different versions, as well as other writings that can now be seen as central to the formation of Lewis's work. The plays and poems crackle with ferocious energy, concentrated and brilliant, as Lewis creates a literary equivalent to the visual revolutions of Cubism and Vorticism. He explores how an artist should think and write in an oppressive world, the relationship between imagination and action. This edition, with Alan Munton's annotations, is a definitive text based on Lewis's own final corrections. An introduction by C.H. Sisson places these radical works in the context of Lewis's other writings.

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Book SynopsisThese five plays by one of South Africa's major black playwrights were written between 1979 and 1986, a period in the country's history marked by intense repression and escalating violence. Several of Maponya's works fell foul of the censorship system. ""Gangsters"", for instance, was restricted by the Director of Publications and could only be performed in South Africa with the approval of the Publications Control Board. The works included in this collection - ""The Hungry Earth"", ""Dirty Work"", ""Gangsters"", ""Umongikazi/The Nurse"" and ""Jika"" - are introduced by Professor Ian Steadman, former Head of the Drama Department of the University of the Witwatersrand, now Dean of the Faculty of Arts.Table of Contents Preface: Maishe Maponya The Theatre of Maishe Maponya: Ian Steadman The Hungry Earth Umongikazi/The Nurse Dirty Work Gangsters Jika

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Book SynopsisAn autobiographical musical adventure that promises mischief and mashups, dresses and divas, and a whole lot of heart. Growing up in a close-knit south Wales community, Luke Hereford relied on his Nan as a personal cheerleader to guide him through his queer childhood. On his first tentative steps down the yellow brick road, Luke takes on Broadway, experiences his very first Pride event, and finds his perfect shade of lipstick - all to the tune of Madonna, Kylie, Kate Bush and all of his favourite pop divas. Join Luke as he stumbles along his journey of queer self-discovery through the glamorous spirit of his Nan, capturing their brightest memories - before they start to fade forever.Trade Review"Infectiously entertaining... a joyful show about a moving and meaningful relationship" - The Stage; "Exuberant and heartwarming" - The Scotsman; "A joyous big hug of a show" - BroadwayWorld.

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Book SynopsisA funny, moving play which celebrates the lives of three real-life heroines: Edwardian balloonist and parachutist Dolly Shepherd (1886-1983), suffragette Constance Lytton (1869-1923), and interwar explorer Violet Cressy-Marcks (1895-1970).

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Book SynopsisCuatro mujeres y un hombre son los últimos supervivientes del ?Corpse recycling program?; un proyecto que consiste en reciclar el exceso de calor generado en la cremación. Para ello, se comprometen a trasladarse a un edificio innovador y aislado, que solo puede calentarse con un horno crematorio último modelo, que solo funciona con cadáveres. Con el paso del tiempo, los vecinos han ido falleciendo, solo quedan la Tana, Oliva, María Encina, Sabina y El Hombre Madroño. Necesitan que alguien muera para poder calentarse, pero parecen destinados a vivir en ese frío edificio.El programa es solo una excusa para diseminar a unos personajes desesperados, que intentan defender lo suyo, mientras aprenden la importancia de los cuidados, el sufrimiento en el abandono y el hecho de que amar mucho no significa amar bien. Gracias a la conexión intelectual entre dos de los personajes, que leen y estudian a las ?poetas suicidas? se abre una ventana hacia un plano mágico y poético que dará a la comunidad un sentimiento de familia y sororidad, en una tragicomedia donde la muerte y el surrealismo están muy presentes.

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