What we as her audience take away from this remarkable drama is a keener sense that, while death is real and unavoidable, our lives are ours to cherish or throw away—a lesson that can be both uplifting and redemptive. As the playwright herself puts it, “The play is not about doctors or even about cancer. It’s about kindness, but it shows arrogance. It’s about compassion, but it shows insensitivity.” In Wit, Edson delves into timeless questions with no final answers: How should we live our lives knowing that we will die? Is the way we live our lives and interact with others more important than what we achieve materially, professionally, or intellectually? How does language figure into our lives? Can science and art help us conquer death, or our fear of it? What will seem most important to each of us about life as that life comes to an end?The immediacy of the presentation, and the clarity and elegance of Edson’s writing, make this sophisticated, multilayered play accessible to almost any interested reader. As the play begins, Vivian Bearing, a renowned professor of English who has spent years studying and teaching the intricate, difficult Holy Sonnets of the seventeenth-century poet John Donne, is diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. Confident of her ability to stay in control of events, she brings to her illness the same intensely rational and painstakingly methodical approach that has guided her stellar academic career. But as her disease and its excruciatingly painful treatment inexorably progress, she begins to question the single-minded values and standards that have always directed her, finally coming to understand the aspects of life that make it truly worth living.

    When the outside world comes calling, intent on manipulation for political and economic reasons, the islanders find their own world blown apart from the inside as well as beyond. Further Than The Furthest Thing is a beautifully drawn story evoking the sadness and beauty of a civilisation in crisis.Further Than The Furthest Thing premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in August, 2000.

    Before long they begin to settle down, buy a house, juggle careers, have kids – theirs is an ordinary family.But then their world starts to unravel and things take a disturbing turn.A tragic, violent look at parenthood and trauma.

    Its authorship is unknown, although suggestions include Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare.Wealthy businessman Arden is convinced his wife Alice is cheating on him. He's right – but he doesn't know the full story. Determined to free herself from her miserable marriage, Alice is in fact plotting to have him murdered. As the assassins close in on their unwitting victim, husband, wife and lover find themselves locked in a deadly game.This edition of Arden of Faversham was published alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company's revival of the play in 2014, and features the text edited for the RSC production, and introductions by key members of its creative team.

    His most celebrated work, Six Characters in Search of an Author, embodies the Nobel Prize-winning playwright's innovations by presenting an open-ended drama on a stage without sets.First performed in 1923, this intellectual comedy introduces six individuals to a stage where a company of actors has assembled for a rehearsal. Claiming to be the incomplete, unused creations of an author's imagination, they demand lines for a story that will explain the details of their lives. In ensuing scenes, these "real-life characters," all professing to be part of an extended family, produce a drama of sorts — punctuated by disagreements, interruptions, and arguments. In the end they are dismissed by the irate manager, their dilemma unsolved and the "truth" a matter of individual viewpoints.A tour de force exploring the many faces of reality, this classic is now available in an inexpensive edition that will be welcomed by amateur theatrical groups as well as by students of drama.

    Missing from the roster of invitees is Christian's twin sister, Linda, who recently committed suicide. The reason for her action and the repercussions from it, form the basis of the shocking and painful events that transpire during a twenty-four hour period. In the midst of dinner, Christian makes a startling accusation and, even as the disbelieving guests are choosing sides, the play slowly unwraps the truth.David Eldridge powerful new play is adapted from Thomas Vinterborg's screenplay of the very successful film, Dogme.Published to tie in with Almeida Theatre production in March 2004 directed by Rufus Norris

    Written in 1935, an exploration of the looming threat of World War II, set against the backdrop of the familiar story of the Trojan War

    His death has brought into her midst both her sister, Claire, who wants to take Catherine back to New York with her, and Hal, a former student of Catherine's father who hopes to find some hint of Robert's genius among his incoherent scribblings. The passion that Hal feels for math both moves and angers Catherine, who, in her exhaustion, is torn between missing her father and resenting the great sacrifices she made for him. For Catherine has inherited at least a part of her father's brilliance -- and perhaps some of his instability as well. As she and Hal become attracted to each other, they push at the edges of each other's knowledge, considering not only the unpredictability of genius but also the human instinct toward love and trust.