The First English Pastor Fido (1602)
Giovanni Battista Guarini's Il pastor fido was a major text of the late European Renaissance, both in itself and as a manifesto of its author's ideas on pastoral tragicomedy. This edition presents the text of the first English translation of the play, probably by Tailboys Dymock, first published in 1602.While Richard Fanshawe's royalist version of 1647 is better-known, the process by which Fanshawe's version was canonized and Dymock's forgotten was based on false premises, as the introduction to this edition demonstrates. Not only is Dymock's version the freer of the two, shortening and simplifying Guarini's text, it also appears to be an attempt to make the play more fitting for the contemporary London stage. Those responsible for the 1602 version decided to work on a play with poetic pedigree, but they made a book that looked like the English playtexts of the time - a compromise which reflects the fluctuating aesthetic values at the beginning of the seventeenth century.The text is presented with modern spelling and punctuation, accompanied by extensive explanatory notes and an introduction discussing both the history of this translation and of Guarini's original, situating them both in their wider literary historical context, and demonstrating the historical value of the first English Pastor fido in the context of late Elizabethan translation practice, theatrical discourse and theatrical publishing.Massimiliano Morini teaches English Linguistics and Translation at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo.
Thank You for Abusing Me
Thank You for Abusing Me: View From Behind the Couch is a look at domestic violence from the perspective of the child hiding behind the couch. From terrifying nights pretending to be asleep, to morning questions that would never be asked, domestic violence affects the entire household. Sometimes that affect can be for the better.
Eighteen Missing Pages
On the day Owen Black was notified that his employment was coming to an end, he had even worse news. His wife was leaving him. He was an ex-navy seal and his training was in killing terrorists, and breaking things. There wasn't much call for an experienced soldier in the modern day workforce. Owen and his wife had been together since grade school. He was lost, empty, and unemployed. When he tried to get back into the military, he was denied. He had seen too much, fought too many battles, and they believed he was mentally damaged by war. The Navy recruiter's brother was looking for employees to tear down buildings in Washington, DC, and Owen was offered a job. He traveled from his home in Kentucky, took up residence in a broken down apartment building with a young man who would be his coworker. The two of them were a wrecking crew, proficiently disassembling ancient buildings in historical districts.One day they dislodged a leather satchel from within the wall of a civil war era building. What they found was a world changing document, and an item worth millions. The New Jersey Mob, and the FBI both got wind of it, and they wanted what Owen and his young friend had found. From that moment on, they were pursued unbeknownst to them. The intrigue ended when they learned they were under surveillance by law enforcement and criminals alike, They found a way to take matters into their own hands.
Who Left God Playing with Mud?!
From Sumer and Babylon-the cradle of civilization; the lands between two rivers that birthed writing and drowned humanity with a deluge of myths from which organized religions sprouted.Mesopotamia, 2300 BCSargon is reveling in a casual banquet, days before he is to be crowned king of kings, when the court jester recites a song that is fiercely denounced as blasphemous by a priest; and a gory scene visits the cheerful feast.It is what prompted a chain of cruel fates to chase a host of lives: from priests to heretics, a wise school master, nobles and slaves, a princess, one thriving merchant, a struggling boatman, sculptors and a serial killer in a love triangle ... all take their place in a murky world where innocence and evil collide, love begets vengeance, and peace is best served by slaughter.A few will endure the assaults of despair, while others succumb to the whims of the gods, who, seemingly in a quest to satisfy an insatiable lust for blood, had gifted the humans with fertile minds for the sole purpose of enhancing a savagery far more amusing in its gore than that of the wildest beasts.Warning: Followers of any Abrahamic faith are sincerely and strongly advised to avoid reading this work of fiction. Also, the novel contains themes of graphic violence, sexual abuse, misogynist attitudes, among other offensive traits that were undoubtedly more pervasive in that early civilization than the present.
Greek Tragedy and the Middle East
Employing the idea of interculturality to study Middle Eastern adaptations of Greek tragedy from the turn of 20th century until the present day, this book first explores the earlier phase of the development of Greek classical reception in Middle Eastern theatre. It then moves to focus on modern Arabic, Persian and Turkish adaptations of Greek tragedy both in the early post-colonial and contemporary periods in the MENA and in Europe. Case by case, this book examines how the classical sources are reworked and adapted, as well as how they engage with interculturality, hybridisation and the circulation of aesthetics and models. At the same time, it explores the implications and consequences of expressing socio-political concerns through classical Greek sources. While Muslim thinkers and translators introduced Greek philosophy - in particular Aristotle's Poetics - to the West in the Middle Ages, adaptations of Greek tragedies only appeared in the MENA region at the very beginning of the 20th century. For this reason, the development of Greek tragedy in the Middle East is difficult to disentangle from colonialism and cultural imperialism. Encompassing language differences and offering for the first time a broad approach on the Middle-Eastern reception of Greek tragedy, this book produces a renewed focus on a fascinating aspect of the classical tradition.
Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat
Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat is an epic cycle of plays exploring the personal and political effect of war on modern life. The plays that make up Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat began life at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe as Ravenhill for Breakfast (produced by Paines Plough) winning a Fringe First award and the Jack Tinker Spirit of the Fringe award. They form a collage of very different scenes with each taking its title from a classic work. The plays were presented in April 2008 in
Pride's Crossing
At ninety Mabel Tidings Bigelow insists on celebrating her daughter and granddaughter's annual visit with an archaic croquet party. As it unfolds she relives vignettes from the last eighty years that subtly interleave past and present to reveal the precise moments of opportunity lost and love rejected that define her life. A vibrant portrait of Mabel takes shape: her flashes of wit and humor resilience disappointments youthful spunk and geriatric willfulness. Her Boston blue-blood family expected daughters to applaud from the sidelines but Mabel had one shining moment of achievement: she was the first woman to swim the English Channel. However her willfulness did not extend to rejecting a socially ideal fianc矇 for love. Pride's Crossing is a rewarding challenge for a talented cast.
Catch 22
This stage dramatization of Hellers classic satire offers actors mutliple opportunities portraying the unforgettable characters from the novel: Milo Minderbinder Clevinger Lt. Colonel Korn Nurse Duckett and Major Major among many others. The folly of war and those who make it pay is seen through the eyes of Yossarian a nihilistic pilot convinced his number is up. Every time Yo-Yo reaches his quota of missions the requirements are increased until he flatly refuses to fly. Hed like to get out but theres always a catch...
Product
Olivia is a hot young starlet. Now all she needs is the script which will save her from B movie hell a script which balances artistic integrity with blockbuster bucks. Mark thinks he's got the perfect pitch - a script which combines a torrid love story with the dark spectre of terrorism and big big explosions. If he can only persuade Amy he's got the perfect Product.
The Long Christmas Dinner
The Long Christmas Dinner - nine decades long - showcases the lives of several generations of the Bayard family. Wilder breaks the boundaries of time as we measure it and invites us to partake of "one long happy Christmas dinner" - past present and future. As generations appear have children wither and depart only the audience appreciates what changes and what remains the same. "Every last twig is wrapped around with ice. You almost never see that " young Genevieve marvels not realizing that her mother made this observation years earlier or that her daughter-in-law will one day do the same.
Ghost Story
Lisa has breast cancer. Meryl is a healer who believes in the power of positive thinking. As time folds back on itself and then forwards Lisa and Meryl trade roles as the healer and the healed discovering that the world is full of ghosts.
Golden Child
Taking inspiration from Oedipus and Chilean children who were taken from their biological parents to support the Pinochet regime, GOLDEN CHILD follows a young man's journey discovering that the people he knew to be his parents his whole life are not actually his parents.
Scenes from a Family Life
Scenes from Family Life is a charged and punchy play about relationships and the last two people left on earth. Lisa and Jack are teenagers but they are about to become adults; Lisa is pregnant and neither of them can wait for the baby to arrive and their lives to start. But then Lisa vanishes - into thin air. Jack panics until she comes back but then she disappears again and then it turns out that everyone is dematerialising all over the planet people are disappearing. Quickly the
The Experiment
If you could cure thousands of a fatal disease by experimenting on a single child would you do it? That's the question posed by the narrator of this story their personal complicity in the experience a slippery possibility.
The Apollo of Bellac
Here is the quintessence of Giraudoux's extraordinary imagination and style. A shy girl applying for a job at the Office of Inventions learns from a nondescript man that she can have her way with any man if she declares that he is as handsome as the nonexistent statue of the Apollo of Bellac. The play is alive with wry and trenchant observations on the comical attitudes and truths that men assume in life.
Ken Ludwig's Moriarty
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are back on the case! An investigation into the Bohemian king's stolen letters cascades into an international mystery filled with spies, blackmail and intrigue. With world peace at stake, Holmes and Watson join forces with American actress Irene Adler to take down cunning criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty and his network of devious henchmen. Five actors play over 40 roles in this adventure that has danger - and laughter! - around every corner.
Dear Liar
Shining in the bewitching repartee between two great wits Katharine Cornell and Brian Aherne played Mrs. Campbell and Shaw on Broadway. The play toured this hemisphere and Europe for two years before its return to Off-Broadway. It is a masterful compendium of badinage with Shaw and Mrs. Campbell in scenes of both confrontation and distancing. Here is Shaw in all his contradictions; he adores the actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell (born Beatrice Stella Tanner) most ascetically and persuades her to play in Pygmalion. He frets with her when she leaves for America and yet he refuses permission to publish the letters that would save her from bankruptcy. Mrs. Campbell is his match; she published them anyway. Here is a strange and intriguing romance fought around the world.
Mother Clap's Molly House
It's London 1726 and Mrs. Tull's got problems. The whores are giving her a hard time a man in a dress is looking for a job her husband has a roving eye and the apprentice boy keeps disappearing for 'a wander.' Meanwhile in 2001 a group of wealthy gay men are preparing for a raunchy party. Mother Clap's Molly House a black comedy with songs is a celebration of the diversity of human sexuality an exploration of our need to form families and a fascinating insight into a hidden chapter in London's history.
Tonight we Improvise
The dramatic innovations in this play are legendary. Direct address, improvisations and in and out of character speeches are but a few of the techniques Pirandello originated. The play within the improvisation concerns the wooing of a wife by a man who finds her family quite crazy. The players actually live their parts, with strong physical effects to themselves. Narration, interludes, a simultaneous dialogue, mime, processions, tableaux, film, and song are also facets of the staging.
My Name is Lucy Barton
Lucy Barton wakes after an operation to discover - much to her surprise - her mother at the foot of her bed. They haven't seen each other in years. During their days-long visit Lucy tries to understand her past works to come to terms with her family and begins to find herself as a writer.
The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks
Michael's closet has exploded! At least that's what it looks like with all the baseball cards heaps of crumpled paper clothes strewn about and piles of smelly dirty socks everywhere! It's the battle of the bedroom as his younger brother (and roommate) Norman fights to keep his spotless territory from the invasion of Michael's mess. But that was before the appearance of their pet plants! Michael's pile of stinky socks disappears faster than you can say "My goodness what an enormous plant
The Passion of Dracula
This version of the Dracula legend based on the 1897 Bram Stoker novel is set in the English countryside in 1911 where several village girls have died under mysterious circumstances. Dr. Seward presides over a nearby mental hospital and the locality has acquired a new resident - Count Dracula! A trio of doctors a young reporter and a stouthearted English lord battle the Count for possession of the lovely heroine. With a dash of Holmesian sleuthing in this Baskerville hound country setting
Candide
Candide is an optimist. A dreamer. He believes that everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. But that belief is about to be tested as Candides comfortable life is overtaken by an endless barrage of misfortune. As his world collapses around him the story travels across the centuries to new locations and parallel universes. How will Candides optimism fare when it collides with life in the 21st century. The play is structured around two parallel narratives: one tells the story of Candides attempts to reunite with his love Cunegonde; the other follows a woman who experiences a hugely traumatic event as she attempts to find a way back to happiness.
Handbag
Twenty-eight years before The Importance of Being Earnest a young woman gives birth to a baby boy. Is it an accident when Nanny places him in a handbag and her unpublished novel into the pram? In 1998 a new baby is stolen and an academic discovers an unpublished novel of more than usual revolting sentimentality. From Victorian wet nurses to 90s sperm banks Mark Ravenhill's play examines the role of parenting in an age of diverse sexualities biological engineering and Tinky Winky's handbag.
Pools Paradise
Zany madcap events transpire at the Reverend Lionel Toop's vicarage in Merton-cum-Middlewick. The plot revolves around Lionel's wife Penelope who dabbles in a football pool with the help of their maid Ida and Ida's suitor the droll Willie Briggs. The most fantastic complications ensue when the triumvirate wins or when they think they have won more than 20 000 English pounds. Lending richly comic hands are the old maid parishioner Miss Skillon and Penelope's out-of-this-world uncle The
Moment of Weakness
This play by the author of the delightful The Decorator and Mixed Feelings is another comedy about modern marriage. Audrey and Tony are a middle-aged ex-couple meeting at their old weekend retreat to decide who gets what. Tony is eager to get this matter cleared up. He has re-married and his new wife who is only eighteen but very mature for her years is pregnant. She has come along for the ride but she goes into labor and is rushed to the local hospital where it transpires that the baby is not Tony's! He is going to stand by Stella anyway but what really unsettles him is finding out that Audrey is planning to get married again. He still loves her you see and she still loves him. The question is will they ever admit this to each other...or themselves?
The Rolling Stone
Set in Uganda a country subjected to severe anti-homosexuality laws The Rolling Stone is an intimate yet explosive family drama about two brothers at odds - one a gay man in a clandestine relationship and the other a church pastor who fervently rails against the lifestyle his brother is forced to conceal.
Some Explicit Polaroids
After 15 years inside, political activist Nick emerges to find that the old causes of the 80s have become the lost causes of the 90s. As he struggles to get to grips with this new world, he collides with the new generation. Bonded by a love of pills, parties and therapy-speak, Nadia, Tim and Victor take Nick on a search for the happy-ever-after. Sharp, satirical and pulsating with energy, Some Explicit Polaroids weaves an engaging urban fairytale for today. In an age where political change seems a distant memory, Ravenhill asks "how did we get from there to here?" and "where do we go now?"
Murder by Misadventure
What happens when two writers who have worked together for years start to hate each other? The team has won awards and made money. Harry Kent has saved and invested and now lives with his glamorous wife in a sun drenched luxury flat high above the Sussex coast where the play is set. It is a hi tech paradise with only one snag: its build on the site of an Ancient British sacrificial stone where black magic was practiced and now there are strange noises in the night. Paul Riggs has spent his fees on booze and birds and he lives in dread of bookies heavies. Harry wants to break the partnership that is Pauls lifeline but Paul knows a sinister secret from Harrys past. They are therefore locked together in a dance from which murder seems the only escape and they have just plotted the perfect crime for their latest TV film.
A Lesson From Aloes
Set in 1963 in a white district of Port Elizabeth South Africa this important play gives a compelling portrait of a society caught in the grip of a police state and the effect it has on individuals. A liberal Afrikaner who is actively involved in anti-apartheid activity and his wife who is recovering from a nervous breakdown brought about by a police raid on their home are waiting for dinner guests a Black family. They never arrive but the head of the family does. He has just been released from prison and plans to flee South Africa after first confronting the Afrikaner with the charge that he has betrayed him.
Over There
A programme text edition published to coincide with the world premiere at the Royal Court Theatre London on 25 February 2009 "I found you. You're here. And I was over there. But now I'm over here. I'm here. You're my brother. I love you" When Franz's mother escaped to the West with one of her identical twin boys she left the other behind. Now 25 years later Karl crosses the border in search of his other half. As history takes an unexpected turn the brothers must struggle to reconnect. Mark Ravenhill's visceral new play examines the hungers released when two countries separated by a common language meet again.
The Convent
A group of women go on a retreat to live like nuns in the Middle Ages and are baptized with '80s pop female mysticism hallucinogens and sex. The Convent is a toothy dark comedy about desire devotion and the mystery of intrinsic divinity.
My Big Gay Italian Christmas
Hold on to your cannolis and get ready for a snowy ride! Over-the-top characters, a bisexual love triangle and heated political conversations run amok all come to a head when a snowstorm forces the Pinnunziato family indoors this holiday season. Fan favorite characters Anthony Pinnunziato and Aunt Toniann are just a few of the ingredients in this Big Gay Italian Christmas lasagna.
The Road to Mecca
This unusual drama by a premiere contemporary dramatist focuses on Miss Helen an old Boer woman who lives alone in the South African boondocks where she creates odd concrete sculptures which she calls her Mecca. A young woman who was once helped by Miss Helen has traveled hundreds of miles to help her in a time of crisis Miss Helen is in danger of being sent to an old folks home by a narrow minded minister who considers her sculptures a public nuisance. A penetrating study of the role of the artist in any society this important play was produced in London and New York to great critical acclaim.
The Second Man
One of the most brilliant and successful Theatre Guild productions. It has to do with Clark Storey novelist with whom two women are in love. He is determined to marry one of them and though attracted to the other he throws her over. The second woman then accuses him of playing her false. A brilliant comedy treated in a clever and sophisticated fashion.
While The Sun Shines
Mr. Rattigan has given a mild wartime slant to his play. One the eve of his marriage, the young and wealthy Earl of Harpenden puts up an American Lieutenant for the night; and in the morning dates him up with a former girl friend. The American mistakes the earl's finance for the girl friend, and the two of them fall in love with each other before he discovers his mistake. What with a French officer also in the race, the girl friend very much in evidence, and the fiancee's father, a deadbeat duke, adding to the complications, an evening of hilarious fun is the result.
Wrong Turn at Lungfish
Audiences in Chicago Los Angeles and New York where George C. Scott starred applauded the comedy and the drama of Wrong Turn at Lungfish the story of a blind and bitter college professor and his encounter with a saucy streetwise young woman who volunteers to read to him in the hospital. The clash of intellect and wit takes the two from animosity and fear to friendship and understanding. Both come to their relationship with questions hers dealing with her station in life a
Floodgate
Floodgate features highlights of a faux congressional committee's investigation to determine responsibility for the equally faux farcically disastrous events that recently swamped and overwhelmed the nation's capitol. The chief casualty of the hearings: the destruction of what little is left of the English language.
Shopping and Fucking
The ground-breaking debut from one of the most important playwrights of the last decade now in a student edition.
A Sting In The Tale
Two once successful crime writing playwrights are writing a block bluster to pay off their mounting debts or are they fulfilling their full potential by plotting the perfect murder? The nagging wife is the ideal victim especially as she is heavily insured. It all seems plausible until their secretary is mistakenly killed and a stagestruck detective appears on the scene.
The Merry Widower
Not thrilled with the idea of him coming to stay Richard is taken aback when his father arrives and discusses the contents of his mother's will and it's not what he wants to hear. Together with this and his father's bad habits and womanising tension mounts in the couple's home whilst his father decides to embrace his life as a merry widower.
Spokesong
Set in and around a bicycle shop in Belfast this wise and humorous play concerns Frank the current operator of the shop started by his grandfather. Frank believes that all the world's problems can be solved if people simply switch to bicycles for transportation. Like Brendan Behan and Bertolt Brecht Stewart Parker uses songs to comment on the action. All are original except "Bicycle Built for Two " sung by Frank to his girlfriend Daisy. The bicycle and the shop become an ingenious metaphor for the problems in Northern Ireland and indirectly about the problems of modern civilization.
Happy Birthday, Wanda June
A woman with a little boy has two suitors: a doctor and a vacuum cleaner salesman. Her husband a famous big-game hunter and adventurer disappeared years ago in the Amazon. She is about to be declared a widow when in he walks khaki breeches puttees and all together with the pilot with whom he crashed in the Amazon valley. It happens to be his birthday an event which all those present had decided to celebrate and for which they had just purchased a cake on the spur of the moment. The cake had been intended for somebody named Wanda June who apparently never got to celebrate at all. The adventurer turns out to be a wild champion of havoc who alienates friends and demolishes violins. He fails in his effort to get his son to shoot him - the boy doesn't believe in that kind of old-fashioned heroism - and then in his own effort to shoot himself. He is a social flop out.
Fast Company
Mable Kwan is the best grifter that ever lived. She taught sons H and Francis to be the best roper and fixer around. When youngest daughter Blue puts together the con of the decade will they get in on the action together or will one of them walk away with it all?
Don't. Make. Tea.
If you could press a button and one hundred thousand vulnerable citizens died instantly but the rest of the population of the planet was guaranteed prosperity, would you press that button? Chris never wanted to end up here. She's a proud woman and hates asking for help but when her condition deteriorated she had no choice but to claim disability benefits. Ralph believes in the new system. He knows it works. He knows it can work for Chris. He's here today, in her home, to assess her. To prove to her that there has been no mistake - she is fit and capable of working. Chris knows he is wrong. Knows her life will be over if his verdict stands. Can she persuade him to change his mind? And, if not, how far is she willing to go to save herself? Rob Drummond's Don't. Make. Tea. confronts the lengths disabled people must go to in order to preserve themselves in an unjust system. This edition was published to coincide with the Birds of Paradise Theatre Company UK tour, which opened in March 2024.
Short Plays
These four new short plays were written over the first twenty years of the 21st Century by master playwright Keith Dewhurst, who is perhaps best known for his much-loved, groundbreaking adaptation of Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford. In this volume, Sam's Father and Hannah Vine create an unintended, formidable double-bill examining the impacts of modern feminism, while the latter two plays place us firmly in the 19th Century. Steerforth in Italy is an entertaining fantasy based on what might have happened had Dickens' David Copperfield attempted to rescue 'Little Em'ly' from James Steerforth's clutches, while St Boniface Gardens captures conversations between Karl Marx and his doctor during Marx's last years on the Isle of Wight. Published for the first time, the collection represents the work of one of the great dramatists of the English theatre at the height of his powers.The plays are introduced with a foreword by Patrick Miles, literary consultant and translator to the National Theatre (1977-2015).Summary and Cast breakdowns: Sam's Father: A woman's decision and twenty years later (1 woman, 2 men)Hannah Vine: A pulp biographer finds more than she bargained for (2 women, 1 man)Steerforth in Italy: David Copperfield seeks the betrayed little Em'ly (1 woman, 4 men)St Boniface Gardens: Karl Marx and his doctor on the Isle of Wight (2 women, 2 men)
Road To Damascus
16-year-old Robert Okwor is an anglicized Igbo boy from Delta State. He lives with his widowed mother, disabled sister and ailing grandmother in the bustling city of Lagos State. The assassination of his father and hero- a journalist, still hangs like a dark cloud over his family. While his mother turns to religion in the hopes that she can dispel this cloud, Robert finds love in the most unlikely place and discovers a deep secret about his family.
