The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works


William ShakespeareJan Sewell - 2008
    The First Folio is a literary icon and is the version of Shakespeare's text preferred by many actors and directors, yet no one has edited it in its entirety for over three hundred years.At the request of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmunssen, two of today's most accomplished Shakespearean scholars, have used the very latest techniques and research to correct the errors and variations in the early printed copies and to present the First Folio for modern readers. The result is a fresh and definitive Complete Works for the twenty-first century.This edition includes all the material that might be needed by a student of Shakespeare. The Sonnets, The Two Noble Kinsmen, Pericles, Shakespeare's scene from Sir Thomas More, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, The Phoenix and Turtle, and a number of other interesting passages not published in the First Folio are also included.'This is a glorious edition of one of the world's most important books. It's the essential reference book for anyone who's ever been in love, felt jealousy, hatred, or desire. All human life is here — and every home should have one.'-Dame Judi Dench'A splendid edition … the general introduction is among the best 50-page guides to Shakespeare you could hope to find, while the short essays prefixed to each play are informative, thought-provoking and humane. Marginal notes help readers imagine what's happening onstage … the RSC's edition allows you to lose yourself in the wonder of the works.'-Dr Colin Burrow, Oxford University'A triumphant addition to our times.'-Fiona Shaw, The Times'The scholarly apparatus is discreet, elegant and pertinent. For each play, we get brief accounts of plots, dates and sources … footnotes are found snugly and legibly at the bottom of each page … there is a universe to be found in these annotations: the Renaissance world of power and fate, sex and death, language and philosophy … an edition full of endless fascination.'-Tom Deveson, Times Educational Supplement'Bate's general introduction to Shakespeare's life, stage and reputation is superb, and the short introductions to individual works are among the best of their kind available … they manage to speak about what really matters about the plays.'-Professor Michael Dobson, London Review of Books'Excellent, succinct notes and introductions to each play.'-John Carey, Sunday Times'Outstanding … Jonathan Bate writes with as much elegance as insight about the making of theatre and the creation of the plays … an impeccably informative introduction gives a comprehensive theatrical, social, political and biographical context to the plays … exemplary notes at the foot of each page translate verbal and topical obscurities … for actors and directors it will be incomparably useful, but for any curious reader of Shakespeare's plays it provides an invaluable guide to reading them not as novels or dramatic poems, but as they were intended to be read: blueprints for live performance.'-Richard Eyre, Sunday Telegraph

Death and the King's Horseman: A Play


Wole Soyinka - 1975
    The king has died and Elesin, his chief horseman, is expected by law and custom to commit suicide and accompany his ruler to heaven. The stage is set for a dramatic climax when Pilkings learns of the ritual and decides to intervene and Elesin's son arrives home.

Shakespeare in Love: A Screenplay


Marc Norman - 1999
    Marc Norman and renowned dramatist, Tom Stoppard have created the best screenplay of the year according to the Golden Globes and the New York Film Critics Circle.

Vera Or The Nihilists


Oscar Wilde - 1880
    It was the first play that Wilde wrote. It features Russian revolutionaries who seek to assassinate a reform-minded Emperor. Though Wilde's fictional Emperor differs from the actual Alexander, contemporary events in Russia – as published in the British press of the time – clearly influenced Wilde.

Manga Shakespeare: Hamlet


Richard Appignanesi - 2007
    He has no one to trust, and he even acts crazy so adults will leave him alone. Manga fans—and kids who find Shakespeare intimidating—will be drawn to the style and action of the Manga Shakespeare series, learning that required reading doesn’t have to be boring.

Shakespeare's English Kings: History, Chronicle, and Drama


Peter Saccio - 1977
    Anyone who appreciates the dramatic action of Shakespeare's history plays but is confused by much of the historical detail will welcome this guide to the Richards, Edwards, Henrys, Warwicks and Norfolks who ruled and fought across Shakespeare's page and stage. Not only theater-goers and students, but today's film-goers who want to enrich their understanding of film adaptations of plays such as Richard III and Henry V will find this revised edition of Shakespeare's English Kings to be an essential companion.Saccio's engaging narrative weaves together three threads: medieval English history according to the Tudor chroniclers who provided Shakespeare with his material, that history as understood by modern scholars, and the action of the plays themselves. Including a new preface, a revised further reading list, genealogical charts, an appendix of names and titles, and an index, the second edition of Shakespeare's English Kings offers excellent background reading for all of the ten history plays.

Come Back, Little Sheba


William Inge - 1950
    Doc and Lola had an indiscreet affair and she became pregnant. Compelled to marry her, he gave up his medical studies, forfeited his future, and settled down to a life of quiet desperation with this simple, homey woman, who lost the child but has remained Doc's steadfast if slatternly wife. Now a chiropractor and recovering alcoholic, Doc's sobriety is tested when Marie, a young college student, becomes their boarder and brings new life and long-dormant hostilities to the surface of Doc and Lola's troubled marriage. Shirley Booth won the Tony, NY Drama Critics Award and later the Oscar as Best Actress of The Year for her compelling performance as Lola.

Antigone; Oedipus the King; Electra


Sophocles
    The vivid translations, which combine elegance and modernity, are remarkable for their lucidity and accuracy, and are equally suitable for reading for pleasure, study, or theatrical performance. The selection of Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Electra not only offers the reader the most influential and famous of Sophocles' works, it also presents in one volume the two plays dominated by a female heroic figure, and the experience of the two great dynasties featured in Greek tragedy--the houses of Oedipus and Agamemnon.

The Norton Shakespeare


Stephen Greenblatt - 2008
    Students can access the ebook from their computer, tablet, or smartphone via the registration code included in the print volume at no additional charge. As one instructor summed it up, It s a long overdue step forward in the way Shakespeare is taught. "

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 Son


Florian Zeller - 2018
    Believe me. I don't know what's happened, but something has. He's changed. He . . . And I'm wondering if . . . To be absolutely honest with you . . . I'm even wondering if . . . Nicolas, just two years ago a smiling boy, is going through a difficult phase after his parents' divorce. He's listless, skipping classes, lying. He believes moving in with his father and his new family may help. And a different school, a fresh start. When he doesn't feel comfortable there, when he senses he isn't wanted, he decides that going back to his mother's may be the answer. But at some point, options are going to dry up. And then what?I'm telling you. I don't understand what's happening to me. Florian Zeller's The Son forms the final part in a trilogy with The Mother and The Father, all of which are translated by Christopher Hampton. The Son premieres at the Kiln Theatre, London, in February 2019.

In the Heart of America and Other Plays


Naomi Wallace - 2000
    Her characters suffer and survive against the enormous weight of the times with a dignity that inspires. Her work challenges the audience and reader to reexamine the conflicts and meaning of our everyday lives through her singular, poetic imagery and language.Includes: One Flea SpareIn the Heart of AmericaSlaughter CityThe War BoysThe Trestle at Pope's Creek

Boeing-Boeing


Marc Camoletti - 1967
    This 1960's French farce adapted for the English-speaking stage features self-styled Parisian lothario Bernard, who has Italian, German, and American fiancees, each beautiful airline hostesses with frequent "layovers." He keeps "one up, one down and one pending" until unexpected schedule changes bring all three to Paris and Bernard's apartment at the same time.

The Storm


Aleksandr Ostrovsky - 1859
    Yes, I am well.... It would be better if I were ill, it's worse as it is. A dream keeps creeping into my mind, and I cannot get away from it. I try to think--I can't collect my thoughts, I try to pray--but I can't get free by prayer. My lips murmur the words but my heart is far away; as though the evil one were whispering in my ear, and always of such wicked things. And such thoughts rise up within me, that I'm ashamed of myself. What is wrong with me? There's some trouble, something before me! At night I do not sleep, Varia, a sort of murmur haunts me; someone seems speaking so tenderly to me, as it were cooing to me like a dove.

The Bacchae and Other Plays


Euripides
    This volume, containing Phoenician Women, Bacchae, Iphigenia at Aulis, Orestes, and Rhesuscompletes the new editions of Euripides in Penguin Classics.