Aeschylus' Oresteia, Sophocles' Oedipus plays, Euripides' Medea and Bacchae, and Aristophanes' Birds and Lysistrata are discussed in this lively and scholarly volume. The author's experience teaching these plays to gifted high school students makes this volume particularly useful. The drama festivals, the adaptations of myth, the relevance of Aristotelian criteria, and the political and cultural background of each play are described fully, and the nature of tragedy and comedy, plot construction, stagecraft, theme, character, imagery and individual odes and speeches are analyzed in depth. The 5th century BC witnessed the flourishing of Athenian culture and was one of the most influential periods in history. The achievements of the Greeks at that time forever shaped our political and legal institutions and provided the foundation for Western civilization. At the same time, the world of the Greeks is distant and exotic to contemporary students. The values and beliefs of the Greeks are best represented in the plays that were crafted at that time, and these works continue to be widely read and studied. This book is a valuable introduction to ancient Greek drama. Designed for high school students, undergraduates, and their teachers, this work describes the origins and physical aspects of ancient Greek theatre, discusses Aristotle's Poetics, and analyzes, in ten separate chapters, ten frequently studied Greek plays: Aeschylus' Oresteia, Sophocles' Antigone, Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus, Euripides' Medea and Bacchae and Aristophanes' Birds and Lysistrata. For each there is cultural, political and mythological background, plot synopsis, and analysis of overall structure and importantscenes, speeches and odes. The Aristophanes chapters explore comic method and all chapters discuss theme and stagecraft in depth.

In Modern and Contemporary Political Theater from the Levant, A Critical Anthology, Robert Myers and Nada Saab provide a sense of the variety and complexity of political theater produced in and around the Levant from the 1960s to the present within a context of wider discussions about political theater and the histories and forms of performance from the Islamic and Arab worlds. Five major playwrights are studied, 'Isam Mahfuz, from Lebanon; Muhammad al-Maghut and Sa'd Allah Wannus, from Syria; Jawad al-Asadi, from Iraq, Syria and Lebanon; and Ra'ida Taha, from Palestine. The volume includes translations of their plays The Dictator, The Jester, The Rape, Baghdadi Bath and Where Would I Find Someone Like You, 'Ali?, respectively.

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - BERNARDO. Who's there.? FRANCISCO. Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself. BERNARDO. Long live the King FRANCISCO. Bernardo? BERNARDO. He. FRANCISCO. You come most carefully upon your hour. BERNARDO. 'Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.

This study explores the relationship between humans and machines during an age when technology became increasingly domesticated and accepted as an index to the American dream. The marriage between dramatic art and dramatic technology stems from the physical realities of staging and from the intimate connection of technology with human labor inside and outside the household. This book examines how American dramatists of the 1920s drew upon European Expressionism and innovative staging techniques to develop their characters and themes, and how later playwrights, such as Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, established the American dramatic canon when technology had become a conventional and integral component of domestic life.

"Technology in American Drama, 1920-1950," explores the relationship between humans and machines during an age when technology became increasingly domesticated and accepted as an index to the American dream. The marriage between dramatic art and dramatic technology stems from both the physical realities of staging and the intimate connection of technology with human labor inside and outside the household. Technology shapes and defines the values of the soul, individually and collectively, in addition to producing the external environment in which people live. This book studies how playwrights of the era reflected the changing role of technology in American society.

Drawing on the experiments of European Expressionism, American dramatists of the 1920s found new techniques for developing character and theme, along with innovative staging devices, such as the threatening machines in Elmer Rice's "The Adding Machine," Sophie Treadwell's "Machinal," and Eugene O'Neill's "Dynamo." By the time Thornton Wilder, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller established the canon of American drama, technology was no longer an impersonal force to be resisted, but a conventional and integral component of domestic life. In examining these dramatists and their works, this book provides an insightful analysis of a largely neglected topic.

A radical re-examination of Oscar Wilde's plays, Revising Wilde challenges long-established views of the writer as a dilettante and dandy, revealing him as a serious philosopher and social critic who used his plays to subvert traditional values. Sos Eltis examines early drafts of the major plays (Lady Windermere's Fan; A Woman of No Importance; An Ideal Husband; and The Importance of Being Earnest) as well as the little-known Vera; or, The Nihilists, to demonstrate that Wilde was in fact an anarchist, a socialist, and a feminist.

Comparatively little is known about Shakespeare's first audiences. This study argues that the Elizabethan audience is an essential part of Shakespeare as a site of cultural meaning, and that the way criticism thinks of early modern theatregoers is directly related to the way it thinks of, and uses, the Bard himself.

Applause BooksThe acclaimed stage director and theatre critic Charles Marowitz in tandem with Jan Kott, one of the most penetrating and incisive Shakespearean scholars to emerge in the 20th Century, probe the mysteries of some of the more problematic plays in Shakespeare's canon. The innovative director and dazzling classicist bring two complementary viewpoints to bear as they delve into the collected works, illuminating the constantly changing nature and philosophic nuances of the various plays.The book's centerpiece consists of Kott and Marowitz's insights on such plays as Othello, Romeo & Juliet, Troilus & Cressida and Measure for Measure. They reveal the ideas behind Shakespeare's plays and the process of making them come alive before and audience and present frank, no-holds barred discussions on such subjects as The Shakespeare Industry, The Boundaries of Interpretation, Dramaturgy and Mise-en-scene.

Shakespeare and the Embodied Heroine is a bold new investigation of Shakespeare's female characters using the late plays and the early adaptations written and staged during the seventeenth and eighteenth century.

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.

When identical twins wash upon the shore of Ilyria confusion, mistaken identities and misplaced infatuations are sure to follow in this delightful comedy. The shipwrecked twins Viola and Sebastian, each believing the other dead, make their separate ways to the court of Duke Orsinio. Viola protects herself by disguising herself as a boy, Cesario, and enters the Duke's services. He pines for Lady Olivia, but she becomes smitten with the messenger, the disguised Viola, who has herself developed stirrings for the Duke. Add in another suitor, a scheming uncle and the arrival of Sebastian and the hilarious confusion reaches its climax. A wonderful play that is one of Shakespeare's most popular and performed comedies.

Perhaps more than any other single work, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar has popularized the image of Brutus as a ruthless and cowardly traitor, Caesar as a noble ruler and sympathetic victim, and the Ides of March as a time of danger and duplicity. On the surface, the play is comparatively simple and straightforward, and thus it has served to introduce generations of students to Shakespeare's works. But the play is deceptive in its apparent simplicity. While Brutus joins the conspirators in assassinating Caesar, his possibly selfless motives may make him the noblest Roman of them all. And while Caesar emerges as a beneficent leader in Antony's funeral oration, other traditions with which Shakespeare's audience would have been familiar paint him as a tyrannical despot. The play, then, is laden with ambiguity, and it raises more questions about human nature than it answers about Roman history. And while some scholars have criticized the play's language for being relatively unpoetic and inferior to some of Shakespeare's later tragedies, Julius Caesar has given us some of the most memorable passages in English literature. This addition to the "Greenwood Guides to Shakespeare" series offers a comprehensive overview of Julius Caesar and the issues central to an understanding and appreciation of the tragedy. Written at a level accessible to readers of all backgrounds, from secondary school students to scholars, the volume gives full attention to textual, contextual, dramatic, thematic, critical, and performance aspects of the play. The book begins with a look at the history of the text and a consideration of some modern editions. It then examines the historical and cultural contexts ofShakespeare's England and shows how they shaped his work. The book discusses Shakespeare's likely sources and how he adapted them, and it analyzes his dramatic art, including his characterizations, language, and imagery. The guide then turns to the themes treated throughout the play, and it surveys the tragedy's critical reception. Finally, the book charts the drama's lengthy stage history and looks closely at representative productions, including some film versions. An annotated bibliography and comprehensive index conclude the work.

This is the first collection from groundbreaking playwright Alistair McDowall, "an exceptionally talented and fast-rising writer. Still only in his twenties, this writer is surely going places. Whatever he dreams up next, his name will almost certainly be in lights at the Royal Court soon, if not at the National Theatre." (The Times) Having won a Judges Award at the Bruntwood Prize in 2011 and been shortlisted for the Writers' Guild Best Play Award in 2013, Alistair McDowall is one of the most exciting playwrights of this generation. The anthology features the play that brought McDowall to people's attention, Brilliant Adventures, up to his latest major play, Pomona, that received ecstatic reviews, transferred to the National Theatre, and hailed him as one of the most important playwrights of this generation. It also includes two previously unpublished plays. Brilliant Adventures (Royal Exchange/Live Theatre, 2013) is a fast paced tale of brotherhood, addiction and breaking the laws of physics. It won McDowall a Bruntwood Prize. Captain Amazing (Live Theatre, 2013) is a funny and poignant one-man show that thrusts us into the life of Britain's only part-time superhero. Talk Show (Royal Court, 2013) is black comedy about talking and transmission. It was premiered as part of the Royal Court's Open Court season and has not previously been published. Pomona (Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama/Orange Tree Theatre, 2014) is a sinister and surreal thriller, which takes as its setting Manchester's Pomona - an abandoned concrete island at the heard of the city; a place where journeys end and nightmares are born. The anthology is introduced by the author and includes a foreword by Olivier-award-winning playwright Simon Stephens.

This book is an attempt to explore Shakespearean drama from the vantage point of the oppressed, invisible, and silent individuals and collectivities constructed in the plays. It examines the ideological apparatuses which produce and naturalise oppression and the political structures through which that oppression is sustained. Derek Cohen is concerned to demonstrate the many ways in which political and personal life, always interdependent, intersect. contradict, and disrupt one another often in the interests of and to the advantage of the dominant social ideology.

Caroline Drama takes as its focus the public theatre playwriting of Philip Massinger, John Ford, James Shirley and Richard Brome between 1625 and 1642. It brings into clear focus for those unfamiliar with these playwrights a neglected period of writing. Setting their plays within a social and political context, Julie Sanders reveals their concern with issues of community and hierarchy in the decades leading up to the English Civil Wars. By exploring a range of plays of each writer, she explores both their continuities and their differences, as well as examining their particular choices of subject matter, language, and theatrical strategy. The value of Caroline Drama as a whole becomes clear as a result of this study.

Key Features: Study methods Introduction to the text Summaries with critical notes Themes and techniques Textual analysis of key passages Author biography Historical and literary background Modern and historical critical approaches Chronology Glossary of literary terms

The relation between body and mind is one of the oldest riddles that has puzzled mankind. That material and mental events may interact is accepted even by the law: our mental capacity to concentrate on the task can be seriously reduced by drugs. Physical and chemical processes may act upon the mind; and when we are writing a difficult letter, our mind acts upon our body and, through a chain of physical events, upon the mind of the recipient of the letter. This is what the authors of this book call the 'interaction of mental and physical events'. We know very little about this interaction; and according to recent philosophical fashions this is explained by the alleged fact that we have brains but no thoughts. The authors of this book stress that they cannot solve the body mind problem; but they hope that they have been able to shed new light on it. Eccles especially with his theory that the brain is a detector and amplifier; a theory that has given rise to important new developments, including new and exciting experiments; and Popper with his highly controversial theory of 'World 3'. They show that certain fashionable solutions which have been offered fail to understand the seriousness of the problems of the emergence of life, or consciousness and of the creativity of our minds. In Part I, Popper discusses the philosophical issue between dualist or even pluralist interaction on the one side, and materialism and parallelism on the other. There is also a historical review of these issues. In Part II, Eccles examines the mind from the neurological standpoint: the structure of the brain and its functional performance under normal as well as abnormal circumstances. The result is a radical and intriguing hypothesis on the interaction between mental events and detailed neurological occurrences in the cerebral cortex. Part III, based on twelve recorded conversations, reflects the exciting exchange between the authors as they attempt to come to terms with their opinions.

Shakespeare's famous play, "Hamlet," has been the subject of more scholarly analysis and criticism than any other work of literature in human history. For all of its generally acknowledged virtues, however, it has also been treated as problematic in a raft of ways. In "Philosophy and the Puzzles of Hamlet," Leon Craig explains that the most oft-cited problems and criticisms are actually solvable puzzles. Through a close reading of the philosophical problems presented in "Hamlet," Craig attempts to provide solutions to these puzzles. The posing of puzzles, some more conspicuous, others less so, is fundamental to Shakespeare's philosophical method and purpose. That is, he has crafted his plays, and "Hamlet "in particular, so as to stimulate philosophical activity in the "judicious" (as distinct from the "unskillful") readers. By virtue of showing what so many critics treat as faults or flaws are actually intended to be interpretive challenges, Craig aims to raise appreciation for the overall coherence of "Hamlet" that there is more logical rigor to its plot and psychological plausibility to its characterizations than is generally granted, even by its professed admirers. "Philosophy and the Puzzles of Hamlet" endeavors to make clear why "Hamlet," as a work of reason, is far better than is generally recognized, and proves its author to be, not simply the premier poet and playwright he is already universally acknowledged to be, but a philosopher in his own right.

This book is a comprehensive study of Peer Gynt, a drama that forms the foundation of not only the entire Ibsen canon but also modern drama as a whole. It provides scene-by-scene commentary on the drama, showing how the literature and ideas of the drama resemble, and sometimes duplicate, the literature and philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard. It is the first such study since Henri Logeman's commentary on the drama published in 1917. Although the main focus of the book is Ibsen's drama, Bruce Shapiro's study provides some substantial insights into Kierkegaard. He demonstrates how Ibsen's poem was influenced by Kierkegaard's philosophy and literature. One of the most perplexing questions about Peer Gynt is how the ending of the drama functions as a resolution to the whole. This study formulates an understanding, based upon Kierkegaardian philosophy, that accounts for this scene. Moreover, the revelation of Kierkegaard's influence on Ibsen allows the contemporary reader to experience the essence of the drama within the same intellectual context in which it made its first literary appearance. When Kierkegaard's philosophy is artistically brought back into existence through a reader's experience of Peer Gynt, it is as if that reader is a contemporary of those very thoughts. With Kierkegaardian philosophy as the common horizon of understanding, Peer Gynt may be perceived as a complete and unified drama from its beginning to its conclusion. Shapiro's book is the first comprehensive study of Peer Gynt to be published. It may also be the first study to demonstrate one way in which the entire Kierkegaardian dialetic was understood during the philosopher's lifetime. This unique work will be a valuablebook for scholars and students of drama, Scandinavian studies, modern philosophy, and existentialism.

In this work of scholarship and creativity, Meagher argues that Shakespeare has been misunderstood because of a failure to recognize his own directions as a playwright. Through an examination of several of his plays Meagher uncovers Shakespeare as artist, director, and actor.

Fictional or real, pirates haunted the imagination of the 18th and 19th century-British public during this great period of maritime commerce, exploration, and naval conflict. British Pirates in Print and Performanc e explores representations of pirates through dozens of stage performances, including adaptations by Byron, Scott, and Cooper.

During the past century, the interpretation given by the various directors staging Greek drama has varied, and the critical reception accorded the productions has also altered. While the texts of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides remain constant, the meanings drawn from their plays do not. The director who decides to offer a Greek tragedy in the modern American commercial theater believes in the ability of the text to reach the contemporary audience, and the reviewers assess the success of the venture: their words become a record of both a particular performance and the time in which it played. Hartigan explores how drama and society interact and witnesses the continued vitality of the Greek tragedy.

Where did cabaret come from? What has it got to do with pre-war Berlin, decadent society and Nazis? How does it turn into media cabaret and the sisterhood of sleaze? Is cabaret a primary vehicle for exploring the range of sexual practices and alternative sexual identities? In this new book William Grange brings into one place for the first time the range of practices now associated with the form of cabaret. Beginning with its origins in speciality German theatres and the development both of the sheet music industry and disc recordings, Grange tracks the form through into its golden age in the 1920s and beyond. The book's three sections deal first with the emergence of Berlin as the 'German Chicago', where cabaret flourished in the midst of post-war political turmoil. The abolition of censorship allowed nude dancing and sexually explicit songs and routines. It also saw the introduction of kick-line dancing and black performers. In the book's second and third sections Grange takes the story forward into the post second-world-war world, describing how the form moved outwards from central Europe to move across the whole world, reaching Singapore and Australia, and as it did so settling into the range of forms in which we know it today. Some of these forms became 'media cabaret' looking towards the new media age, the postmodernism that followed on from modernism. To this age, even in its new forms, cabaret brought its old habits of making challenges to assumptions around gender identities and sexual practices. As throughout its whole history, cabaret was a form that provided particular vehicles for female performers. And whereas it once served up whore songs and nude dancing it now offers a sisterhood of sleaze.