Kategoria BISAC: Drama >> European - General

A Platonic dialogue in the form of a double anachronism--the action takes place two centuries after our era--Joseph Brodsky's only play, Marbles, is set in a prison cell that alone provides for the three unities of classic drama: those of time, place, and action. A nightmare rather than a utopia, this play proceeds according to the immanent logic of mental aggravation as its two characters, the inmates Publius and Tullius, examine the tautology of their psychological, historical, and purely physical confines. The fusion of its dour, somewhat terrifying vision with the macabre...

The complete collection of Buchner's plays in one volume

Buchner was acknowledged by figures as divergent as Antonin Artaud and Bertolt Brecht to be the forefather of modern theatre. On his death at the age of 23, he left behind some outstanding dramatic works: his historical drama, Danton's Death, 'the most remarkable first play in European culture' (Guardian), translated here by Howard Brenton and Jane Fry; the innovatory tragedy, Woyzeck, translated by John Mackendrick; and the absurdist comedy, Leonce and Lena, translated by Anthony Meech. He also left a powerful short story,...

"Meyer's translations of Ibsen are a major fact in one's general sense of post-war drama. Their vital pace, their unforced insistence on the poetic centre of Ibsen's genius, have beaten academic versions from the field" (George Steiner)

This volume contains Ibsen's famous early epic, Peer Gynt, and the historical tragedy The Pretenders, which together with Brand and Emperor and Galilean form a magisterial quartet at the fulcrum of Ibsen's career. George Bernard Shaw praised Peer Gynt (1867) for the power of Ibsen's 'grip on humanity ...The universality of Ibsen makes his plays come...

Reissue of this Methuen classic to tie in with a major new production

The republic of Andorra is invaded by totalitarian forces. The populace capitulates to the anti-Semitism of the aggressor and betrays Andri, the foundling son of the local schoolmaster. But Andri it seems, is not a Jew at all.
Andorra explores the mechanism of racism with the story of a non-Jew brought up as a Jew, who falls victim to anti-Semitic hostility.

"Meyer's translations of Ibsen are a major fact in one's general sense of post-war drama. Their vital pace, their unforced insistence on the poetic centre of Ibsen's genius, have beaten academic versions from the field" (George Steiner)

Includes three of Henrik Ibsen's most important works from his middle period. Generally regarded as the father of modern theatre, Ibsen's 'influence on contemporaries and following generations, whether directly or indirectly...can hardly be overestimated' (John Russell Taylor). The three plays in this volume show how Ibsen gradually turned from the...

"Meyer's translations of Ibsen are a major fact in one's general sense of post-war drama. Their vital pace, their unforced insistence on the poetic centre of Ibsen's genius, have beaten academic versions from the field" (George Steiner)

The plays shine freshly from the pages ...This will be our definitive Ibsen." (JC Trewin) This volume contains Ibsen's first great modern prose play and his two last symbolic dramas. The Pillars of Society, written between 1875 and 1877, exhibits many of the classic elements which recur in the subsequent plays - a marriage founded on a lie, women...

The second volume in the series of authoritative Methuen editions of Strindberg's Collected Plays

This volume contains two of Strindberg's best-known plays from the years following his mental breakdown: the expressionist masterpiece A Dream Play (1901), which he described as 'my most beloved play, child of my greatest pain'; and both parts of The Dance of Death (1900), a terrifying analysis of a tormented marriage: 'it leaves an astonishing, an almost unaccountable, impression of genius ... as a beggar's cloak full of holes may have a kind of majestic beauty when the wind fills it,...

Wedekind's expressionist plays influenced the whole course of modern drama

A moralist who wore the mask of an immoralist, Wedekind was the terror of the German bourgeoisie. His work was censored and the original Lulu play was not even published during his lifetime; Wedekind toned it down and adapted it to make two plays: Pandora's Box and Earth-Spirit. The version in this volume, Lulu: A Monster Tragedy, is based on the first manuscript, presenting the original sexually voracious heroine to a British audience for the first time. The volume also contains Spring Awakening, "a work of...

The second collection of plays by Michel Vinaver, one of France's most prominent playwrights

High Places: "A drama which, from second to second, maintains the spectator in suspense, and which, by the same stroke, achieves the dimension of pure, great metaphysical theatre." (Le Monde); The Neighbours " bizarre contemporary vaudeville, biting, disturbing, very subtle and wildly funny" (Le Figaro); Portrait of a Woman: "An intriguing challenging piece." (Financial Times); The Television Programme: "The piece is beautifully plotted and written from the heart." (Independent on Sunday)...

David Lan's new version of one of Chekhov's greatest plays, was commissioned for a co-production between the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Young Vic. Directed by Katie Mitchell, it premiered at the Young Vic, London, in March 1998, a century after its

Uncle Vanya is the first of Chekhov's three great masterpieces. Set on a remote farm in the Ukraine, it tells of two obsessive love affairs that lead nowhere, and a flirtation that brings disaster. Written towards the end of the 1890s, it casts a diamond-hard glance towards our century."A notably sharp, bright translation" (The...

This collection contains Gogol's three completed plays

The Government Inspector, which satirises a corrupt society was regarded by Nabokov as the greatest play in the Russian language and is still widely studied in schools and universities: "I resolved to gather into one heap everything that was bad in Russia which I was aware of at that time, all the injustices being perpetrated in those places, and in those circumstances that especially cried out for justice, and tried to hold them all up to ridicule, at one fell swoop." (Nikolai Gogol)

Marriage is a comedy about the business...

One of Eduardo de Filippo's finest Neapolitan comedies

Filumena Domenico is a former Neopolitan prostitute who has had three sons by three different fathers. As her sons become adults Filumena feels the pressing need to become respectable and so she searches for a man to marry her, ensuring legitimacy for her family.
A striking new translation by Timberlake Wertenbaker

First publication in English of France's most successful contemporary playwright

Don Juan on Trial: 'Brilliant dialogue' (Le Figaro); The Visitor: 'An overwhelming triumph ...a masterpiece' (Paris Match); 'Sharp, biting, unexpected and cunning' Le Figaro; Enigma Variations: 'Schmitt...writes with extreme cunning...a brilliant author' (Le Monde); 'Simple, shattering and witty. A play full of surprises' (L'Express); Between Worlds: Schmitt's eighth play is a metaphysical comedy set in the 'Two Worlds Hotel', where those in a coma come to stay while their medical dramas unfold back...