Book picks similar to
Limehouse by Steve Waters


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Never Swim Alone and This is a Play


Daniel MacIvor - 1997
    [MacIvor is a writer with an angular sense of humour and an uncommon knack for probing basic elements and truths of human behaviour." ?Vit Wagner, Toronto StarThis Is a Play is a hilarious postmodern romp through the interior lives of actors in a bad play."Ingenious, whimsical, a lyrical lunacy in the writing, This Is A Play is a theatre experience comedy you might associate with Tom Stoppard." ?Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

The Winslow Boy


Terence Rattigan - 1946
    An eminent—and initially unsympathetic—QC takes on the case, and the boy has to withstand the full might of the Royal Naval Establishment seeking to discredit him.

Death and the Maiden


Ariel Dorfman - 1991
    Gerardo Escobar has just been chosen to head the commission that will investigate the crimes of the old regime when his car breaks down and he is picked up by the humane doctor Roberto Miranda. But in the voice of this good Samaritan, Gerardo's wife, Paulina Salas, thinks she recognizes another man—the one who raped and tortured her as she lay blindfolded in a military detention center years before.

Arsenic and Old Lace


Joseph Kesselring - 1939
    

Jerusalem


Jez Butterworth - 2009
    . . . A tragic and hilarious vision of life in an English country community. Butterworth’s new work was the most talked about new work of the season."—The London Paper

By the Way, Meet Vera Stark


NOT A BOOK - 2011
    Fluidly incorporating film and video elements into her writing for the first time, Nottage's comedy tells the story of Vera Stark, a headstrong African American maid and budding actress who has a tangled relationship with her boss, a white Hollywood star desperately grasping to hold onto her career. Stirring audiences out of complacency by tackling racial stereotyping in the entertainment industry—a topic that remains largely unexplored in mainstream arts and entertainment—Nottage highlights the paradox of black actors in 1930s Hollywood while jumping back and forward in time and location in this uniquely theatrical narrative.Lynn Nottage's plays include the Pulitzer Prize–winning Ruined; Intimate Apparel, the most widely produced play of the 2005–06 theater season in America; Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine; Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Las Meninas; Mud, River, Stone; Por'knockers; and POOF!

Mr. Burns, a post-electric play


Anne Washburn - 2013
    A paean to live theater, and to the resilience of Bart Simpson through the ages, Mr. Burns is an animated exploration of how the pop culture of one era might evolve into the mythology of another."--Publisher's website

Chewing Gum Dreams


Michaela Coel - 2013
    Friendship. Aaron, Candice, sex and Connor Jones. Chewing Gum Dreams is a one-woman play that recalls those last days of innocence before adulthood.Written and performed by Michaela Coel who spent her childhood in Hackney, London, Chewing Gum Dreams won the 2012 Alfred Fagon Award."Coel is by turns casually cruel, hilariously funny, naïve, wise and vulnerable. Her play tackles some difficult themes, including sexual assault, violence, and underachievement across generations…a serious new talent." Londonist"An engrossing, engaging and compelling one-woman show... nothing short of virtuosic." What's On Stage"A promising, resilient artist." Ché Walker

Chicken Soup with Barley


Arnold Wesker - 1984
    It vividly captures the loss of political idealism and links the journey of a single family to the wider political situation.The kettle boils in 1936 as the fascists are marching. Tea is brewed in 1946, with disillusion in the air at the end of the war. Twenty years on, in 1956, as rumors spread of Hungarian revolution, the cup is empty.Sarah Khan, an East End Jewish mother, is a feisty political fighter and a staunch communist. Battling against the State and her shirking husband she desperately tries to keep her family together.This landmark state-of-the-nation play is a panoramic drama portraying the age-old battle between realism and idealism. Chicken Soup captures the collapse of an ideology alongside the disintegration of a family.Chicken Soup with Barley, the first in a trilogy that includes Roots and I'm Talking about Jerusalem was first performed at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry in 1958 and transferred to the Royal Court in the same year.

The Weir


Conor McPherson - 1997
    Set in a bar in a remote part of Ireland, The Weir tells of a young woman who has a story to frighten the locals out of their lives.

The Freedom of the City


Brian Friel - 1990
    Set in Londonderry in 1970, this gripping drama by the acclaimed author of Faith Healer and Translations explores the ongoing Irish "troubles" that plague the country to this day.

Noises Off


Michael Frayn - 1982
    The two begin to interlock as the characters make their exits from Nothing On only to find themselves making entrances into the even worse nightmare going on backstage. In the end, at the disastrous final performance, the two plots can be kept separate no longer, and coalesce into a single collective nervous breakdown.

The Red Letter Plays


Suzan-Lori Parks - 2000
    The letter A is as far as she gets. Hester Smith of Fucking A works the only job available—abortionist to the lower class, in order to save for a reunion picnic with her imprisoned son. Her branded A bleeds afresh every time a patient comes to see her.These are two mature, beautifully crafted, inventive and poetic plays by one of the most unique voices writing for the stage today.

Fools


Neil Simon - 1981
    Leon Tolchinsky is ecstatic. He's landed a terrific teaching job in an idyllic Russian hamlet. When he arrives he finds people sweeping dust from the stoops back into their houses and people milking upside down to get more cream. The town has been cursed with Chronic Stupidity for 200 years and Leon's job is to break the curse. No one tells him that if he stays over 24 hours and fails to break the curse, he too becomes Stupid. But, he has fallen in love with a girl so Stupid that she has only recently learned how to sit down. "The brightest, freshest, funniest, wittiest, warmest and happiest to do on Broadway in many a day." - CBS-TV

The Complete Plays


J.M. Synge - 1912
    Synge. Produced at the Abbey Theater which Synge founded. Represents one of the major dramatic achievements of the 20th century.Includes:The Playboy of the Western WorldRiders to the SeaIn the Shadow of the GlenThe Well of the SaintsThe Tinker's WeddingDeirdre of the Sorrows