Reissuing 15 works originally published between 1934 and 1991, this diverse set offers an outstanding collection of scholarship devoted to Renaissance Drama. Routledge Library Editions: Renaissance Drama provides an extensive study of performance history and criticism of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre, as well as volumes dedicated to the playwrights Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. These volumes present together a lively picture of the development of British theatre and will be of interest to students of literature, drama and performance.

This volume offers a current reading of the Italian writer, Pirandello. The author examines the representation of gender relations in Pirandello's writing in the light of recent developments in textual analysis. She reassesses Pirandello's status as an innovative, avant-garde writer, arguing that whilst on the level of dramatic form he is certainly avant-garde, he is not so on the more covert level of gender relations. The author uses contemporary feminist theory to show how textual analysis can expose the covert reinforcement of patriarchal values. The study provides an illustration of a variety of methods which could be applied to texts other than those of Pirandello's.

Writing Catholic Women examines the interplay of gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, and sexuality through the lens of Catholicism in a wide range of works by women writers, forging interdisciplinary connections among women's studies, religion, and late twentieth-century literature. Discussing a diverse group of authors, Jeana DelRosso posits that the girlhood narratives of such writers constitute highly charged sites of their differing gestures toward Catholicism and argues that an understanding of the ways in which women write about religion from different cultural and racial contexts offers a crucial contribution to current discussions in gender, ethnic, and cultural studies.

This collection of multi-authored essays not only refashions and revises critical understandings of the early modern dramatist Ben Jonson and his canon of work, but is also self-reflexive about the process. It includes original essays by both established and emergent Jonson scholars, and employs materialist, feminist and queer theory in the production of its readings of Jonsonian playtexts and masques, familiar and otherwise. It is intended to encourage new approaches by students to this central figure from the Renaissance.

'One drink. And if you never want to see me again you never have to see me again.' A quantum physicist and a beekeeper meet. They hit it off, or perhaps they don't. They might go home together, they might not. Constellations explores love, free will, and friendship through quantum multiverse theory and honey. Constellations premiered at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, London, in 2012, and transferred to the Duke of York's. It opened on Broadway in 2015; and at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, in 2021. 'Nick Payne's gorgeous two-character drama, may be the most sophisticated date play Broadway has seen.' New York Times

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.

MASTER. Boatswain! BOATSWAIN. Here, master; what cheer? MASTER. Good! Speak to th' mariners; fall to't yarely, or we run ourselves aground; bestir, bestir. BOATSWAIN. Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to th' master's whistle. Blow till thou burst thy wind, if room enough.

During the years 1880 to 1945, American theatre grew up, moving from entertainment-driven motives and melodramatic formulas to serious confrontations with issues of its time and to an experimentation with forms that would allow those confrontations to be frank and earnest. Many of the playwrights of this time wrote works of lasting significance, while others have impacted the work of contemporary dramatists. This reference is a guide to American theatre during this formative period.

The volume includes alphabetically arranged entries for 40 American playwrights active between 1880 and 1945. Included are the most frequently canonized figures, as well as previously neglected women and minority playwrights whose work is a vital part of American theatre history. Each entry includes a biographical overview, a summary of the critical reception of major productions and significant revivals, a critical assessment of the playwright's career, and a listing of archival, primary, and secondary bibliographic material.

In New Labour's empathetic regime, how did diverse voices scrutinize its etiquettes of articulation and audibility? Using the voice as cultural evidence, Voice and New Writing explores what it means to 'have' a voice in mainstream theatre and for newly included voices to negotiate with the institutions that 'find' and 'represent' their identities.

"Alice Birch's new play is scored like a piece of music ... It is an extraordinary echoing text, full of pain and strange beauty. The three stories play out simultaneously on stage, the dialogue from one scene overlapping with the other two in a manner that borders on the choral ... Birch has provided a text that explores these ideas in a formally invigorating way." The Stage Three generations of women. For each, the chaos of what has come before brings with it a painful legacy. A powerful, unflinching look at a family afflicted with severe depression and mental illness. Presented as a triptych of plays performed side by side, this groundbreaking play reverberates with audiences and readers. Published for the first time in Methuen Drama's Modern Classics series, this edition features a brand new introduction by Ava Davies.

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.

Many readers today associate the early modern history play with Shakespeare. While not wishing to ignore the influence of Shakespeare, this collection of essays explores other historical drama between 1500 and 1660, covering a wide range of different formats outside the canon of 1590s history cycles. An introduction provides a survey of current criticism, including both early modern and contemporary definitions of the 'history play'. Individual essays in chronological order explore genres that perform 'history' in different ways, such as shows, moralities or closet drama. In this way this collection establishes alternative paradigms of early modern historical drama.

This is a critical study of Friel's entire oeuvre, relating his work to the problems of subjectivity, representation, history and the body, with a view to offering some placement of Friel in relation to both postmodernism and traditional humanism. Central to the study is Friel's concept of "translation", whereby he offers us the tension of shaping the new through a "translation" or reformulation of the old. The book includes discussion of Friel's play "Wonderful Tennessee".

In studying performances of marriage in modern and contemporary British and American drama, Clum highlights the fact that - paradoxically - at a time when theatre was both popular entertainment and high culture, many of the most commercially and artistically successful plays about marriage were written by homosexual men. Beginning with Oscar Wilde and focusing on some of the most successful British and American playwrights of the past century, including Somerset Maugham, Noel Coward, Terence Rattigan, and Emlyn Williams in England and Clyde Fitch, George Kelly, Tennessee Williams, William Inge, and Edward Albee in the US, The Drama of Marriagelooks at how the plays they wrote about heterosexual marriage continue to impact contemporary gay playwrights and the depiction of marriage today.

Musical / 5f / Unit set Winner of four Outer Critics Circle Awards including Best Off Broadway Musical in its original New York production, this hilarious international hit was revived in New York with a male cast Nunsense A Men!. The show is a fund raiser put on by the Little Sisters of Hoboken to raise money to bury sisters accidently poisoned by the convent cook, Sister Julia (Child of God). Up dated with new jokes, additional lyrics, two new arrangements and a brand new song, this zany musical has been videotaped for television starring Rue McClanahan as the Mother Superior. "A hail of fun and frolic! Wacky and outrageous with a hysterical anything goes sense of fun!" N.Y. Times. "You don't have to be Catholic to love Nunsense!" Entertainment Tonight. "Inspired madness! Go see it!" Jewish Post and Opinion. "Guaranteed to lift your spirits...Very, very funny." National Catholic News.

Eugene O'Neill, one of America's most gifted and prolific playwrights, wrote more than 60 plays between 1914 and 1941, a level of creativity paralleled in modern times only by Bernard Shaw. The progress of his art from crude, one-act plays to the monumental tragedies of his later years is a story as dramatic and compelling as that of his tortured personal history. Combining the two, Professor Bogard traces the contours of O'Neill's life in his art. By discussing, in their approximate order of composition, the published and unpublished works, Bogard illuminates not only the plays, but also the literary, aesthetic, and historical influences on the playwright's development. For the revised edition of this insightful, meticulously written work, the author has added new and unpublished material on A Tale of Possessors, Self-dispossessed, a cycle of nine plays written by O'Neill during the 1930s and '40s, only one of which he readied for the stage. Among the plays in this cycle that have been posthumously produced are More Stately Mansions (New York, 1967) and A Touch of the Poet (New York, 1958).

This study examines the historical relationship between tragicomedy in the modernist theatre and the performative culture of Western consumer societies. While discussing a wide range of playwrights, it focusses specifically on the work of Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and Sam Shepard. Their plays, it is argued, illuminate the forms of pleasure, fear, performance and corruption which dominate our daily lives. Tragicomedy is seen as unique because of the existential playfulness and confusion of its protagonists, and because of its muted vision of apocalypse in the nuclear age.

SLY. I'll pheeze you, in faith. HOSTESS. A pair of stocks, you rogue SLY. Y'are a baggage; the Slys are no rogues. Look in the chronicles: we came in with Richard Conqueror. Therefore, paucas pallabris; let the world slide. Sessa HOSTESS. You will not pay for the glasses you have burst? SLY. No, not a denier. Go by, Saint Jeronimy, go to thy cold bed and warm thee.

The book considers the London theatrical culture which took shape in the 1570s and came to an end in 1642.
Places emphasis on those plays that are readily available in modern editions and can sometimes to be seen in modern productions, including Shakespeare.
Provides students with the historical, literary and theatrical contexts they need to make sense of Renaissance drama.
Includes a series of short biographies of playwrights during this period.
Features close analyses of more than 20 plays, each of which draws attention to what makes a particular play interesting and identifies relevant critical questions.
Examines early modern drama in terms of its characteristic actions, such as cuckolding, flattering, swaggering, going mad, and rising from the dead.

Peter Shaffer: Theatre and Drama is an accessible, informed survey of Peter Shaffer's work to date. Covering much ground, the book brings a fresh and original approach to this playwright's drama, incorporating discussion of every play in his canon. Suitable for readers ranging from 'A' level to undergraduate and postgraduate levels, this book introduces a variety of debates and interpretations to students, incorporating material that has not been published before. An engaging and authoritative contribution to the field.

This book constitutes a new direction for feminist studies in English Renaissance drama. While feminist scholars have long celebrated heroic females in comedies, many have overlooked female tragic heroism, reading it instead as evidence of pervasive misogyny on the part of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Displacing prevailing arguments of "victim feminism," the contributors to this volume engage a wide range of feminist theories, and argue that female protagonists in tragedies--Jocasta, Juliet, Cleopatra, Mariam, Webster’s Duchess and White Devil, among others--are heroic in precisely the same ways as their more notorious masculine counterparts.

This volume comprises ten essays challenging the dominant account of Samuel Beckett's engagement with history. As the first full-length volume to address the historical debate in Beckett studies, "Samuel Beckett: " "History, Memory, Archive" provides both ground-breaking analysis of the major works as well as a sustained interrogation of the critical assumptions that underpin Beckett studies more generally. Drawing on a range of archival materials, and situating Beckett in historical context, these essays pose a strong challenge to the prevailing critical consensus that he was a deracinated modernist who cannot be read historically.

"The silence of Barbara Synge" provides a fascinating companion volume to Bill McCormack's acclaimed "Fool of the Family" (2000), a biography of the playwright J.M. Synge (1871--1909).

Taking the alledged death of Mrs John Hatch (née Synge) in 1767 as a focal point, this book explores the varied strands of the Synge family tree in eighteenth and nineteenth century Ireland.

Key events in the family's history are carefully documented, including a suicide in 1769 which is echoed in an early Synge play, the effects of the famine which influenced The "Playboy of the Western World" in 1907, and the behavior of Francis Synge at the time of the union.

"The Silence of Barbara Synge" is a unique work of cultural enquiry, combining archival research, literary criticism, and religious and medical history to pull the strands together and relate them to the family's literary descendent J.M. Synge.

Featuring original essays by leading scholars in the field, this bookexplores the immense legacy of women playwrights in Irish theatre since the beginning of the twentieth century. Chapters consider the intersecting contexts of gender, sexuality and the body in order to investigate the broader cultural, political and historical implications of representing 'woman' on the stage.In addition, a number of essays will engage with representations of women by a selection of male playwrights in order to re-evaluate familiar contexts and traditions in Irish drama. It features a foreword by Marina Carr and a useful appendix of Irish women playwrights and their works.