The Greek fleet bound for Troy is becalmed. For the sake of a wind, Agamemnon, leader of the Greek forces, is persuaded that he must sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia. But as the priest raises his knife to slit the child's throat, the goddess Diana spirits her away. Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife, believing her beloved daughter to be dead, slays her husband in revenge on hisreturn from the Trojan wars. Their son, Orestes, avenges his father's death by killing his mother. Now, years later, as Iphigenia, a prisoner of the temple of Diana, looks across the sea to Greece, longing to return home, her brother Orestes arrives...

Thomas Bernhard is widely considered to be one of the most important German playwrights in the post-war era. Highly acclaimed, he has written over twenty plays and novels and gained a reputation as one of Austria's most controversial authors. He wrote Heldenplatz in 1988 as a response to the fiftieth anniversary of the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria by Hitler's Germany. Highly controversial in Austria, the play concerns a Jewish professor who returns to Vienna after the Second World War and discovers that his fellow Austrians are as anti-semitic as ever. 'Heldenplatz' is the square in Vienna where the Austrian-born Hitler made his first speech after the Anschluss.

Set in the offices of a magazine publishers, Meredith Oakes' comedy of fragile values in the media will not restore your faith in human nature, but it is guaranteed to help you get on in publishing without really succeeding. First performed at the Royal Court Theatre, directed by Stephen Daldry.

Mr Modernsky tells a story about two heavyweights of twentieth-century classical music: Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg. It traces the gradual change there has been in the way these two great rivals are perceived, looks in their music for the reasons and reflects on the nature of modernity in art and the sometimes pernicious effects of ideology. Meredith Oakes explores the tension between futuristic and historical elements in the work of these parallel artists and asks: is modernity merely about technical innovation? Must progress always mean exclusion of the past?

Two highly regarded early plays, The Neighbour and The Editing Process (here presented in a revised version) present a study in contrasts: the first a battle of wills between two young men on a housing estate; the second an urbane but despairing comedy set in a publisher's offices.Faith provides a vision of military conflict as a testing ground for English values, while Her Mother and Bartok focuses on a husband and wife as they discuss their first meeting from the perspective of the less-than-inspiring present. In Shadowmouth a troubled teenager is thrown out by his single mother and is taken in by a middle-aged single man. Glide and The Mind of the Meeting are short radio plays.

Love, loneliness and longing in the twilight hours - in cities which never sleep, night hawks are falling in love, out of love and over the edge. Inspired by the photography of Nan Goldin, "Shadowmouth" is about people trying to connect in a landscape of disconnection, the power of desire, and being alone late at night. Combining hypnotic language with arresting dance theatre, this bold and thrillingly new show salutes the underbelly of urban life. "Shadowmouth" opens at the Sheffield Crucible on 1st June 2006, directed and choreographed by Dominic Leclerc, Resident Director at Sheffield Theatres in 2005, where he assisted on many productions, including "Don Carlos" and "Ain't Misbehavin'". Meredith Oakes's plays include "The Neighbour for the National Theatre" and "Faith at the Royal Court", both published by Oberon.

Foreword by Diana Damian Martin Werner Schwab's final work, also known as a theatre-extinction comedy, is a brutal, irreverent and bizarrely comical piece about what happens when an emerging stage production is sabotaged by outsiders. Following a dispute with the cast, the director replaces all the actors with pensioners from a nearby home for the elderly. At first compliant and polite, the 'forgotten and dispossessed' gradually start to question the director's authority, leading to a 'coup d'etat' where the theatre's cleaning lady is selected as the group's leader. Not everybody survives the new order. Werner Schwab was only thirty-five years old when he was found dead in his room following a New Year's Eve drinking spree in 1994. He was, at the time, the undisputed star of German speaking theatre who effortlessly rose to fame for his unique talent with language and his darkly humorous, confrontational narratives. In only four years, he completed fifteen plays with Dead at Last, At Last No More Air (Endlich tot, endlich keine luftmehr) being his last.

Punishment without Revenge is a dark and thrilling drama, an audacious blend of unbearable tension and delicious comedy, which both terrifies and delights. Regarded as the greatest tragedy of the Spanish Golden Age and the finest play of its presiding genius, Lope de Vega, this elegant work is set in the dangerous and glamorous world of Renaissance Italy. The Duke of Ferrara has lived a wild and unconventional life. An infamous womaniser, his only son, Federico, is a bastard whom he dreams will one day succeed him. When his subjects demand that he marry and provide them with the stability of a legitimate heir, the proud and beautiful Cassandra, Duchess of Mantua, is sent to be his bride. But everything does not fall happily into place. A passionate love develops - but not between the Duke and his Duchess - and, in a culture where honour is the highest virtue, there can be only one outcome...