Shakespeare everyone can understand--now in this new EXPANDED edition of HAMLET! Why fear Shakespeare? By placing the words of the original play next to line-by-line translations in plain English, this popular guide makes Shakespeare accessible to everyone. And now it features expanded literature guide sections that help students study smarter. The expanded sections include: Five Key Questions: Five frequently asked questions about major moments and characters in the play. What Does the Ending Mean?: Is the ending sad, celebratory, ironic . . . or ambivalent? Plot Analysis: What is the play about? How is the story told, and what are the main themes? Why do the characters behave as they do? Study Questions: Questions that guide students as they study for a test or write a paper. Quotes by Theme: Quotes organized by Shakespeare's main themes, such as love, death, tyranny, honor, and fate. Quotes by Character: Quotes organized by the play's main characters, along with interpretations of their meaning.

What happens when two sets of parent's meet up to deal with the unruly behaviour of their children? A calm and rational debate between grown-ups about the need to teach kids how to behave properly? Or a hysterical night of name-calling, tantrums and tears before bedtime? Boys will be boys, but the adults are usually worse - much worse. God of Carnage won the Olivier Award for Best Comedy and the Tony award for Best Play.

A major new edition of Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy,an outstanding landmark of Elizabethan drama. In its time, it quickly became a box office success and probably inspired Shakespeare to write Hamlet, as it contains a ghost, murders that demand revenge and a hero that hesitates and contemplates suicide. As a revenge tragedy, it set up the salient features of a dramatic genre that would last decades. Its hero, the aged Marshall of Spain Hieronimo, whose son is murdered at night, soon transcended the play and became the standard stage representation of grief, rhetorical passion and madness. Hieronimo's main antagonist is one of the first Machiavellian characters of English drama. This edition explores the play in relation to its historical context and contemporary Iberian dynastic policy. It also relates the play, as a literary artefact, to other artistic manifestations of the European Renaissance and offers a fresh assessment of the play's stage history. For the first time in the play's textual history, this edition presents an integrated text inviting a reading of the play as it was published both in 1592 and in 1602.

This trio of plays explores the use of drama as a support in healing, training, and entertaining all. Using the healing and accessible art of theater, timely interests-addiction, HIV, mental illness, racial injustice, sexual harassment, and more-are brought to life in a trio of contemporary scripts. In the title play, The Stakes, an idealistic African American social worker-the target of workplace racism, sexual harassment, and political machinations-is encouraged by a coworker who shares with her his enthusiasm for African proverbs. A young woman strives to overcome her dual afflictions of mental illness and substance dependence in Abiona. With the help of health-care professionals, plus her own insights related to her African heritage, she learns to find hope again. In an addiction-recovery center, one man struggles in his quest for sobriety. He finds solace in learning that the origins of the group's holiday celebration can be found in African traditions. GumBO won the 2000 Script Writing Award given by the Gwendolyn Brooks Center of Chicago.

FOLGER Shakespeare Library: the world's leading center for Shakespeare studies.

Each edition includes:
- Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
- Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play
- Scene-by-scene plot summaries
- A key to famous lines and phrases
- An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language
- An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
- Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare

Fortune's Fool Here is William Shakespeare's brilliant play the Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, set in Verona during a feud between the Capulets and the Montagues. Romeo, a Montague, falls desperately in love with Juliet, a Capulet, and the two secretly marry. Lyrical and poignant, this immortal play of star-crossed lovers will stay with you long after the play ends. 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy. Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is widely considered Shakespeare's greatest play. Hamlet is confronted by the ghost of his father, who tells him that Hamlet's uncle and mother conspired to poison him. Knowing that his uncle, who now sits upon the throne, and his mother, who has married his uncle and is now his queen, have murdered his father, Hamlet sets out to avenge his father's death and set things to right. But his plan could destroy the entire realm. To be, or not to be-that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them. To die-to sleep- No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry is a Jacobean closet drama by Elizabeth Tanfield Cary. First published in 1613, it was the first work by a woman to be published under her real name. Never performed during Cary's lifetime, and apparently never intended for performance, the Senecan revenge tragedy tells the story of Mariam, the second wife of Herod. The play exposes and explores the themes of sex, divorce, betrayal, murder, and Jewish society under Herod's tyrannous rule. The comprehensive, illustrated introduction discusses the play in the context of closet drama, female dramatists and in terms of the religious issues it explores, seeing Mariam as a martyr figure. The on-page commentary notes provide further close analysis and explanation, creating an ideal edition for study and teaching.

Regarded by many critics as Britain's best sitcom, Porridge is set to become even more popular following the sad death of Ronnie Barker in October 2005. His portrayal of Fletch, the experienced, cynical old lag, won the nation's heart when the series first hit our screens in 1973. This complete companion is the only book to tell the behind-the-scenes story of how the series came to be made and is packed full of never-before-published photographs and interviews with the cast and crew. It is also the only book to bring together the original scripts from all three series, making this the essential souvenir for all the millions of Porridge fans.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

Published alongside The Japan Foundation, this collection features five creative and bold plays by some of Japan's most prolific writers of contemporary theatre. Translated into English for the first time, these texts explore a wide range of themes from dystopian ideas of the future to touching domestic tragedies. Brought together in one volume, introduced by the authors and The Japan Foundation, this collection offers English language readers an unprecedented look at some of Japan's finest works of contemporary drama by writers from across the country. The plays include: The Bacchae-Holstein Milk Cows by Satoko Ichihara (Translated by Aya Ogawa) This play takes themes of the ancient Greek tragedy Bacchae by Euripides to examine various aspects of contemporary society, from love and sex, man and woman, intermixture of different species, discrimination and abuse, to artificial insemination, criticism of anthropocentricism and more. It was the winner of the 64th Kishida Drama Award. One Night by Yuko Kuwabara (Translated by Mari Boyd) The setting is a small taxi company run out of the home of its owner in a country town. One night the mother, Koharu Inamura, decides to leave the home in order to protect her children from her husband's domestic violence, promising them that she will come back in 15 years. The play depicts the family's reunion after having to live with the burden of that one night's (hitoyo) incident and how they restarted their lives after it. Isn't Anyone Alive? by Shiro Maeda (Translated by Miwa Monden) This laid back, absurdist work examines death through a goofy lens. In the play, strange urban legends abound in a university hospital where young people die one after another, all with mobile phones in their hands. The Sun by Tomohiro Maekawa (Translated by Nozomi Abe) Depicts young people torn apart in a near future setting where humanity has split into two forms: Nox humans who can only go out at night, and Curios, the original type of humans that can live under the sun. Carcass by Takuya Yokoyama (Translated by Mari Boyd) This play takes its name from the Japanese word for dressed carcasses of beef and pork that have been halved along the backbone for meat . It deals with the dignity of being alive as seen through the lives of workers in the meat industry based on interviews and research. It won the Japan Playwrights Association's 15th New Playwright Award in 2009.