Зарубежная драматургия
Различные книги в жанре Зарубежная драматургияThe Green Helmet
William Butler Yeats was born near Dublin in 1865, and was encouraged from a young age to pursue a life in the arts. He attended art school for a short while, but soon found that his talents and interest lay in poetry rather than painting. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, Yeats produced a vast collection of stories, songs, and poetry of Ireland's historical and legendary past. These writings helped secure the writer recognition as a leading proponent of Irish nationalism and Irish cultural independence. Yeats produced a series of plays based on the legendary Irish hero Cuchulain, a tale that dates from the ninth or tenth century. «The Green Helmet» describes Cuchulain's return from battle, when he discovers that a friend has become indebted to the Red man for a very unusual item, a head. Written in the Noh tradition, this dramatic play marks a period of significant literary and political change for Yeats.
Tis Pity She's a Whore and Other Plays
John Ford (1586-1637) was an English playwright and poet whose interest in aberrant psychology helped him create very unique, and very successful works. After a period of major collaboration with various playwrights, from about 1621 to 1625, Ford began working independently; writing plays for theatrical companies like the King's Men at the Blackfriars. Following the literary reign of such figures as Jonson, Marlowe and Shakespeare, Ford felt the need to shock and intrigue audiences with new and exciting material. This edition features four of Ford's most notable plays: «'Tis Pity She's a Whore,» which tells of the incestuous love between Giovanni and his sister Annabella; «The Lover's Melancholy,» a quiet tragicomedy exploring the human psyche; «The Broken Heart,» the borderline incestuous story of a brother and sister, tied with themes of jealousy, murder and revenge; and «The Chronicle History of Perkin Warbeck,» about the conflicts among Warbeck, Henry VII, and James IV of Scotland, and which T. S. Eliot named «unquestionably Ford's highest achievement.»
Dear Brutus
Sir James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937), best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan, was a Scottish author and dramatist whose works have enjoyed frequent revivals in film and on stage. The 1917 production of his play, «Dear Brutus», was one in a long string of successes for Barrie. The play, set in the manor of a mysterious man called Lob, takes a group of ordinary men and women and asks the question: What might happen to a person given the opportunity to remake their life? The guests are whisked into a dream-like world where they are shown what their lives «might have been.» Throughout the play, Barrie imparts to his audience deep and intriguing insight into human nature. He makes not only his characters, but his audience, question the role of fate versus the inherent nature of the individual, and the true responsibility we take in the path of our own lives.
The School for Scandal and The Rivals
Combined in this volume are two of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's most loved works, «The School for Scandal» and «The Rivals». «The School for Scandal» is Richard Brinsley Sheridan's classic comedy that pokes fun at London upper class society in the late 1700s. Often referred to as a «comedy of manners», «The School for Scandal» is one Sheridan's most performed plays and a classic of English comedic drama. «The Rivals» was Richard Brinsley Sheridan's first play and while at first it was not well received it would go on to prove to be a great success and establish Sheridan as a major talent. «The Rivals» satirizes the pretentiousness of English society in the late 18th century. As witty and accessible today as when it was first written, «The Rivals» sparkles with the humor that Sheridan and his writing are known for. Together these works make a great introduction to the works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
At the Hawk's Well
Born and educated in Dublin, Ireland, William Butler Yeats discovered early in his literary career a fascination with Irish folklore and the occult. He was a complex man, who struggled between beliefs in the strange and supernatural, and scorn for modern science. He was intrigued by the idea of mysticism, yet had little regard for Christianity. His close friend, Ezra Pound, exposed Yeats to the symbolic theatre genre of Japanese Noh drama, prompting him to write «At the Hawk's Well» in 1916. The play, based on the Cuchulain legends of Irish mythology, uses Japanese-style masks and very simple sets to achieve an abstract, stylized form. The story is set by a dried up well on a barren mountainside, guarded constantly by a hawk-woman, and watched diligently by an old man who has waited fifty years to drink from its miraculous waters and the young Cuchulain who fails to heed the old man's warnings.
Pygmalion
"Pygmalion" is considered to be one of George Bernard Shaw's greatest works. It is the story of how the arrogant phonetics professor Henry Higgins teaches the lowly flower girl Eliza Doolittle to lose her cockney accent and speak like a lady. «Pygmalion» is a witty comedic play that examines the artificiality of social class distinctions and shows that it takes more than just talking like a lady to become one.
Every Man Out of His Humour
Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637) was a Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. He worked shortly as an actor in «The Admiral's Men», but soon moved on to writing original plays for the troupe. Jonson's works are highly significant to the English Renaissance, and are particularly recognizable because of his consistencies in style, intricacy of plot, characterization and setting. He focused on creating works that implemented elements of the realistic as well as the absurd. «Every Man Out of His Humour» is the companion play to the highly successful «Every Man in His Humour,» which was produced by and starred William Shakespeare. This comedy of humors, much like its prequel, is a satire of English society. Jonson's complex and witty characters are a scathing representation of the flaws he saw in education, love, poetry, and social classes around him.
Caesar and Cleopatra
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is revered as one of the great British dramatists, credited not only with memorable works, but the revival of the then-suffering English theatre. Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, left mostly to his own devices after his mother ran off to London to pursue a musical career. He educated himself for the most part, and eventually worked for a real estate agent. This experience founded in him a concern for social injustices, seeing poverty and general unfairness afoot, and would go on to address this in many of his works. In 1876, Shaw joined his mother in London where he would finally attain literary success. Shaw wrote «Caesar and Cleopatra» in 1898. The play deals with the conflict of love and power, and the value of both, demonstrated in the relationship between Caesar and Cleopatra. «Caesar and Cleopatra» also deals with the idea that advances in technology have not furthered society as a whole; that we are just as we were in generations past.
Love's Comedy
Henrik Ibsen's «Love's Comedy» is the story of two students, Falk and Lind, who go to stay at the country house of Mrs. Halm. Lind is interested in being a missionary while Falk's interests lie in poetry. While at the house of Mrs. Halm the two become romantically involved with her two daughters, Anna and Svanhild. Written in 1862, «Love's Comedy» is described as one of Ibsen's most poignant love stories.
The Devil's Disciple
George Bernard Shaw's play «The Devil's Disciple» is the story of Richard Dudgeon. Set during the Revolutionary War, Richard is considered by his friends and family be the «Devil's disciple» because of his rebellious personality and unfaithfulness to religion. However, when British Soldiers visit the home of the town's minister, Anthony Anderson, with the intentions of arresting Anderson, Mr. Dudgeon's true colors are shown. In a heroic moment Mr. Dudgeon allows the soldiers to arrest him, having mistaken him for Anderson, although it may mean the death of him.