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With the same spirit, perception and clarity that distinguished his Hamlet: A User's Guide, Michael Pennington here tackles one of Shakespeare's best loved and most frequently performed comedies. Over his 30-year stage career he has directed three different productions of Twelfth Night. Drawing on both his inside knowledge of the play and his lifelong experience as a shakespearean actor, Michael Pennington takes the reader through Twelfth Night scene by detailed scene. As he writes, the play opens up under his guidance and we see it in a new and brilliant light. Themes, connections, characters, individual lines are all revealed in sharp and telling focus. This serious yet lively book offers an intensely practical account of the way Twelfth Night actually works on stage. It will be of immense value to teachers, students, actors and directors, as well as to anyone who wants to better understand and appreciate the riches of a classic comedy.
Michael Pennington's solo show about Shakespeare, "Sweet William,"
has been acclaimed throughout Europe and in the US as a unique
blend of showmanship and scholarship. In this book, he deepens his
exploration of Shakespeare's life and work - and the connection
between the two - that lies at its heart.
It is illuminated throughout by the unrivalled insights into the
plays that Pennington has gained from the twenty thousand hours he
has spent working on them as a leading actor, an artistic director
and a director - and as the author of three previous books on
individual Shakespeare plays. With practical analysis, wonderfully
detailed and entertaining interpretations of characters and scenes,
and vivid reflections on Shakespeare's theatre and ours, the result
is a masterclass of the most enjoyable kind for theatregoers,
professionals, students and anyone interested in Shakespeare.
"A brilliant and intimate insider's guide to Shakespeare from one
of our greatest classical actors." - Gregory Doran
"Michael Pennington is a great Shakespearian actor who writes with
the authority of an academic. His book analyses the plays, the
characters and the playwright's life. It will intrigue, entertain
and challenge students, actors and their audiences." - Ian McKellen
"Rich and informative, and something that will be mined for many
years to come by anyone interested in Shakespeare and in British
theatre." - Professor James Shapiro
"Shakespeare comes wonderfully to life in Michael's beautifully
written book." - Rupert Everett
"Irresistibly readable." - Peter Brook
"I can't remember when I learned so much from a single volume as I
have from Michael Pennington's engaging, absorbing, congenial,
informative new book Sweet William. ... Sometimes he's anecdotal,
often lyrical, always thoughtful and occasionally laugh-aloud
funny. Pennington's book is a must-read for anyone interested in
Shakespeare from almost any angle - actor, drama student, teacher,
director, technician, literature student or audience member." -
"The Stage"
"The most important and best set of original Shakespeare essays
that I have read in over thirty years... Pennington is blessed with
an ideal combination of talents and experiences... a wonderful
book." - "Speaking English"
Michael Pennington has played leading roles in Shakespeare's plays
for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the English Shakespeare Company
(of which he was co-founder and joint Artistic Director), the Peter
Hall Company and the BBC. He has also directed several of the
plays, and is the author of three books on individual Shakespeare
plays ("Hamlet," "Twelfth Night" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream").
He has toured his solo shows, "Sweet William" and "Anton Chekhov,"
throughout the world.
The Fifth Power is a novel based on the telekinetic ability of a
teenage girl who discovers her will to move objects with her mind
and control insects.
A normal life, Susan truly wondered if she'd ever have one again. A
year ago she discovered the truth, that everything she believed
about herself and her entire life was a lie. Up until that fateful
day, she was an ordinary housewife who was raised in an orphanage,
had attended Purdue University and was happily married to a Naval
Officer with two children. Then she received a mysterious phone
call and nothing was the same. She began to have flashbacks to
events she didn't remember and also seemed to suddenly have amazing
martial arts and weapons skills. Most importantly, she discovered
"the voice," a mysterious person inside her head who began giving
information and advice in stressful situations. All of this forced
her to look into her past only to discover nothing about her
childhood was real, at least not for her. At one time Susan
Carlisle had existed. After leaving for college she was "replaced"
by Sasha, a trained agent from the Soviet Union. Now Susan knew
that she was originally Sasha and the Russians wanted her to start
working for them again. She was barely able to keep her family safe
as well as ignorant from the truth while she fought the Russians
off. A year later, things seemed to have returned to normal. Her
family still doesn't know the truth and Susan has neither heard nor
seen any indication that they are still looking for her. That is
until she receives a mysterious communique from Vladimir her old
handler and her life is once again thrown into turmoil. She will
quickly discover that the agents after her this time are better
equipped, trained, and organized than before. It will take all of
her skills, many of which she still doesn't fully understand, to
protect her secrets, keep her family safe and rescue her friends
from danger. She will also gain further insight into the true
nature of the voice, the mysterious mission it keeps talking about,
and her past.
Christmas is only days away when Ashley Wright leaves Utah and
college life behind, with nothing to show for the last four years
but a bachelor's degree. Her hopes of finding love with a good
Mormon boy have eluded her. She believes that a family Christmas at
home will lift her spirits and maybe even help her forget the man
her heart yearns for. But life has other plans, and soon her lonely
heart will be set ... Aglow.
When a teenage girl turns up missing in the small southern town of
Prescott, Missouri, it's up to a slick and temperamental sheriff
and a unique psychic to solve the utterly horrifying case.
Michael Pennington's work on his solo show about Anton Chekhov has
taken London's 'Russian Actor' from the Trans-Siberian Railway to
Soviet and post-Soviet Moscow, into the repertoires of the National
Theatre and the Old Vic and across Europe. "Are You There,
Crocodile?" also includes accounts of his work on Dostoevsky's
"Crime and Punishment", Tolstoy's "Strider" and other Russian
projects, as well as searching essays on how Chekhov's four
masterpieces actually work in the theatre. This book is a study of
the great writer, a partial autobiography, and, centrally, an
actor's search for identification with the elusive Anton Chekhov
himself "the story, humorously told, of an unlikely but tangible
companionship."
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