Book picks similar to
Face to the Wall (Faber StageScripts) by Martin Crimp


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uk-literature
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The Intruder


Maurice Maeterlinck - 1890
    It is the second play Maeterlinck wrote.Intruder concerns man's conflict with preternatural forces, against which he is powerless. The same theme was prevalent in Maeterlinck's first written play, Princess Maleine.The first performance of Intruder occurred at Paul Fort's Theatre d'Art in Paris on May 20, 1891. The play was to appear at the end of a program benefiting Paul Verlaine and Paul Gauguin. If the program went on too long, then the play was to be removed.

Un soñador para un pueblo


Antonio Buero Vallejo - 1958
    His profound, innovative theatre has earned him success and respect since 1949. Each new play has been an exciting experiment with dramatic form as well as a powerful expression of a tragic view of human life and Spanish society. A Dreamer for the People was first performed in 1958. In this history play, the first of a remarkable series, culminating in La detonacion (The Shot also published by Aris & Phillips), the dreamer of the title is the often maligned Marquis of Esquilache, the reformist minister of Carlos III. Buero sets off Esquilache's relations with the king, the aristocracy, his wife and his maidservant against a lively re-creation of the build-up to the famous 1766 Capes and Hats Revolt in the streets of Madrid. Public history and private tragedy are brought together in a complex structure, bringing into clear focus the clash between forces of change and immobility that lay at the heart of both the 18th century and the Franco period in Spain. In returning his proofs, Buero compliments the author of this first translation into English of his play: 'La version de Mr Thompson es muy cuidada y fiel, asi como acertadas y oportunas sus notas'.

Chekhov: The Cherry Orchard


James N. Loehlin - 2006
    In the century since its first performance, The Cherry Orchard has undergone a wide range of conflicting interpretations: tragic and comic, naturalistic and symbolic, reactionary and radical. Beginning with the 1904 premiere at Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre, this study traces the performance history of one of the landmark plays of the modern theatre. Considering the work of such directors as Anatoly Efros, Giorgio Strehler, Peter Brook, and Peter Stein, Chekhov: The Cherry Orchard explores the way different artists, periods and cultures have reinvented Chekhov's poignant comedy of failure and hope.

alterNatives


Drew Hayden Taylor - 2000
    The guests at this little “sitcom” soirée are couples that represent what by now have become the clichéd extremes of both societies: Angel’s former radical Native activist buddies and Colleen’s environmentally concerned vegetarian / veterinarian friends. The menu is, of course, the hosts’ respectful attempt at shorthand for the irreconcilable cultural differences about to come to a head during the evening: moose roast and vegetarian lasagna.Like all of Drew Hayden Taylor’s work, alterNatives manages to say things about “Whites and Indians” that one is not supposed to talk about—it digs up the carefully buried, raw and pulsing nerve-endings of the unspeakable and exposes them to the hot bright lights of the stage. That he does so with a humour that the politically correct among his audiences continue to miss entirely beneath the sound and fury of their own self-righteous indignation is a measure of his immense talent as a dramatist. In the end, the play is not about cultural differences at all, but instead constitutes a full frontal attack on the personal qualities the sitcom holds most dear and pushes hardest at its audiences: Taylor actually has the temerity to suggest that neither “attitude” nor “sincerity” are enough to address basic human issues, no matter which side of the cultural fence the characters are on. And that’s hard for the pushers of what is considered a globally enlightened culture to take.Cast of 3 women and 3 men.

Pizza Man


Darlene Craviotto - 1986
    Her boss made a pass at her and she said no so she got a pink slip with her check. Julie's broke and disillusioned, so she drinks and turns on the stereo full blast to make the pain go away. Then her roommate comes home in the midst of an eating frenzy; her boyfriend has gone back to his wife so Alice has turned to food to forget. Julie suggests another way to vent their man

The Collection and The Lover


Harold Pinter - 1963
    "The Lover" is a one-act play for television, in which two characters play the double parts of wife-mistress and husband-lover. Also included is a short story, "The Examination".

Wasted


Kate Tempest - 2013
    I'm changing things. This is it.Three old friends in their mid-twenties. One remarkable day. For Ted, Danny and Charlotte, it’s time to seize control. Make a difference. Change things. This is it.A day trip through the parks and raves and cafes of South London, where life is what you make it. The rapid fire words of Kate Tempest paint a picture of lives less ordinary in an unforgiving world, sound-tracked by an exhilarating score.The drama mixes rap-style poetry delivered with microphones and self-reflexive addresses to the audience.A play about love, life and losing your mind, and the first play from one of the UK’s most exciting performance poets, Kate Tempest.

Essential Self-Defense: A Play


Adam Rapp - 2007
    Meanwhile, all's not well on the unassuming Midwestern streets of Bloggs: with local children vanishing at an alarming rate, our hero, his lady friend, and a motley assortment of poets, butchers, and punk librarians prepare to battle the darkness on the edge of town.

Oedipus the King


Scott Hurley - 2011
    Designed to provide insight and an overview about each text for students and teachers, these guides endeavor to develop knowledge and understanding rather than just provide answers and summaries.

Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off & Dracula


Liz Lochhead - 1987
    Written in Lallan Scots, it is a most exciting piece of poetic drama.

The Seagull


Anton Chekhov - 1895
    Two years later it was revived by Nemirovich-Danchenko at the newly-founded Moscow Art Theatre with Stanslasky as Trigorin and was an immediate success. Checkhov's description of the play was characteristically self-mocking: "A comedy - 3F, 6M, four acts, rural scenery (a view over a lake); much talk of literature, little action, five bushels of love".Michael Frayn's translation was commissioned by the Oxford Playhouse Company.

The Rocky Horror Show (Vocal Selections)


Richard O'Brien - 1983
    Book by Richard O'Brien

Juicy and Delicious: The Play That Inspired the Motion Picture "Beasts of the Southern Wild"


Lucy Alibar - 2012
    Hushpuppy is a motherless child in the rural South who lives with his Daddy. But when Daddy gets sick, the universe starts to fall apart. Ancient beasts rerun from their graves, things fall from the sky, and ghosts live among the living. Hushpuppy is faced with being an orphan, and the end of the known world. Daddy and the brilliant, wild teacher, Miss Bathsheba, work to prepare Hushpuppy and his schoolmates for a life without grownups, a world where they must take care of each other. Tender, funny, and heartbreaking, Juicy and Delicious weaves a beautiful tale of loss, survival, and self-discovery.

I Have Been Here Before


J.B. Priestley - 1939
    Set in a rural inn in Yorkshire, three people enter a strange confrontation with the hallmarks of déjà vu, and a physicist attempts to prevent a disaster.

The Stonemason: A Play in Five Acts


Cormac McCarthy - 1994
    The Telfairs are stonemasons and have been for generations. Ben Telfair has given up his education to apprentice himself to his grandfather, Papaw, a man who knows that "true masonry is not held together by cement but...by the warp of the world." Out of the love that binds these two men and the gulf that separates them from the Telfairs who have forsaken -- or dishonored -- the family trade, Cormac McCarthy has crafted a drama that bears all the hallmarks of his great fiction: precise observation of the physical world; language that has the bite of common speech and the force of Biblical prose; and a breathtaking command of the art of storytelling.