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.

La barca sin pescador


Alejandro Casona - 1965
    One of his most attractive works is La Barca Sin Pescador, which was performed in Buenos Aires on 24 July 1945. The play has an interesting plot, well motivated and full of action.

The Flies / Les Mouches


Jean-Paul Sartre - 1943
    It is an adaptation of the Electra myth, previously used by the Greek playwrights Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides. The play recounts the story of Orestes and his sister Electra in their quest to avenge the death of their father Agamemnon, king of Argos, by killing their mother Clytemnestra and her husband Aegisthus, who had deposed and killed him.Sartre incorporates an existentialist theme into the play, having Electra and Orestes engaged in a battle with Zeus and his Furies, who are the gods of Argos and the centerpiece for self-abnegating religious rituals. This results in fear and a lack of autonomy for Zeus's worshippers, who live in constant shame of their humanity.

Yerma


Federico García Lorca - 1934
    It is possibly Lorca's harshest play, following a woman's Herculean struggle against the curse of infertility. The woman's barrenness becomes a metaphor for her marriage in a traditional society that denies women sexual or social equality. Her desperate desire for a child drives her to commit a terrible crime at the end of the play.This Student Edition comes complete with a full introduction; plot synopsis; commentary on characters, context and themes; bibliography; chronology; and questions for study.

All My Sons


Arthur Miller - 1947
    Deever was sent to prison while Keller escaped punishment and went on to make lots of money. In a work of tremendous power, a love affair between Keller's son, Chris, and Ann Deever, Herbert's daughter, the bitterness of George Keller, who returns from the war to find his father in prison and his father's partner free, and the reaction of a son to his father's guilt escalate toward a climax of electrifying intensity.Winner of the Drama Critics' Award for Best New Play in 1947, All My Sons established Arthur Miller as a leading voice in the American theater. All My Sons introduced themes that thread through Miller's work as a whole: the relationship between fathers and sons, and the conflict between business and personal ethics.

The Real Inspector Hound & After Magritte


Tom Stoppard - 1969
    The first of the plays, The Real Inspector Hound, is the longer of the two; here the author has created a looking glass comedy of great suspense and intrigue about two drama critics. The second play, After Magritte, is 'a surrealist comedy in detective form-or is it a comedy in surrealist form? A husband and wife argue whether the figure they saw in the street was a one-legged football player with the ball under his arm, or a man in pajamas with a tortoise under his arm. The play shows that Stoppard is as amusing and clever as always.'

Hello Out There


William Saroyan - 1941
    

Getting Married


George Bernard Shaw - 1908
    From Shaw we have a "marital" play of talk, not action -- but talk that seems to come from the best debating society; it's more of a dialogue than a play. But the talk is always stimulating and entertaining. Shaw is not concerned with marriage as an activity; he is focused on marriage as an institution.

The Dialogue of the Dogs


Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra - 1613
    He playfully places a quasi-picaresque autobiography, the most 'realist' fiction of its time in its baring of society's vices, in a totally fantastic framework of rational, talking dogs.

The Freedom of the City


Brian Friel - 1990
    Set in Londonderry in 1970, this gripping drama by the acclaimed author of Faith Healer and Translations explores the ongoing Irish "troubles" that plague the country to this day.

Women of Trachis


Sophocles
    But nowhere are they elaborated with more urgency than in Women of Trachis. There are no subtle shifts of Fortune's favors in this tragedy, only stunning and total reversals, a relentless spinning of her fickle wheel. Thesis moves to crushing antithesis with an unparalleled violence at the moment of transformation. Thought to have been written about 440 BC, midway through the poet's career, Women of Trachis has long suffered from neglect by scholars despite its sophistication and raw energy. This translation at last rescues the immense lyrical power and tragic grandeur of the play from obscurity, restoring the music of a poetry originally meant to be sung and danced collectively.

Marisol and Other Plays


José Rivera - 1997
    Though critics reflexively class his work as “magical realism,” Rivera’s extravagant, original imagery always serves to illuminate the gritty realities and touching longings of our daily lives. Also includes: Each Day Dies with Sleep and Cloud Tectonics.

The Collected Plays, Vol. 4


Neil Simon - 1998
    For more than thirty years, Simon's wry and astute observations on life, love, and the human condition have been making audiences laugh uproariously even as his beautifully realized characters touch their hearts. These five plays, including the Pulitzer- and Tony-award-winning Lost in Yonkers, show Simon at the pinnacle of his extraordinary career. Rumors Lost in Yonkers Jake's Women Laughter on the 23rd Floor London Suite Including the author's introduction: "How to Stop Writing and Other Impossibilities"

The Wild Duck


Henrik Ibsen - 1884
    David Eldridge's new version of Ibsen's classic, published to tie-in with the production at the Donmar Warehouse, London.Should the truth be pursued whatever the cost? The idealistic son of a wealthy businessman seeks to expose his father's duplicity and to free his childhood friend from the lies on which his happy home life is based.

This is a Chair


Caryl Churchill - 1999
    This short play by Caryl Churchill was an entry in the 1997 London International Festival of Theatre.