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La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi
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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.
Othello (No Fear Shakespeare)
SparkNotes - 2018
This No Fear Shakespeare ebook gives you the complete text of Othelloand an easy-to-understand translation.Each No Fear Shakespeare contains
The complete text of the original play
A line-by-line translation that puts Shakespeare into everyday language
A complete list of characters with descriptions
Plenty of helpful commentary
The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone
Seamus Heaney - 2004
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.
The Revenger's Tragedy
Thomas Middleton - 1606
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.
Danton's Death, Leonce and Lena, Woyzeck
Georg Büchner - 1985
The German writer Georg Buchner, who died in 1837 aged 23, left only three works for the theatre. Danton's Death, his great fresco of the French Revolution, was written in five weeks when Buchner was under threat of arrest for his own revolutionary activities. His sad comedy, Leonce and Lena, was composed in haste for a publisher's competition for which it was entered too late. The extraordinary proletarian tragedy Woyzeck was left unfinished at Buchner's death. Virtually unknown until the end of the nineteenth century, the plays have found an important place in the modern international repertory.
The Woolgatherer
William Mastrosimone - 1986
Into her life saunters Cliff, a hard working, hard drinking truck driver. He is rough and witty and just as starved for love as she is. Produced to great success at New York's Circle Repertory, this delicate two-character drama starred Peter Weller and Patricia Wettig. The Woolgatherer features several excellent monologues. "Energy, compassion and theatrical sense are there."-The New York Times "[Mastrosimone] has a knack for composing wildly humorous lines at the same time that he is able to penetrate people's hearts and dreams."-Hollywood Reporter
Accidental Death of an Anarchist
Dario Fo - 1970
It has since been performed all over the world and is widely recognised as a classic of modern drama. A sharp and hilarious satire on political corruption, it concerns the case of an anarchist railway worker who, in 1969, 'fell' to his death from a police headquarters window.This version of the play was premiered in London in 2003.Commentary and notes by Joseph Farrell.Content: Dario Fo Plot Commentary Further reading Accidental death of an anarchist NotesQuestions for further study.
Hamlet
Hamlet Shakespeare - 2007
This is a drama that takes place between words and language itself, in which Hamlet Shakespeare deconstructs his own version of Hamlet. Hamlet here is a mere word, lost in its own and externally imposed meanings that create the action, which starts, continues, and ends in an abstract scene representing life and everything beyond it is reflected in mirrors, green color, and endless dialogues that are not present, but are substituted by incessant speaking or just text and words, which create and undo themselves in the eyes of the reader.
Boris Godunov
Alexander Pushkin - 1831
Is it possible? An unfrocked monk against us Leads rascal troops, a truant friar dares write Threats to us! Then 'tis time to tame the madman! Trubetskoy, set thou forth, and thou Basmanov; My zealous governors need help. Chernigov Already by the rebel is besieged; Rescue the city and citizens.
Four Plays: The Clouds/The Birds/Lysistrata/The Frogs
Aristophanes - 1983
The darker comedy of The Clouds satirizes Athenian philosophers - Socrates in particular - and reflects the uncertainties of a generation in which all traditional religious and ethical beliefs were being challenged. The Birds takes place in a flawed utopia, with man's eternal flaws observed from up above. In Lysistrata a band of women use sex's manipulative power in order to try and end a war. In The Frogs, the god Dionysus visits the underworld, consulting the late Aeschylus and Euripides regarding whether or not classical Athens will ever have another great dramatist - and provoking an argument between both.Three of the leading Greek translators of the twentieth century - William Arrowsmith, Richmond Lattimore, and Douglas Parker - have created versions of the comedies that are at once contemporary, historically accurate, and funny. Also included are introductions to each play that describe the historical and literary background of the work.
The Sunset Limited
Cormac McCarthy - 2006
In that small apartment, Black and White, as the two men are known, begin a conversation that leads each back through his own history, mining the origins of two fundamentally opposing world views. White is a professor whose seemingly enviable existence of relative ease has left him nonetheless in despair. Black, an ex-con and ex-addict, is the more hopeful of the men though he is just as desperate to convince White of the power of faith as White is desperate to deny it. Their aim is no less than this: to discover the meaning of life. Deft, spare, and full of artful tension, The Sunset Limited is a beautifully crafted, consistently thought-provoking, and deceptively intimate work by one of the most insightful writers of our time.