In "On Baile's Strand," King Conchubar, aware of Cuchulain's bravery and his unruly temper, makes Cuchulain swear an oath of obedience, forcing the unaware Cuchulain to fight and kill his own son Connla (begotten on the woman of the Hawk's Well, a figure who seems to represent Queen Aoife.) When informed of the truth, Cuchulain, mad with despair, runs out to fight the sea.

    As Strindberg himself wrote in his Preface, he wanted “to imitate the disjointed yet seemingly logical shape of a dream. Everything can happen, everything is possible and probable. Time and place do not exist.”Caryl Churchill’s spare and resonant new version was first staged at the National Theatre, London, in a production by Katie Mitchell, where A Dream Play was called “fresh, new and magical” (Telegraph).Caryl Churchill has written for the stage, television and radio. A renowned and prolific playwright, her plays include Cloud Nine, Top Girls, Far Away, Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?, Bliss, Love and Information, Mad Forest and A Number. In 2002, she received the Obie Lifetime Achievement Award and 2010, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.August Strindberg (1849-1912) was a novelist and playwright from Stockholm, Sweden. His plays include Miss Julie, The Father, To Damascus, A Dream Play, and The Pelican. In 1912 Strindberg's birthday was marked by a torchlight procession through Stockholm, where his radical journalism had earned him the title of ‘people’s writer.’

    "An unflaggingly witty and often moving slice of life . . . Poor Super Man explodes on to the stage like a bold comic strip, complete with snappy captions and hard, bright, witty dialogue," writes the Edmonton Journal.

    "By far the most enjoyable introduction to Haywood and the eighteenth-century novel that one could hope for." -- Patrick Spedding, Monash University

    Each playlet focuses on a different individual dramatising their life in the run-up to the tragedy.Published to coincide with the English language premiere at the Traverse Theatre in August as part of the International Edinburgh Festival before transferring to the Birmingham Rep, this is the first stage play to confront the London bombings of 7 July 2005.

    During the War of the Seven Against Thebes, Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus, learns that her brothers have killed each other, having been forced onto opposing sides of the battle. When Creon, king of Thebes, grants burial of one but not the "treacherous" other, Antigone defies his order, believing it her duty to bury all of her close kin. Enraged, Creon condemns her to death, and his soldiers wall her up in a tomb. While Creon eventually agrees to Antigone's release, it is too late: She takes her own life, initiating a tragic repetition of events in her family's history.In this outstanding new translation, commissioned by Ireland's renowned Abbey Theatre to commemorate its centenary, Seamus Heaney exposes the darkness and the humanity in Sophocles' masterpiece, and inks it with his own modern and masterly touch.

    This play, first staged at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre, is based on a tenth-century Jain myth about a king who finds his queen involved with an elephant-keeper.

    He has two manuscripts but lacks the funds to publish both. His difficult decision--whether to publish his lover's memoir or the novel written by his best friend--is further complicated by the arrival of a mysterious machine that produces pages predicting the future of the play's protagonists, affecting their lives and relationships in haunting and unexpected ways. "The Violet Hour" opened on Broadway on November 6, 2003, starring Robert Sean Leonard.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    What Rebecca Gilman makes of this familiar scenario is something startlingly real and compelling, delving deeply into the small space that can divide a feeling of hope from one of hopelessness, as Curt and Sandy both try to get a foothold in the American dream of a house, a job, a life, a relationship with another human being.Gilman's previous play, Boy Gets Girl, was acclaimed by Time magazine as the best play of 2000, saying that "with Spinning into Butter, her play about race relations on campus, Rebecca Gilman gave notice that she was a playwright to watch. And with this intense drama of a woman's encounter with a stalker, she became one to hail . . . It's not just a gripping play but also an important one." Marked by Gilman's characteristically sharp delineation of character, pitch-perfect dialogue, and effortless use of humor that is both biting and silly, Blue Surge is a worthy successor to these plays--an intimate look at the class struggle in America today as well as a brilliant example of the dramatic craft from one of today's most accomplished practitioners. It will have its world premiere at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in the spring of 2001.

    In an unprecedented (for him) run of promiscuity, Ty has managed to impregnate three women in the span of one week: His ex-girlfriend, his 40-something married next-door neighbor, and his 18 year-old student. In this edgy comedy by playwright Rajiv Joseph, Ty's problems illuminate every triumph and failure of his life, and as the women

    Although the title advertises 'the great malice and dissimulation of a wicked woman' and her 'unsatiable desire of filthie lust', the unknown playwright with great dramatic skill and psychological insight manages to balance the motivations of all the main characters. Thomas Arden, one of the rapacious landlords so reviled in mid-Elizabethan social drama, was murdered at his own house in Faversham, Kent, in 1551. His murderers, it turned out, had been hired by his wife Alice, thrall to Mosby, who hoped to rise socially by marrying a rich widow. As the introduction to this edition shows, sexual and material covetousness is the central theme running through the play, which is commonly rated 'unquestionably the best of all Elizabethan domestic tragedies'.

    "Ubu and the Truth Commission" is the full play text of a multi-dimensional theatre piece which tries to make sense of the madness which overtook South Africa during apartheid.

    During a world tour it won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Foreign Play.Celebrated for its bravery and clannish loyalty the Black Watch has been in the vanguard of countless British military expeditions from Waterloo and the Somme to Kosovo. Its last great challenge before enforced amalgamation was relieving American forces at Camp Dogwood in Iraq during 2004 ...BLACK WATCH is a timely and vital theatrical investigation based on interviews with former soldiers from this legendary Scottish regiment who served in Iraq.

    The Kos family argue, adapt, fall in and out of love.I will never understand why dinner conversation with you lot always turns so damn contentious. Why can’t we have some pleasant anecdotes for example.World after world is erected and torn down around them. The one constant is the ivy-clad house in Zagreb, built by aristocrats, partitioned, owned by all, owned by a few; witness to four increasingly educated and independent generations of women.But when the family assemble for Lucia’s wedding, Alisa learns that her nouveau-riche brother-in-law has bought the once nationalized house. For the bride this is progress, for her sister it’s a shady act of greed. For their principled parents, finally, it’s one battle too many.