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".

    A mixture of poetry, metaphysics, and common sense, they are ideal for the imaginative director and are easily adapted for radio or small acting areas.

    In the century since its first performance, The Cherry Orchard has undergone a wide range of conflicting interpretations: tragic and comic, naturalistic and symbolic, reactionary and radical. Beginning with the 1904 premiere at Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre, this study traces the performance history of one of the landmark plays of the modern theatre. Considering the work of such directors as Anatoly Efros, Giorgio Strehler, Peter Brook, and Peter Stein, Chekhov: The Cherry Orchard explores the way different artists, periods and cultures have reinvented Chekhov's poignant comedy of failure and hope.

    A short critical essay which considers the significance of the title.

    Hiroaki Sato is the first to translate these plays into English. For this collection he has selected five major plays and three essays Mishima wrote about drama. The title play is a satire that follows the breakdown of friendship between Adolf Hitler and two Nazi officials who were ultimately assassinated under orders from Hitler.

    Love in the Dark'One of the most exciting, new and absolutely original aspects of Carr's writing is the manner in which the sexism of the language and religious imagery is exposed... Marina Carr is a playwright to be watched.' Sunday TribuneThe Mai'The writing is at once gentle and raucous... capable of articulating deep-seated woes and resentments in a manner you rarely find outside Eugene O'Neill.' ObserverPortia Coughlan'A play of precocious maturity and accomplishment.' Irish Times'Portia Coughlan packs a hell of a punch. It hurts to look at it. But it has to be seen.' Irish IndependentBy the Bog of Cats...'A poetic realism steeped in the past... Carr has an extraordinary ability to move between the mythic and the real.' Guardian'A great play... a great work of poetry... the word should soon carry across both sides of the Atlantic.' Independent

    Most famously, they use natural imagery to make Zen-like observations about reality. However, as this anthology reveals, there’s much more to haiku than cherry blossoms and waning moons: the verse included here is frequently erotic, funny, rude, and mischievous. Adam Kern has travelled throughout Japan to gather the best and most important examples of the genre, and his vivid and engaging translations form the basis of the Penguin Book of Haiku.For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    This edition contains the definitive versions of these works, a foreword in which Rabe examines the interwoven relationship of the plays, and an afterword in which he discusses the process of their construction.

    Back-in-print early work by the author of subUrbia and Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll.

    The five heroines are Onatsu, already wise in the ways of love the tender age of sixteen; Osen, a faithful wife until unjustly accused of adultery; Osan, a Kyoto beauty who falls asleep in the wrong bed; Oshichi, willing to burn down a city to meet her samurai lover; and Oman, who has to compete with handsome boys to win her lover's affections.But the book is more than a collection of skillfully told erotic tales, for "Saikaku…could not delve into the inmost secrets of human life only to expose them to ridicule or snickering prurience. Obviously fascinated by the variety and complexity of human love, but retaining always a sense of its intrinsic dignityhe is both a discriminating and compassionate judge of his fellow man."Saikaku's style, as allusive as it is witty, as abbreviated as it is penetrating, is a challenge that few translators have dared to face, and certainly never before with the success here achieved in a translation that recaptures the heady flavor of the original.

    Meanwhile, all's not well on the unassuming Midwestern streets of Bloggs: with local children vanishing at an alarming rate, our hero, his lady friend, and a motley assortment of poets, butchers, and punk librarians prepare to battle the darkness on the edge of town.

    In this sly critique of contemporary relationships, Reza skillfully picks apart the friendship of three men via a bowl of olives and a white-on-white painting. Now translated into more than 30 languages, Art continues to be performed worldwide, even as Reza's other plays have garnered similar acclaim. Life x 3, Reza's most recent offering, again highlights her satirical wit as two couples face off in three different versions of the dinner from hell. Praised as "compact, cool and clever" by Christopher Isherwood of Variety, Reza uses the acidic exchanges of her characters to illuminate their inner desire for love and acceptance. Also included in this edition are two earlier plays, The Unexpected Man and Conversations After a Burial. Each elucidates the startling difference between public and private life, be it in the confines of a train compartment or a country estate in the aftermath of a loved one's passing.

    Arguably the central genre of Japanese literature, the 31-syllable lyric made up the great majority of Japanese poetry from the ninth to the nineteenth century and was the inspiration for such poetry as haiku and renga. Tanka has begun to attract considerable attention in North America in recent years. Modern Japanese Tanka is the first comprehensive collection available in English.Tanka retains the aesthetic sensibilities that circumscribe Japanese culture, but just as Japan has changed during this tumultuous century, tanka has undergone equally radical shifts. Responding to artistic and social movements of the West, tanka has incorporated influences ranging from Marxism to Avant-Garde.Modern Japanese Tanka includes four hundred poems by twenty of Japan's most renowned poets who have made major contributions to the hisotry of tanka in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With his graceful, eloquent translations, Makoto Ueda captures the distinct voices of these individual poets, providing biographical sketches of each as well as transliterating Japanese text below each poem. His introduction gives an excellent overview of the development of tanka in the last one hundred years.Tracing the contemporary tanka tradition from Yosana Tekkan in the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth-century poetry of such writers as Taware Machi, Modern Japanese Tankselegantly conveys an authentic sense of Japanese lyric to a Western audience.

    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.

    After having their first child in 1986, they have decided to pursue their long-hidden dream of exploring the world. Inspired by their life-changing adventure throughout the world, they have decided to serve as a tour guide. This happy couple has been serving as a Japan local tour guide for more than 30 years now. In their effort to show the world what Japan truly is, they have decided to write a book about it. Download your copy today! Take action and experience Japan at its fullest potential now! Get this book for FREE with Kindle Unlimited!