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This Beautiful Future (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Rita KalnejaisElodie is 17. She’s French. She lets down her hair and puts it up again. She finds reflective surfaces everywhere. She tests new looks. Otto is 15. He’s a German soldier. He brushes his hair to make the shape of his head more perfectly oval. He tries not to look at himself in the mirror. It’s 1944. Elodie and Otto are experiencing love for the very first time. Outside, the world around them is exploding. Inside, the room shakes. Elodie and Otto’s bodies touch. Fusing youth with old age, the past with the present, pop tunes with Stalingrad, This Beautiful Future is about love in the extreme.
This Beautiful Village (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Lisa Tierney-KeoghOn a quiet suburban street in Dublin, a piece of graffiti tears apart a group of neighbours, exposing a deep divide between them. In one long scene over one night, six people must confront their pride, privilege and prejudice. Who will concede power and how will they move forward? This Beautiful Village is a play about power. It breaks open the wounds of hurt women to reveal a story as relevant in Ireland as anywhere. It is an urgent message that exposes every side of the complex and ugly reckoning we are all facing. Power will be undone. It won’t be pretty. But it could be beautiful.
This Contentious Storm: An Ecocritical and Performance History of King Lear (Environmental Cultures)
by Jennifer Mae HamiltonFrom providential apocalypticism to climate change, this ground-breaking ecocritical study traces the performance history of the storm scene in King Lear to explore our shifting, fraught and deeply ideological relationship with stormy weather across time. This Contentious Storm offers a new ecocritical reading of Shakespeare's classic play, illustrating how the storm has been read as a sign of the providential, cosmological, meteorological, psychological, neurological, emotional, political, sublime, maternal, feminine, heroic and chaotic at different points in history. The big ecocritical history charted here reveals the unstable significance of the weather and mobilises details of the play's dramatic narrative to figure the weather as a force within self, society and planet.
This England, That Shakespeare: New Angles On Englishness And The Bard (PDF)
by Willy Maley Margaret Tudeau-ClaytonIs Shakespeare English, British, neither or both? Addressing from various angles the relation of the figure of the national poet/dramatist to constructions of England and Englishness this collection of essays probes the complex issues raised by this question, first through explorations of his plays, principally though not exclusively the histories (Part One), then through discussion of a range of subsequent appropriations and reorientations of Shakespeare and 'his' England (Part Two). If Shakespeare has been taken to stand for Britain as well as England, as if the two were interchangeable, this double identity has come under increasing strain with the break-up - or shake-up - of Britain through devolution and the end of Empire. Essays in Part One examine how the fissure between English and British identities is probed in Shakespeare's own work, which straddles a vital juncture when an England newly independent from Rome was negotiating its place as part of an emerging British state and empire. Essays in Part Two then explore the vexed relations of 'Shakespeare' to constructions of authorial identity as well as national, class, gender and ethnic identities. At this crucial historical moment, between the restless interrogations of the tercentenary celebrations of the Union of Scotland and England in 2007 and the quatercentenary celebrations of the death of the bard in 2016, amid an increasing clamour for a separate English parliament, when the end of Britain is being foretold and when flags and feelings are running high, this collection has a topicality that makes it of interest not only to students and scholars of Shakespeare studies and Renaissance literature, but to readers inside and outside the academy interested in the drama of national identities in a time of transition.
This England, That Shakespeare: New Angles On Englishness And The Bard
by Willy Maley Margaret Tudeau-ClaytonIs Shakespeare English, British, neither or both? Addressing from various angles the relation of the figure of the national poet/dramatist to constructions of England and Englishness this collection of essays probes the complex issues raised by this question, first through explorations of his plays, principally though not exclusively the histories (Part One), then through discussion of a range of subsequent appropriations and reorientations of Shakespeare and 'his' England (Part Two). If Shakespeare has been taken to stand for Britain as well as England, as if the two were interchangeable, this double identity has come under increasing strain with the break-up - or shake-up - of Britain through devolution and the end of Empire. Essays in Part One examine how the fissure between English and British identities is probed in Shakespeare's own work, which straddles a vital juncture when an England newly independent from Rome was negotiating its place as part of an emerging British state and empire. Essays in Part Two then explore the vexed relations of 'Shakespeare' to constructions of authorial identity as well as national, class, gender and ethnic identities. At this crucial historical moment, between the restless interrogations of the tercentenary celebrations of the Union of Scotland and England in 2007 and the quatercentenary celebrations of the death of the bard in 2016, amid an increasing clamour for a separate English parliament, when the end of Britain is being foretold and when flags and feelings are running high, this collection has a topicality that makes it of interest not only to students and scholars of Shakespeare studies and Renaissance literature, but to readers inside and outside the academy interested in the drama of national identities in a time of transition.
This Flesh Is Mine (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Brian WoollandAchilles, the greatest of the Achaean warriors, refuses to fight; angered that King Agamemnon has stolen his captive Trojan slavegirl, Briseis ‘She shares my tent, she shares my bed. Her flesh is mine.’ But Briseis has dreams and desires of her own. Drawn from The Iliad, and produced in collaboration with Ashtar Theatre from Palestine, Brian Woolland’s taut and poetic new play for Border Crossings brings together Homer’s Troy and the Middle East of today: worlds shaken by cycles of violence and revenge, by ambition and self-interest masquerading as idealism; worlds struggling towards any possibility of reconciliation.
This House (Modern Plays)
by James GrahamThis country doesn't need a constitution, never has, never will. We have History as our guide. In tough times, the British do what we have always done. We muddle through.This House is a timely and relevant political comedy, exploring Westminster and the 1974 hung parliament.In the run-up to the General Election pressure mounts as squabbling whips attempt to attract key regional votes. As it becomes clear the results will be closely balanced, the play tracks the formation, perils and consequences of a coalition government, including the compromises, conflicts and power games all in the interest of gaining control of Parliament.With well-paced, witty and waspish dialogue, This House playfully explores the childish digs and chauvinistic attitudes that riddle political life. Award-winning playwright James Graham combines comedy with comment in this portrayal of the strain between the thinking individual, the pressure to toe the part line and the end goal of winning government.
This House: This House; The Angry Brigade; The Vote; Monster Raving Loony (Modern Plays)
by James GrahamThis country doesn't need a constitution, never has, never will. We have History as our guide. In tough times, the British do what we have always done. We muddle through.This House is a timely and relevant political comedy, exploring Westminster and the 1974 hung parliament.In the run-up to the General Election pressure mounts as squabbling whips attempt to attract key regional votes. As it becomes clear the results will be closely balanced, the play tracks the formation, perils and consequences of a coalition government, including the compromises, conflicts and power games all in the interest of gaining control of Parliament.With well-paced, witty and waspish dialogue, This House playfully explores the childish digs and chauvinistic attitudes that riddle political life. Award-winning playwright James Graham combines comedy with comment in this portrayal of the strain between the thinking individual, the pressure to toe the part line and the end goal of winning government.
This House (Student Editions)
by James GrahamFor the first time, this play - first performed in 2012 at the National Theatre - is published in the Methuen Drama Student Edition series. It features commentary & notes by Nicholas Holden, Lecturer in Drama at the University of Greenwich, UK, that help the student unpack the play's social, political and cultural context, as well as its themes, language, structure and production history.In tough times, the British do what we have always done. We muddle through.This House is a razor-sharp political comedy exploring Westminster and the 1974 British hung parliament, which provides a timely historical correlative to the current political climate. It's the play that secured the then-30-year-old James Graham's reputation as one of the UK's most important and revered dramatists, gaining critical acclaim, enjoying a sell-out run at the National Theatre's Olivier in 2013 and being revived in the West End in 2017, when it was Olivier-nominated. With well-paced, witty and waspish dialogue, it explores the childish digs and chauvinistic attitudes that have riddled political life both then and continue to do so now.
This House (Student Editions)
by James GrahamFor the first time, this play - first performed in 2012 at the National Theatre - is published in the Methuen Drama Student Edition series. It features commentary & notes by Nicholas Holden, Lecturer in Drama at the University of Greenwich, UK, that help the student unpack the play's social, political and cultural context, as well as its themes, language, structure and production history.In tough times, the British do what we have always done. We muddle through.This House is a razor-sharp political comedy exploring Westminster and the 1974 British hung parliament, which provides a timely historical correlative to the current political climate. It's the play that secured the then-30-year-old James Graham's reputation as one of the UK's most important and revered dramatists, gaining critical acclaim, enjoying a sell-out run at the National Theatre's Olivier in 2013 and being revived in the West End in 2017, when it was Olivier-nominated. With well-paced, witty and waspish dialogue, it explores the childish digs and chauvinistic attitudes that have riddled political life both then and continue to do so now.
This Is How We Die (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Christopher Brett Baileya motor-mouthed collage of spoken word and storytelling. tales of paranoia, young love and ultra-violence… from the desk of christopher brett bailey comes a spiraling odyssey of pitch-black humour and nightmarish prose. THIS IS HOW WE DIE is a prime slice of surrealist trash, an Americana death trip and a dizzying exorcism for a world convinced it is dying…
This Is Not That Dawn Jhootha Sach
by Yashpal Translated from the Hindi AnandJhootha Sach is arguably the most outstanding piece of Hindi literature written about the Partition. Reviving life in Lahore as it was before 1947, the book opens on a nostalgic note, with vivid descriptions of the people that lived in the city’s streets and lanes like Bhola Pandhe Ki Gali. Tara, who wanted an education above marriage; Puri, whose ideology and principles often came in the way of his impoverished circumstances; Asad, who was ready to sacrifice his love for the sake of communal harmony. Their lives—and those of other memorable characters—are forever altered as the carnage that ensues on the eve of Independence shatters the beauty and peace of the land, killing millions of Hindus and Muslims, and forcing others to leave their homes forever. Published in English translation for the first time, Yashpal’s controversial novel is a politically charged, powerful tale of human suffering.
This is Paradise
by Michael John O'NeillI feel so fucking sillybut I thought they meant real peacefucking hell KateyI thought they meant that even my bodyit might stopbreakingNorthern Ireland, 1998. The Good Friday Agreement has just been signed, politicians are shaking hands and declaring peace in our time, when Kate receives an urgent phone call. As she travels to the coastal town of Portbenoney to confront an old lover, dark memories of their time together rise in her like a river.This is Paradise by Michael John O'Neill speaks in a fierce and powerful voice. With brutal lyricism, it examines the legacy of violence and asks how we can begin to mend in its wake. The play opened at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in July 2022.
This Is Shakespeare: How to Read the World's Greatest Playwright (Pelican Books)
by Emma SmithA THE TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019'The best introduction to the plays I've read, perhaps the best book on Shakespeare, full stop' Alex Preston, Observer'It makes you impatient to see or re-read the plays at once' Hilary MantelA genius and prophet whose timeless works encapsulate the human condition like no others. A writer who surpassed his contemporaries in vision, originality and literary mastery. Who wrote like an angel, putting it all so much better than anyone else.Is this Shakespeare? Well, sort of.But it doesn't really tell us the whole truth. So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant, deflecting us from investigating the challenges of his inconsistencies and flaws. This electrifying new book thrives on revealing, not resolving, the ambiguities of Shakespeare's plays and their changing topicality. It introduces an intellectually, theatrically and ethically exciting writer who engages with intersectionality as much as with Ovid, with economics as much as poetry: who writes in strikingly modern ways about individual agency, privacy, politics, celebrity and sex. It takes us into a world of politicking and copy-catting, as we watch him emulating the blockbusters of Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd, the Spielberg and Tarantino of their day; flirting with and skirting round the cut-throat issues of succession politics, religious upheaval and technological change. The Shakespeare in this book poses awkward questions rather than offering bland answers, always implicating us in working out what it might mean.This is Shakespeare. And he needs your attention.
This Island's Mine (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Philip Osment1988. THATCHER’S BRITAIN. Seventeen-year-old Luke runs away to London – away from homophobic playground slurs, headlines that scream ‘Don’t Teach Our Children To Be Gay’ and a family who wouldn’t understand him – to Uncle Martin, who he once saw with his arms around another man at a march. In the capital, Mark is sacked because of fears about colleagues working with ‘someone like him’. His boyfriend, Selwyn, faces being beaten up both by the police and at home by his own stepbrother. Meanwhile, Debbie battles with her son, who doesn’t want to live with her and her girlfriend. And retired piano teacher Miss Rosenblum – who once found refuge in this country from a terror that swept away half her family in 1930s Vienna – has seen this sort of hatred and fear before. Soon, these individual stories – of first loves and old flames, alliances and abandonment, missed opportunities and new chances – intertwine to paint a vivid picture of Eighties Britain. This Island’s Mine was originally performed by Gay Sweatshop in 1988. Now, three decades after the introduction of Section 28 banning positive representations of homosexuality, Philip Osment’s passionate and lyrical play, of outsiders, exiles and refugees, is all too resonant.
This Land (Modern Plays)
by Siân OwenAnd strange smells would arrive on the wind. So it seemed that there was some kind of magic in this field. Some said that there was a dragon underneath that had been woken by the lightning. Some said there was treasure down there too. Fracking. How far down do you own the land beneath your feet? How much does where you live inform the person you become? What happens when someone else comes along and stakes their claim?For young couple Bea and Joseph this is a story of fracture: of fractured hearts, lives and lands.This Land digs down through the history – and the future – of a patch of earth and everything that has and will happen there. This programme text edition was published to coincide with the play's premiere by Pentabus Theatre Company, Shropshire, in March 2016.
This Land (Modern Plays)
by Siân OwenAnd strange smells would arrive on the wind. So it seemed that there was some kind of magic in this field. Some said that there was a dragon underneath that had been woken by the lightning. Some said there was treasure down there too. Fracking. How far down do you own the land beneath your feet? How much does where you live inform the person you become? What happens when someone else comes along and stakes their claim?For young couple Bea and Joseph this is a story of fracture: of fractured hearts, lives and lands.This Land digs down through the history – and the future – of a patch of earth and everything that has and will happen there. This programme text edition was published to coincide with the play's premiere by Pentabus Theatre Company, Shropshire, in March 2016.
This Might Not Be It (Nhb Modern Plays Ser.)
by Sophia Chetin-LeunerJay's new. He's just started as a temp in NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. He arrives with little more than a fledgling desk plant and well-meaning plans to change the broken system. Angela's been working here for over thirty years and nothing seems to faze her – except Jay. Exhausted and worn down by archaic protocol, Jay starts bending the rules in a desperate attempt to help their patients. But when professional boundaries are crossed and trust is shattered, he discovers the harsh reality of what's truly at stake. Sophia Chetin-Leuner's play This Might Not Be It is a candid portrayal of human lives at the mercy of our crumbling NHS. The play was longlisted for the Verity Bargate Award and shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Playwriting. It was premiered at the Bush Theatre, London, in 2023, directed by Ed Madden and produced by Broccoli Arts and Jessie Anand Productions. 'The beauty of this piece is that it speaks in a universal language about the way people find ways of co-existing in an office where space is tight and time is short' - The Times 'Intriguing and immensely engaging' - Guardian 'Timely and compelling& the characters are startlingly vivid, filled with hopes, flaws and intriguing contradictions' - The Stage 'Affecting, with much to admire' - Telegraph
This Other City (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Daragh CarvilleIn the newest play from this prolific Northern Irish writer, Carville turns his attention to the demons beneath the shiny surface of the new, metropolitan Belfast. This Other City plays out against a backdrop of coffee shops, beauty salons and overpriced apartments. It’s a Belfast where dodgy deals are done in boutique hotel rooms with a view.
This Restless House: an adaptation of Aeschlyus' Oresteia (Faber Drama Ser.)
by Zinnie HarrisAeschylus' Oresteia opens with Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter to the gods; an act which sets in motion a bloody cycle of revenge and counter-revenge. When he in turn is killed at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra, their son Orestes takes up the mantle of avenging his father, continuing the bloodshed until peace is ultimately found in the rule of law.Zinnie Harris reimagines this ancient drama, using a contemporary sensibility to rework the stories, placing the women in the centre. Orestes' leading role is replaced by his sister Electra, who as a young child witnesses her father's murder and is compelled to take justice into her own hands until she too must flee the Furies. This Restless House premiered at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, in April 2016 in a co-production with the National Theatre of Scotland.
This Will End Badly (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Rob HayesYou can’t even shit. Animals shit. Dogs. Insects. Microbes. You’re being outskilled by the most primitive lifeforms on Earth. Repressed rage. Entrenched isolation. Compacted bowels. Rob Hayes’ trio of interwoven monologues offers a funny, disturbing, and brutally honest assault on the illusion of modern masculinity.
Thom Pain: (based On Nothing) (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Will EnoFrom the last lonely wilderness, the last dark corner of these overlit times, in the camouflage of the common man, Thom Pain takes the stage, fumbling with his heart, squinting into the light. With terrible timing and impeccable regret, over-educated in the wrong ways, and wounded in the right ones, he appears. Teeth bared, as he picks a piece of lint off his suit.Listen to the language writhe, as he tries to say hello. Meet Thom Pain. A man who has only had, by his own reckless reckoning, three or four things happen to him in life. A man who is, by his own admittedly uninformed admission, a man much like a man or woman like you.Thom Pain opened at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2004, with a transfer to the Soho Theatre later that year.
Thomas Eccleshare: I'm Not Here Right Now; Heather; Instructions for Correct Assembly (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Thomas EccleshareCollected together for the first time are four works by young British playwright Thomas Eccleshare, whose plays have been performed to national and international acclaim over the past decade. Plays One includes Pastoral (winner of the Verity Bargate Award, 2011), I'm Not Here Right Now, Heather, as well as Instructions for Correct Assembly, Eccleshare's most recent play, which premiered downstairs at the Royal Court in 2018. Exploring themes including parenthood, the power of stories, and the meaning of truth in the modern world, this collection presents one of the bright new writing talents in UK theatre.
Thomas Hamblin and the Bowery Theatre: The New York Reign of "Blood and Thunder” Melodramas
by Thomas A. BogarThis book recounts the personal and professional life of Thomas Souness Hamblin (1800-1853), Shakespearean actor and Bowery Theatre manager. Primarily responsible for the popularity of “blood and thunder” melodramas with working class audiences in New York City, Hamblin discovered, trained and promoted many young actors and, especially, actresses who later became famous in their own right. He also epitomized the “sporting man” of mid-nineteenth century life, conducting a scandalous series of affairs and visits to Manhattan brothels, which cost him his marriage to Elizabeth Blanchard Hamblin (1799-1849) and made him the brunt of moralist, religious and journalistic crusades, notably that of James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald. His machinations and perseverance through trying challenges, including several destructions of the Bowery Theatre by fire, extensive financial and legal complications, and the untimely deaths of several young protégées, earned him equal measures of admiration and opprobrium.
Thomas Hamblin and the Bowery Theatre: The New York Reign of "Blood and Thunder” Melodramas
by Thomas A. BogarThis book recounts the personal and professional life of Thomas Souness Hamblin (1800-1853), Shakespearean actor and Bowery Theatre manager. Primarily responsible for the popularity of “blood and thunder” melodramas with working class audiences in New York City, Hamblin discovered, trained and promoted many young actors and, especially, actresses who later became famous in their own right. He also epitomized the “sporting man” of mid-nineteenth century life, conducting a scandalous series of affairs and visits to Manhattan brothels, which cost him his marriage to Elizabeth Blanchard Hamblin (1799-1849) and made him the brunt of moralist, religious and journalistic crusades, notably that of James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald. His machinations and perseverance through trying challenges, including several destructions of the Bowery Theatre by fire, extensive financial and legal complications, and the untimely deaths of several young protégées, earned him equal measures of admiration and opprobrium.