Chicken Soup with Barley


Arnold Wesker - 1984
    It vividly captures the loss of political idealism and links the journey of a single family to the wider political situation.The kettle boils in 1936 as the fascists are marching. Tea is brewed in 1946, with disillusion in the air at the end of the war. Twenty years on, in 1956, as rumors spread of Hungarian revolution, the cup is empty.Sarah Khan, an East End Jewish mother, is a feisty political fighter and a staunch communist. Battling against the State and her shirking husband she desperately tries to keep her family together.This landmark state-of-the-nation play is a panoramic drama portraying the age-old battle between realism and idealism. Chicken Soup captures the collapse of an ideology alongside the disintegration of a family.Chicken Soup with Barley, the first in a trilogy that includes Roots and I'm Talking about Jerusalem was first performed at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry in 1958 and transferred to the Royal Court in the same year.

Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary, Vol. 1


Alexander Schmidt - 1874
    The lifetime work of Professor Alexander Schmidt of Königsberg, this book has long been the indispensable companion for every person seriously interested in Shakespeare, Renaissance poetry and prose of any sort, or English literature. It is really two important books in one.Schmidt’s set contains every single word that Shakespeare used, not simply words that have changed their meaning since the seventeenth century, but every word in all the accepted plays and the poems. Covering both quartos and folios, it carefully distinguishes between shades of meaning for each word and provides exact definitions, plus governing phrases and locations, down to the numbered line of the Cambridge edition of Shakespeare. There is no other word dictionary comparable to this work.Even more useful to the general reader, however, is the incredible wealth of exact quotations. Arranged under the words of the quotation itself (hence no need to consult confusing subject classifications) are more than 50,000 exact quotations. Each is precisely located, so that you can easily refer back to the plays or poems themselves, if you wish context.Other features helpful to the scholar are appendixes on basic grammatical observations, a glossary of provincialisms, a list of words and sentences taken from foreign languages, a list of words that form the latter part of word-combinations. This third edition features a supplement with new findings.

Extremities


William Mastrosimone - 1998
    The tables turn when Marjorie is able to subdue Raul and keep him tied up in her fireplace. When Terry and Patricia, Marjorie's roommates, come home, they are shocked and begin discussing how to handle the situation: call the police or take matters into their own hands?

Pizza Man


Darlene Craviotto - 1986
    Her boss made a pass at her and she said no so she got a pink slip with her check. Julie's broke and disillusioned, so she drinks and turns on the stereo full blast to make the pain go away. Then her roommate comes home in the midst of an eating frenzy; her boyfriend has gone back to his wife so Alice has turned to food to forget. Julie suggests another way to vent their man

Love and Money


Dennis Kelly - 2007
    A series of scenes that gradually tell the story of how the financial collapse affects a British couple and how fiscal worry, stress, and fear can strain mankind's greatest emotion.

The Way of Acting: The Theatre Writings of Tadashi Suzuki


Tadashi Suzuki - 1986
    Features his compelling adaptation of Clytemnestra--finding an astonishing parallel between ancient Greek and modern Japanese society, Suzuki melds traditional and avant-garde techinques to shed new light on this primal tale.

The Empty Space: A Book About the Theatre: Deadly, Holy, Rough, Immediate


Peter Brook - 1968
    As relevant as when it was first published in 1968, groundbreaking director and cofounder of the Royal Shakespeare Company Peter Brook draws on a life in love with the stage to explore the issues facing a theatrical performance—of any scale. He describes important developments in theatre from the last century, as well as smaller scale events, from productions by Stanislavsky to the rise of Method Acting, from Brecht’s revolutionary alienation technique to the free form happenings of the 1960s, and from the different styles of such great Shakespearean actors as John Gielgud and Paul Scofield to a joyous impromptu performance in the burnt-out shell of the Hamburg Opera just after the war. Passionate, unconventional, and fascinating, this book shows how theatre defies rules, builds and shatters illusions, and creates lasting memories for its audiences.

Friends


Kōbō Abe - 1967
    A family enters the apartment of a young man and announces that they will save him from his loneliness by living with him. Slowly, they destroy everything, in the cheerful psychotic name of "brotherly love".

Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for the Bard


Ben Crystal - 2008
    He wrote too much and what he did write is inaccessible and elitist. Right? Wrong. "Shakespeare on Toast" knocks the stuffing from the staid old myth of Shakespeare, revealing the man and his plays for what they really are: modern, thrilling and uplifting drama. Actor and author Ben Crystal brings the bright words and colourful characters of the world's greatest hack writer brilliantly to life, handing over the key to Shakespeare's plays, unlocking the so-called difficult bits and, astonishingly, finding Shakespeare's own voice amid the poetry.Told in five fascinating Acts, "Shakespeare on Toast" sweeps the cobwebs from the Bard - from his language, his life, his time - revealing both the man and his work to be relevant, accessible and full of beans. This is a book for everyone, whether you're reading Shakespeare for the first time, occasionally find him troublesome, think you know him backwards, or have never set foot near one of his plays but have always wanted to ...It's quick, easy and good for you. Just like beans on toast.

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.'

Celebration & The Room


Harold Pinter - 2000
    In his newest play, Celebration, he continues to examine the darker places of relationships. Celebration is an acerbic portrait of a sated culture choking on its own material success. Startling, full of black humor and wicked satire, Celebration displays a vivid zest for life. Also included in this volume is Pinter's classic play The Room. Both plays are invested with the elements that make Pinter's work unique: the disturbingly familiar dialogue, subtle characterization, and abrupt mood and power shifts among characters, which can be by turns terrifying, moving, and wildly funny.

The Complete Works


William Shakespeare - 1623
    Part 1 King Henry IV. Part 2 King Henry V King Henry VI. Part 1 King Henry VI. Part 2 King Henry VI. Part 3 King Richard III King Henry VIII Troilus and Cressida Coriolanus Titus Andronicus Romeo and Juliet Timon of Athens Julius Caesar Macbeth Hamlet King Lear Othello Anthony and Cleopatra Cymbeline Pericles Venus and Adonis Rape of Lucrece Sonnets Lover's Complaint Passionate Pilgrim Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music Phoenix and the Turtle

Showstopper


Abigail Pogrebin - 2011
    It's a still a mystery, and a much debated topic, among theater enthusiasts as to why "Merrily We Roll Along" flopped, especially since Sondheim's other productions, which include "Into the Woods," "Follies," "Sweeney Todd," and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," have been so endearing and extraordinarily successful. In this Kindle Single, Pogrebin muses on why the show didn't get off the ground at the same time that she takes the reader on passionate, introspective journey, examining the importance of this very special moment in her life.Abigail Pogrebin is the author of Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish (Broadway Books 2007), and One And The Same: My Life as an Identical Twin and What I've Learned About Everyone's Struggle to Be Singular (Doubleday 2009). Pogrebin has written for many national publications, and has produced for Mike Wallace at "60 Minutes." She lives in New York City with her husband and two children.

The Violet Hour


Richard Greenberg - 2004
    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.

Plays 2: Softcops / Top Girls / Fen / Serious Money


Caryl Churchill - 1990
    "Softcops renders the philosophy of Foucault as a music-hall turn and Victorian freakshow "theatre and history combine to give such intelligent fun" —The London Standard "Top Girls brings five great and less-than-great women from history together for a dinner party and "has a combination of directness and complexity which keeps you both emotionally and intellectually alert"—Sunday Times Fen scrutinizes the lives of the low-paid women potato pickers of the fens (in Eastern England) and "the playwright pins down her poetic subject matter in dialogue of impressive vigour and economy"—Financial Times Serious Money is a satirical study of the effects of the Big Bang - "Pure genius…the first play about the city to capture the authentic atmosphere of the place."—Daily Telegraph