Book picks similar to
The Country Girl by Clifford Odets
plays
theatre
play
fiction
Look Back in Anger
John Osborne - 1957
He browbeats his flatmate, terrorizes his wife, and is not above sleeping with her best friend-who loathes Jimmy almost as much as he loathes himself. Yet this working-class Hamlet, the original Angry Young Man, is one of the most mesmerizing characters ever to burst onto a stage, a malevolently vital, volcanically articulate internal exile in the dreary, dreaming Siberia of postwar England.First produced in 1956, Look Back in Anger launched a revolution in the English theater. Savagely, sadly, and always impolitely, it compels readers and audiences to acknowledge the hidden currents of rottenness and rage in what used to be called "the good life."
Shining City
Conor McPherson - 2004
In Dublin, a man seeks help from a counselor, claiming to have seen the ghost of his recently deceased wife. But what begins as just an unusual encounter becomes a struggle between the living and dead—a struggle that will shape and define both men for the rest of their lives.Also included here is the one-act, Come on Over, about a Jesuit priest sent to investigate a “miracle” in his hometown, where he re-encounters the woman who loved him 30 years before.Conor McPherson was born in Dublin, Ireland, where he still lives. His plays include This Lime Tree Bower, St. Nicholas, The Weir, Port Authority and Dublin Carol.
Miss Julie and The Stronger
August Strindberg - 1977
There is the very questionable theme in these days of the relationship between masters and servants, which this play tends to undermine.' Lord Cromer, who banned performances of Miss Julie from the English stage in October 1925It's Midsummer's Eve in the kitchen of a nobleman's house and his haughty daughter Julie flirts and plays with Jean, her father's manservant. But it's a dangerous game and once she has been seduced by him he holds the upper hand.Miss Julie, Strindberg's mighty play on power, sex and class is presented here in a coruscating version by Frank McGuinness.
The Metal Children: A Play
Adam Rapp - 2010
Its directionless New York City author arrives in town to defend the book and finds that it has inspired a group of local teens to rebel in strange and unexpected ways. A timely and unforgettable drama about the failure of urban and heartland America to understand each other, The Metal Children explores what happens when fiction becomes a matter of life and death.
Timon of Athens
William Shakespeare - 1605
He rejects mankind and goes to live in a cave.
Ghosts
Henrik Ibsen - 1881
Ghosts is a scathing indictment of Victorian society in which Ibsen refutes the notion that if one simply fulfills one's duty rather than following one's desires then a good and noble life will be achieved. Scandalous in its day for its frank discussion of venereal disease and marriage infidelity, Ghosts remains to this day an intense psychological drama and sharp social criticism.Ghosts was written during the autumn of 1881 and was published in December of the same year. It was not performed in the theatre until May 1882, when a Danish touring company produced it in the Aurora Turner Hall in Chicago. Ibsen disliked the translator William Archer's use of the word 'Ghosts' as the play's title, whereas the Norwegian Gengangere would be more accurately translated as The Revenants, which literally means The Ones who Return.
Kimberly Akimbo
David Lindsay-Abaire - 2003
Winner of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Playwright, David Lindsay-Abaire's Kimberly-Akimbo focuses, with uncanny depth and quirky wit, on a sixteen-year-old girl suffering from a disease that causes her body to age nearly five times faster than it should.
The Persians
Aeschylus
Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
The Dining Room
A.R. Gurney - 1981
The action is comprised of a mosaic of interrelated scenes-some funny, some touching, some rueful-which, taken together, create an in-depth portrait of a vanishing species: the upper-middle-class WASP. The actors change roles, personalities and ages with virtuoso skill as they portray a wide variety of characters, from little boys to stern grandfathers, and from giggling teenage girls to Irish housemaids. Each vignette introduces a new set of people and events; a father lectures his son on grammar and politics; a boy returns from boarding school to discover his mother's infidelity; a senile grandmother doesn't recognize her own sons at Christmas dinner; a daughter, her marriage a shambles, pleads futilely to return home, etc. Dovetailing swiftly and smoothly, the varied scenes coalesce, ultimately, into a theatrical experience of exceptional range, compassionate humor and abundant humanity.
And Then There Were None: A Mystery Play in Three Acts
Agatha Christie - 1944
The play opened on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York City on June 27, 1944. It was directed by Albert deCourville. Ten guilty strangers are trapped on an island. One by one they are accused of murder; one by one they start to die.
The Browning Version - A Play in One Act
Terence Rattigan - 1948
His wife despises him for his failures and finds consolation with Frank, a younger teacher. She openly taunts Andrew while Frank watches with disgust and shame. The wife knows she has lost Frank - but even more bitter is the realization he's now Andrew's best friend.