Kategoria BISAC: Drama >> European - French

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history...

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the...

The great French playwright Jean Anouilh (1910-87) wrote both "pink" bittersweet comedies and "black" tragic dramas. Jean Anouilh Five Plays--the finest English-language anthology of his works--crackles with both his sharp wit and his icy cynicism. In Antigone, his preeminent play and exemplar of his themes and style, he creates a disturbing world in which fate may be no more than a game of role-playing. Eurydice, The Ermine, The Rehearsal, Romeo and Jeannette are the other plays included in this edition.

A lean, high-tension version of a classic tragedy.

The myth of Phaedra is one of the most powerful in all of classical mythology. As dramatized by the French playwright Jean Racine (1639-99), the dying Queen's obsessive love for her stepson, Hippolytus, and the scrupulously upright Hippolytus' love for the forbidden beauty Aricia has come to be known as one of the great stories of tragic infatuation, a tale of love strong enough to bring down a kingdom.

In this "tough, unrhyming avalanche of a translation" (Paul Taylor, The Independent), Hughes replaces Racine's...

Widely considered the most popular modern French play, "Cyrano de Bergerac" has dazzled audiences with its wit and eloquence since it premiered in 1897.
Cyrano, a quarrelsome, hot-tempered swordsman, as famous for his dueling skills and pugnacity as for his inordinately long nose, is hopelessly enamored of the beautiful Roxane. She, in turn, is in love with Christian, a handsome but inarticulate and slow-witted suitor. Asked for help by Christian in wooing Roxane, Cyrano pours out his heart in romantic dialogues -- delivered under cover of night and dense foliage -- and through ardent...

From the celebrated writer of Art, a scathingly hilarious commentary on vanity, professional insecurity, and the vicissitudes of marriage.

Life X 3 presents three versions of two couples (and an offstage six-year-old) trying to make a success of one evening despite the fact that they neither like nor respect one another. When Hubert and Ines arrive a day early to dinner at the home of Henri and Sophie, Sophie barely has time to change out of her robe and Ines is in a foul mood about a run in her stocking-from there, the evening can only go downhill. Over an improvised meal of...

Now in one volume, the works of "the most successful international playwright of her generation" (Vogue).

Yasmina Reza's plays reflect the razor sharp wit, social commentary, and impeccable comedic timing that have earned the praise of critics throughout the world, none more so than the Tony Award-winning Art, an eccentric and clever play of ideas that took the American theater community by storm. In this sly critique of contemporary relationships, Reza skillfully picks apart the friendship of three men via a bowl of olives and a white-on-white painting. Now translated...

An existential portrayal of Hell in Sartre's best-known play, as well as three other brilliant, thought-provoking works: the reworking of the Electra-Orestes story, the conflict of a young intellectual torn between theory and conflict, and an arresting attack on American racism.