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    In the play, Martin—a hugely successful architect who has just turned fifty—leads an ostensibly ideal life with his loving wife and gay teenage son. But when he confides to his best friend that he is also in love with a goat (named Sylvia), he sets in motion events that will destroy his family and leave his life in tatters.The playwright himself describes it this way: “Every civilization sets quite arbitrary limits to its tolerances. The play is about a family that is deeply rocked by an unimaginable event and how they solve that problem. It is my hope that people will think afresh about whether or not all the values they hold are valid."

    It combines a poet's translation with a scholar's introduction and notes." "Among surviving Greek tragedies only Euripides' Trojan Women shows us the extinction of a whole city, an entire people. Despite its grim theme, or more likely because of the centrality of that theme to the deepest fears of our own age, this is one of the relatively few Greek tragedies that regularly finds its way to the stage. Here the power of Euripides' theatrical and moral imagination speaks clearly across the twenty-five centuries that separate our world from his." The theme is really a double one: the suffering of the victims of war, exemplified by the woman who survive the fall of Troy, and the degradation of the victors, shown by the Greeks' reckless and ultimately self-destructive behavior. It offers an enduring picture of human fortitude in the midst of despair. Trojan Women gains special relevance, of course, in times of war. It presents a particularly intense account of human suffering and uncertainty, but one that is also rooted in considerations of power and policy, morality and expedience. Furthermore, the seductions of power and the dangers both of its exercise and of resistance to it as portrayed in Trojan Women are not simply philosophical or rhetorical gambits but part of the lived experience of Euripides' day.

    And what is more, she is so intensely interesting that the girls admire her above all else. But Miss Brodie is not honest. She prevaricates and then tells the girls to do as she tells them, not as she does herself. She is having an affair with the music teacher and has had one with the art teacher, and this is not the most exemplary conduct. A

    Her short story, "A Jury of Her Peers", was adapted from the play a year after its debut. It was first performed by the Provincetown Players at the Wharf Theatre in Provincetown, Massachusetts on August 8, 1916. In the original play, Glaspell played the role of one of the characters, Mrs. Hale. It is frequently anthologized in American literature textbooks. The play begins as the county attorney, the sherrif, Mr. Hale, Mrs. Peters, and Mrs. Hale enter the Wright's empty farm house. On prompting from the county attorney, Mr. Hale recounts his visit to the house the previous day, when he found Mrs. Wright behaving strangely and found her husband upstairs with a rope around his neck, dead. Mr. Hale notes that, when he questioned her, Mrs. Wright claimed that she was fast asleep when someone strangled her husband.Often hailed as one of the quintessential feminist plays, 'Trifles' earned Glaspell a Pulitzer Prize and renewed literary recognition.

    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.

    This Educational Edition of Sean O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars contains: The full playtext; An introduction to the playwright, his background and his work; A detailed analysis of the social and political events of the period; A close analysis of language, structure and characters in the play; Features of performance; textual notes expelling difficult words and references.

    He believes his five-week old granddaughter is Gerry Adams.His family keep telling him to stop living in the past and fighting old battles that nobody cares about anymore, but his cultural heritage is under siege. He must act.David Ireland's black comedy takes one man's identity crisis to the limits as he uncovers the modern day complexity of Ulster Loyalism.Cyprus Avenue was first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on 11 February 2016, before transferring to the Royal Court Theatre, London in April 2016.

    They have hired a housekeeper named Matilde, an aspiring comedian from Brazil who's more interested in coming up with the perfect joke than in house-cleaning. Lane, the lady of the house, has an eccentric sister named Virginia who's just nuts about house-cleaning. She and Matilde become fast friends, and Virginia takes over the cleaning while Matilde works on her jokes. Trouble comes when Lane's husband Charles reveals that he has found his soul mate, or "bashert" in a cancer patient named Anna, on whom he has operated. The actors who play Charles and Anna also play Matilde's parents in a series of dream-like memories, as we learn the story about how they literally killed each other with laughter, giving new meaning to the phrase, "I almost died laughing." This theatrical and wildly funny play is a whimsical and poignant look at class, comedy and the true nature of love.

    The cat is reported dead when Padriac is away bombing civilian targets in Northern Ireland as a one-man splinter group and his family and friends on Inishmore desperately try to conceal the cat's death and what caused it before he returns.

    A "dumb blonde" chorus girl, mistress of a tycoon-gangster diddling in D.C., gets an education from a reporter for The New Republic, and blossoms into a very fair lady.

    This volume offers every one of his plays, which range from racy comedy to stark tragedy, all sharing a memorable lyricism. The introduction to this new, definitive edition sets the plays in the context of the Irish literary movement, with special attention to Synge's role as one of the founders of the Abbey Theatre and his work alongside W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory.

    Written before 9/11, Homebody/Kabul premiered in New York in December 2001 and has had highly successful productions in London, Providence, Seattle, Chicago and Los Angeles. This version incorporates all the playwright's changes and is now the definitive version of the text.

    It premiered in London, in 1980 and won the Society for West End Theatres (SWET) award for Best Comedy of the Year. It was made into a highly successful film with Michael Caine and Julie Walters and won the 1983 BAFTA award for Best Film.Commentary and notes by Steve Lewis.

    Both are struggling to escape from lingering parental domination and to establish their own lives and identities. In Janie's case this leads to an inconclusive involvement with a young Jewish doctor who calls her "Monkey"; while Harriet assails the world of big business and has an affair with her hard-driving (and married) boss. Told in a fast-moving series of inventive, alternately hilarious and touchingly revealing scenes, the play explores their parallel stories with uncommon wit and wisdom-resulting, ultimately, in a heightened awareness which, while not providing all the answers, goes a long way toward achieving the maturity and self-assuredness that both protagonists so desperately desire.