Goethe’s classical verse play Tasso (1790) examines, in his own words, ‘the disproportion of talent to life’ and the predicament of the artist at odds with the world around him. In Clavigo (1774), a play which Goethe claimed only took him a week to write, we find the first of the double-portraits which culminates in two souls wrestling for dominion in the breast of Faust. Both these translations were premiered at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow.
These two tragedies, written at the peak of Schiller’s career as a dramatist, contain his most telling, and touching, portrayals of women. His heroines are propelled, by birth or a sense of divine mission, into exalted political positions, where their qualities as human beings, and particularly as women, are put to the severest tests, from which they emerge triumphant, but doomed. Schiller’s breadth of sentiment, combined with his consummate stagecraft, and Shakespearean mastery of verse and nobility of language, ensure his position as Germany’s greatest dramatist, and these translations, prepared for, and performed by Glasgow’s famous Citizens Company, should go far to ensure his long overdue acceptance in Britain as a master of the European Theatre.
The Robbers (1781) was written in great secrecy under the prison-like conditions of Wurttenberg's Karlsschule: Karl, the son of a count, is disinherited through the machinations of his brother Franz, and, turning his back on a social order he finds unjust and corrupt, becomes the leader of a band of robbers.
Premiered in this translation by the Citizens Theatre Company, Glasgow. In Enrico Four a man believes he is Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor. But is he? Pirandello’s study of perceptions has become a twentieth century classic which invites us to consider our personal madness in offering a different face to everyone we meet.
Robert David MacDonald’s majestic version of Ibsen’s poem-drama about the triumph of will over compromise. Brand, a fiery priest-hero, urges his flock to sacrifice their lives to save their souls.
The treacherous Uriah Heep, the jovial nurse Peggotty, the adorably dim-witted Dora, the improvident Mr Micawber and the egotistic and charming Steerforth come to life in this new adaptation of Dickens’ classic. From seaside Yarmouth to London and beyond, as plots and counterplots effortlessly interweave into one intricate, grand design, David Copperfield captures the brightness, magic and terror of the world as seen through the eyes of a child: his bafflement turning to self-awareness and his young heart growing ever more disciplined and true.
Ivanov, a driving force in local government and a visionary landowner, feels burnt out at thirty-fi ve. Once the pioneer of scientifi c farming methods and of education for the peasants, he now drowns in bureaucracy and debt, his large estate neglected. While his wife is dying, Sasha, a young, educated woman, falls in love with Ivanov and determines to save him. Set in a country suffering from political, ideological and spiritual stagnation, Chekhov’s fi rst full-length play anticipates the explosive revolutionary atmosphere of Russia at the turn of the century.
Jim Wormold, an under-employed vacuum cleaner salesman living in 1950s Cuba, is struggling to pay for his teenage daughter’s increasingly extravagant lifestyle. So when the British Secret Service asks him to become their ‘man in Havana’ he can’t afford to say no. There’s just one problem…he doesn’t know anything! To avoid suspicion, he begins to recruit nonexistent sub-agents, concocting a series of intricate fictions. But Wormold soon discovers that his stories are closer to the truth than he could have ever imagined… In Clive Francis’ adaptation, Graham Greene’s classic satirical novel becomes a wonderfully funny and fast-moving romp.
A psychiatrist waits in State House, Harare, for his first encounter with a most unusual patient. Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe, is in crisis, and Andrew Peric must discover the root of his anxiety. But can Mugabe be treated like any other patient? Witty and provocative, Fraser Grace’s play imagines the combative relationship between the black president and his white psychiatrist. In a series of bruising encounters, Breakfast with Mugabe explores the conflict between African and European values, and between despotism and liberalism in modern Zimbabwe.
‘Oh, it’s a funny sensation, having money in your pocket, I can tell you… Money warms you. If you knew how warm and safe I feel. Like a new creature in a new skin.’ Tille is the poor gravedigger’s daughter, with nothing in the world except a head full of dreams. Things look set to stay that way, until the day her brother returns from the graveyard with a pile of gold coins, and Tille is faced with a choice. She can hand in the money and go back to a life of drudgery, or she can use it to turn the world upside down. As the village community disintegrates into chaos and descends on the cemetery in search of gold, Tille and her family must use all their wits to stay one step ahead of those who want their share of the treasure. A timeless fable that digs down into the depths of our folly and greed and, in the midst of the chaos, celebrates one woman’s ingenuity.