Kategoria BISAC: Literary Criticism >> Drama

The candid interviews that formed the basis for David Hare's famed trilogy of plays about the state of Britain in the early 1990s.

Asking Around is a record of the firsthand documentary research that provided the inspiration and source material for David Hare's trilogy of plays, Racing Demon, Murmuring Judges, and The Absence of War. The trilogy examined the crises that faced three great British institutions -- the Church, the Law, and the Labour Party -- in the lead-up to the 1992 election that saw the Labour Party once again fail to defeat the...

• Considers the literary and historical development of the romance genre from its classical origins to the present day
  
• Incorporates discussion of the changing readership of romance and of romance's special relation to women readers
  
• Comprises 30 essays written by leading authorities on different periods and sub-genres
  
• Challenges the idea that...

In a grand tour of comic theater over the centuries, Erich Segal traces the evolution of the classical form from its early origins in a misogynistic quip by the sixth-century B.C. Susarion, through countless weddings and happy endings, to the exasperated monosyllables of Samuel Beckett. With fitting wit, profound erudition lightly worn, and instructive examples from the mildly amusing to the uproarious, his book fully illustrates comedy's glorious life cycle from its first breath to its death in the Theater of the Absurd.

An exploration of various landmarks in the history of a genre...

"At its best, theater is an antidote to the whiff of barbarity in the millennial air. 'My feeling is that people in a group, en masse, watching something, react differently, and perhaps more...

As relevant as when it was first published in 1968, groundbreaking director and cofounder of the Royal Shakespeare Company Peter Brook draws on a life in love with the stage to explore the issues facing a theatrical performance--of any scale. He describes important developments in theatre from the last century, as well as smaller scale events, from productions by Stanislavsky to...

Aristophanes has enjoyed a conspicuous revival in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Greece. Here, Gonda Van Steen provides the first critical analysis of the role of the classical Athenian playwright in modern Greek culture, explaining how the sociopolitical "venom" of Aristophanes' verses remains relevant and appealing to modern Greek audiences. Deriding or challenging well-known figures and conservative values, Aristophanes' comedies transgress authority and continue to speak to many social groups in Greece who have found in him a witty, pointed, and accessible champion from their...

This annotated translation is the first systematic rendering into any Western language of the nine major treatises on the art of the Japanese No theater by Zeami Motokivo (1363-1443). Zeami, who transformed the No from a country entertainment into a vehicle for profound theatrical and philosophical experience, was a brilliant actor himself, and his treatises touch on every aspect of the theater of his time. His theories, mixing philosophical and practical insights, often seem strikingly contemporary.

Since their discovery early in this century. these secret treatises have been...

What value does theatre have in Britain at the beginning of the twenty-first century? How has theatre responded to the challenge of remaining relevant in the media-saturated world of today? These are the questions that underpin this stimulating study of some of the leading dramatists of contemporary British theatre.
At the Sharp End sets the scene examining how the forces that created a revolution in theatre fifty years ago have been replaced by a new wave of political and social issues. It goes on to explore the ways in which five key writers have sought to reflect and wrestle...