Among extant Greek comedies, the Frogs is unique for the light it throws on classical Greek attitudes to tragedy and to literature in general. Sir Kenneth Dover's edition, with a full introduction and extensive commentary, has been the most comprehensive edition available, drawing together the relevant scholarship that has accumulated on the subject. The general purpose and character of the abridged version remains the same: to provide a helpful guide on a difficult author for students who wish to translate the play, or need to interpret it for performance. In this edition, nothing relevant to the performance of the play on stage has been sacrificed although information on manuscripts and discussion of the history of the text have been pared to the minimum, and arguments on controversial points have been abbreviated. Where relevant, conclucions reached in the original edition have been changed in the light of work done by others since 1993. The inclusion of a vocabulary should reduce the need for students to have a recourse to a lexicon.

What have we learned from the first experiments performed at the reconstructed Globe on Bankside? What light have recent productions shed on the way Shakespeare intended his plays to be seen? Written by the Leverhulme Fellow appointed to study and record actor use of this new-old playhouse, here is the first analytical account of the discoveries that have been made in its important first years, in workshops, rehearsals and performances. It shows how actors, directors and playgoers have responded to the demands of 'historical' constraints (and unexpected freedoms) to provide valuable new insights into the dynamics of Elizabethan theatre.

This original and provocative reinterpretation of Hamlet presents the play as the original audiences would have viewed it--a much bleaker, stronger, and more deeply religious play than it has usually been assumed to be. Arthur McGee draws a picture of a Devil-controlled Hamlet in the damnable Catholic court of Elsinore, and he shows that the evil natures of the Ghost and of Hamlet himself were understood and accepted by the Protestant audiences of the day. Using material gleaned from an investigation of play-censorship, McGee offers a comprehensive discussion of the Ghost as Demon. He then moves to Hamlet, presenting him as satanic, damned as revenger in the tradition of the Jacobean revenge drama. There are, he shows, no good ghosts, and Purgatory, whence the Ghost came, was reviled in Protestant England. The Ghost's manipulation extends to Hamlet's fool/madman role, and Hamlet's soliloquy reveals the ambition, conscience, and suicidal despair that damn him. With this viewpoint, McGee is able to shed convincing new light on various aspects of the play. He effectively strips Ophelia and Laertes of their sentimentalized charm, making them instead chillingly convincing, and he works through the last act to show damnation everywhere. In an epilogue, he sums up the history of criticism of Hamlet, demonstrating the process by which the play gradually lost its Elizabethan bite. Appendixes develop aspects of Ophelia.

Fifteen distinguished scholars contribute original essays that analyze A Streetcar Named Desire, one of the most significant plays in modern theatre, from various critical or cultural stances, methods, or modalities. Represented as individual points of view or touched upon in the analysis are the theories of Lacan and Foucault and the tenets of Marxism; the approaches of Feminism, Reader Response Criticism, Deconstructionism, Chaos and Anti-Chaos Theory, Translation Theory, Formalism, Mythology, Perception Theory, and Gender Theory; and the perceptions of Popular Culture, Film History and Theory, Southern Letters, and assorted cultural and regional studies. The volume introduction charts the course of Streetcar criticism from its inception to the present. Each essay begins by articulating the theoretical principles and methods behind the critical approach pursued, then applies these to readings from Streetcar, utilizing and documenting relevant major research. Insightful and challenging, the readings, individually and collectively, advance the study of the play and Tennessee Williams's canon and reputation generally. Each essay offers a fresh, provocative view of a play that has long been discussed in simplistic and dichotomized terms: Blanche as victim/Stanley as predator; Streetcar as a play about a failed southern belle meeting a brutish Pole; or Streetcar as a work of Southern literature. Viewing the play through the lenses of cultural and critical pluralism, the contributors open up the script and expand our awareness of the problems and possibilities offered by this great modern classic.

In their sparse and isolated spaces, Samuel Beckett's figures imagine the touch of a lost love or dream of the comfort and care that the hands of a dear one might bring. Applying philosophical writings that feature sensation, particularly touch, Trish McTighe examines how Beckett's later work for stage and screen dramatizes moments of contact between self and self, self and world, and self and other. With implications for how gender and ethics can be approached within Beckett's aesthetic, this study explores the employment of haptic imagery as an alternative to certain dominant codes of visual representation.

This title presents a comprehensive critical analysis of the most important Shakespearean critics, editors, actors and directors. It concentrates on key actors and directors from the Eighteenth-Century. "Great Shakespeareans" offers a systematic account of those figures who have had the greatest influence on the interpretation, understanding and cultural reception of Shakespeare, both nationally and internationally. In this volume, leading scholars assess the contribution of David Garrick, John Philip Kemble, Sarah Siddons and Edmund Kean to the afterlife and reception of Shakespeare and his plays. Each substantial contribution assesses the double impact of Shakespeare on the figure covered and of the figure on the understanding, interpretation and appreciation of Shakespeare, provide a sketch of their subject's intellectual and professional biography and an account of the wider cultural context, including comparison with other figures or works within the same field.

A study of the 30-year collaboration between playwright Samuel Beckett and director Alan Schneider, Bianchini reconstructs their shared American productions between 1956 and 1984. By examining how Beckett was introduced to American audiences, this book leads into a wider historical discussion of American theatre in the mid-to-late 20th century.

Among the most commercially successful female playwrights of all times, Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987) is best remembered as the author of "The Women" (1936), a biting social comedy. Beginning in 1942, she spent less of her time writing plays and turned instead to the wider stage of politics and world affairs. She was the editor of Vanity Fair magazine, a congresswoman, and an ambassador to Italy during the Eisenhower administration.

This book traces her transition from playwright to politician to Catholic apologist. It uncovers for the first time plays, both early and late, that dramatize her spiritual and artistic journey. A comprehensive survey of her plays and the world's reception to them, the book provides a thorough treatment of Luce's published and unpublished work. For each play, the volume includes a plot summary, critical commentary, and production information. The book also includes an exhaustive and generously-annotated bibliography of both popular reviews and scholarly criticism.

This book has been specially written for the needs of A-level and undergraduate students. This book enables students to appreciate contrasting interpretations of the text and develop their own critical thinking.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 term

An approachable guide to Shakespeare on film, this book establishes the differences between stage and screen. It covers the history of Shakespeare on the screen since 1899, and discusses various modes and conventions of adaptations. Thoroughly updated to include the most recent films, for instance Joss Whedon's 2013 Much Ado About Nothing, it also explores the latest technology, such as DVD and Blu-ray, as well as live stage-to-screen productions. It also includes an exclusive interview with filmmaker John Wyver, discussing his own adaptations for the small screen.

The Rational Shakespeare: Peter Ramus, Edward de Vere, and the Question of Authorship examines William Shakespeare's rationality from a Ramist perspective, linking that examination to the leading intellectuals of late humanism, and extending those links to the life of Edward de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford. The application to Shakespeare's plays and sonnets of a game-theoretic hermeneutic, an interpretive approach that Ramism suggests but ultimately evades, strengthens these connections in further supporting the Oxfordian answer to the question of Shakespearean authorship.

The Oxford Handbook to Tudor Drama is the authoritative secondary text on Tudor drama. It both integrates recent important research across different disciplines and periods and sets a new agenda for the future study of Tudor drama, questioning a number of the central assumptions of previous studies. Balancing the interests and concerns of scholars in theatre history, drama, and literary studies, its scope reflects the broad reach of Tudor drama as a subject, inviting readers to see the Tudor century as a whole, rather than made up of artificial and misleading divisions between 'medieval' and 'renaissance', religious and secular, pre- and post-Shakespeare. The contributors, both the established leaders in their fields and the brightest young scholars, attend to the contexts, intellectual, theatrical and historical within which drama was written, produced and staged in this period, and ask us to consider afresh this most vital and complex of periods in theatre history. The book is divided into four sections: Religious Drama; Interludes and Comedies, Entertainments, Masques, and Royal Entries; and Histories and political dramas.

This checklist is witness to the vast and varied production of 20th-century French women playwrights. Like Beach's preceding volume, "French Women Playwrights Before the Twentieth Century: A Checklist" (Greenwood, 1994), this reference book presents an extensive list of dramatic works. Beach provides biographical information about the authors when known, as well as name variations (pseudonyms, maiden name, other marriages, etc.)

The plays are listed chronologically under each author's name, followed by a variety of information about each work: genre, the place and date of publication and performances, and the location of over 2000 texts in published or manuscript form in French holding libraries. The checklist also includes a title index and a bibliography. This book provides a useful research tool not only for scholars interested in drama and/or women's literature, but also for theatre professionals.

Whether written for Renaissance law students or the popular crowds at the Globe Theatre, Shakespeare's Coriolanus appeals to a wide audience. With thematic consistency, the play presents the class conflict between Roman patricians and plebeians in terms of metaphors, images, and symbols of the human body and its basic needs for nourishment, love, and security. The play considers the compromises individuals must make if they are to thrive in a social order, and its exploration of the responsibility of individuals to others has never been more timely. This book is a comprehensive introduction to the play. The volume discusses the genesis and textual history of Coriolanus and the merits of available modern editions. Also included is a plot summary. The book gives special attention to the historical, cultural, and intellectual contexts that shaped Shakespeare's work, and it analyzes his language and dramatic art. A chapter analyzes the play's themes and ideas, while another surveys the play's critical and scholarly reception. Of special interest is a chapter on the play's performance history. The guide cites current scholarship throughout and offers suggestions for further reading.

The plays of Plautus and Terence were profoundly musical: large portions of all the plays were sung to accompaniment, and variations in melody, rhythm and dance were essential elements in bringing both pleasure and meaning to their performance. This book explains the nature of Roman comedy's music: the accompanying tibia, the style of vocal performance, the importance of dance, characteristics of melody, the relationship between meter and rhythm, and the effects of different meters and of variations within individual verses. It provides musical analyses of songs, scenes and whole plays, and draws analogies between Roman comedy's music and the music of modern opera, film and musical theatre. The book will change our understanding of the nature of Roman comedy and will be of interest to students of ancient theatre and Latin literature, scholars and students working on the history of music and theatre, and performers working with ancient plays.

Eugene O'Neill has long been celebrated as America's greatest playwright. This year, in the centennial of his birth, Yale University Press takes pride in bringing out an edition of O'Neill's little-known works of the imagination and his principal critical statements, most of which have not hitherto been published. Edited and introduced by eminent O'Neill scholar Travis Bogard, the pieces-mostly early works-shed valuable light on O'Neill's artistic development. Contained here are a four-act tragedy, "The Personal Equation"; the original version of Marco Millions; a dramatic adaptation of Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"; a scenario "The Reckoning," and Bolton O'Neill; the fourth act of "The Ole Davil," which became, with some alteration of tone, "Anna Christie"; and two short stories, "Tomorrow" and "S.O.S." Also included are an unpublished love poem and several critical and occasional pieces, composition of Mourning Becomes Electra and "The Last Will and Testament of Silverdene Emblem O'Neill," written on behalf of his Dalmatian, Blemie. "There is here no undiscovered masterwork," says Bogard in his foreword, "but much here foreshadows what was to come as 'Tomorrow,' written in 1917, explores the ground on which The Iceman Cometh was to be created. In some of the writing, O'Neill is struggling to learn his craft: the scenario of 'The Reckoning,' for example, shows him in the process of forming a lifelong habit of detailing a play in a long narrative account. In the poem to Jane Caldwell and the memorial for Blemie, glimpses of a gentle, private man can be caught. In the critical pieces, O'Neill attempts an uncharacteristic but interesting articulation of his theatrical principles. In all the fugitive works gathered here, the O'Neill voice sounds clear.... It remains worth hearing." "An important work about an unknown O'Neill that will reveal this fascinating personality to the general public." -Paul Shyre Travis Bogard, emeritus professor of dramatic art at the University of California, Berkeley, has edited many works and papers of O'Neill, including, with Jackson R. Bryer, "The Theatre We Worked For": The Letters of Eugene O'Neill to Kenneth Macgowan.

This volume offers a practical, accessible and thought-provoking guide to this Roman tragedy, surveying its major themes and critical reception. It also provides a detailed and up-to-date history of the play's performance, beginning with its earliest known staging in 1599, including an analysis of the 2013 film Caesar Must Die starring Italian inmates, and an assessment of why the play is now coming back into vogue on stage. Moving through to four new critical essays, it opens up cutting-edge perspectives on the work, and finishes with a guide to pedagogical approaches by the experienced teacher and leading academic Jeremy Lopez. Detailing web-based and production-related resources, and including an annotated bibliography of critical works, the guide will equip teachers and facilitate students' understanding of this challenging play.

Now in its 4th edition, this is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the critical study of drama. Using familiar examples of classic and contemporary works such as Shakespeare's King Lear, Ibsen's A Doll's House and Timberlake Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good, the book explores the essential elements of play texts, from character, dialogue and plot to theatrical space. With more in depth guidance on how to study plays in and as performance, both live and in recordings available online, the 4th edition of Studying Plays now includes: * new examples throughout the book drawn from a range of 21st-century plays by established and emergent writers for diverse theatres and companies * new explorations of how plays structure and engage audience response * a complete new section on the analysis of theatre of witness and testimony; monodrama; and postdramatic texts.

Accessible informative critical introduction to Caryl Churchill's classic modern play, "Top Girls".Caryl Churchill is widely considered one of the most innovative playwrights to have emerged in post-war British theatre. Identified as a socialist feminist writer, she is one of the few British women playwrights to have been incorporated into the dramatic canon. "Top Girls" is one of Churchill's most well known and often studied works, using an all female cast to critique bourgeois feminism during the Thatcher era.This guide provides a comprehensive critical introduction to "Top Girls", giving students an overview of the background and context for the play; detailed analysis of the its structure, style and characters; a practical analysis of key production issues and choices; an overview of the performance history focusing on key productions; and an annotated guide to further reading highlighting key critical approaches. It includes new interpretations of the text in the light of Churchill's recent playwriting and intervening shifts in the political landscape.It offers accessible, informative critical introductions to modern plays for students in both Theatre/Performance Studies and English. Offering up-to-date coverage of a broad range of key plays throughout modern drama, the guides includes accounts of performance history, production analysis, screen adaptations and summaries of important critical approaches and debates.

Naomi Wallace, an American playwright based in Britain, is one of the more original and provocative voices in contemporary theatre. Her poetic, erotically-charged, and politically engaged plays have been seen in London's West End, off-Broadway, at the Comedie-Francaise, in regional and provincial theaters, and on college campuses around the world. Known for their intimate, sensual encounters examining the relationship between identity and power, Wallace's works have attracted a wide range of theatre practitioners, including such important directors as Dominic Dromgoole, Ron Daniels, Jo Bonney, and Kwame Kwei-Armah. Drawing on scholars, activists, historians, and theatre artists in the United States, Canada, Britain, and the Middle East, this anthology of essays presents a comprehensive overview of Wallace's body of work that will be of use to theatre practitioners, students, scholars, and educators alike.

'York Notes Advanced' offer an accessible approach to English Literature. This series has been completely updated to meet the needs of today's A-level and undergraduate students. Written by established literature experts, York Notes Advanced introduce students to more sophisticated analysis, a range of critical perspectives and wider contexts.

Coward Plays: 9 offers up a fascinating selection of Noel Coward's lesser-known works. Salute to the Brave/Time Remembered (1940) follows Leila Heseldyne after she has fled to America, leaving a war-torn Britain and her husband behind; Long Island Sound(1947) sees a writer coerced into a riotous flock of high flying society people with turbulent results; and Volcano (1957) depicts a volcanic eruption as it punctuates the dubious conduct of six individuals on a fictional South Sea island. This volume also includes Design for Rehearsing (1933) was Coward's private satire on the way he , Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne worked on Design for Living. Age Cannot Wither (1967), Coward's last and unfinished play completes the collection as it portrays the boozy reunion of three women in their sixties, who meet without fail every year to reminisce. Together, these works offer a new and intriguing insight into Coward the playwright and his oeuvre that extends well beyond his most well-known works such as Private Lives, Blithe Spirit and Hay Fever. The volume is introduced by Coward expert and scholar Barry Day.

Hamlet remains the most-studied of all Shakespeare's great tragedies. This collection of newly-commissioned essays gives readers an overview of past critical views of the play as well as new writing about the play from today's leading scholars. The range of perspectives offered makes the book an invaluable companion to anyone studying the play at an advanced level. The final chapter on learning and teaching resources is particularly useful as a guide for further study.

A literary reading informed by the recent temporal turn in Queer Theory, this book analyzes medieval Biblical drama for themes representing modes of power such as the body, politics, and law. Revitalizing the discussions on medieval drama, Sturges asserts that these dramas were often intended not to teach morality but to resist Christian authority.

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.