Download or read book Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness written by David Eldridge and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-02-03 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness moves between dream story and real lives to tell an intricate, complex story of a young man dealing with the break up of his family and the legacy of race responsibility. Joey's an ordinary man but everywhere he looks people are slipping away. A notice at work catches his eye. He doesn't know where to go next - his Dad, the community or Marvin Gaye. In a world he can't connect with, is there someone out there who can connect with Joey? The play premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in May 2005.
Download or read book Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness written by David Eldridge and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-02-03 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness moves between dream story and real lives to tell an intricate, complex story of a young man dealing with the break up of his family and the legacy of race responsibility. Joey's an ordinary man but everywhere he looks people are slipping away. A notice at work catches his eye. He doesn't know where to go next - his Dad, the community or Marvin Gaye. In a world he can't connect with, is there someone out there who can connect with Joey? The play premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in May 2005.
Download or read book The Contemporary Political Play written by Sarah Grochala and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-03-23 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean for a play to be political in the 21st century? Does it require explicit engagement with events and situations with the aim of bringing about change or highlighting social wrongs? Is it purely a matter of content or is it also a matter of structure? The Contemporary Political Play: Rethinking Dramaturgical Structure examines the politics of contemporary 'political' drama. It traces the origins of the contemporary British political play to the emergence of the idea of 'serious drama' in the late 19th century through the work of Bernard Shaw, and argues that a Shavian version of serious drama was inextricably linked to the social and political structures of British society at the time. While political drama is still often thought of as adhering to a Shavian model in which social issues are presented through a dialectical structure, Grochala argues that the different political structures of contemporary Britain give rise to formally inventive dramaturgies that are no less 'serious' or political than their Shavian forebears. Through analysing the experimental dramaturgies of contemporary plays by playwrights including Caryl Churchill, Simon Stephens, Anthony Neilson, debbie tucker green and Mark Ravenhill, among others, it offers a set of new principles for understanding how a play functions politically and reveals how today the dramaturgical structure of a play is as political as its content.
Download or read book Miss Julie written by August Strindberg and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-06-06 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written in a fortnight and often regarded as Strindberg's masterpiece, Miss Julie is shocking in subject-matter, revolutionary in technique, and was fiercely attacked on publication for immorality. Sweden, 1894. Midsummer night's celebrations are in full swing but the Count's daughter, the beautiful and imperious Miss Julie, feels trapped and alone. Downstairs in the servants' kitchen, handsome and rebellious footman Jean is feeling restless. When they meet a passion is ignited that soon spirals out of control. Strindberg's masterpiece caused a scandal when first produced - and has been hugely popular ever since - for its viscerally honest portrait of the class system and human sexuality. The conflict between sexual passion and social position is presented in Miss Julie with startling modernity. The play's premiere at Strindberg's experimental theatre in Denmark in 1889 was banned by the censor and its first public production three years later in Berlin aroused such protests that it was withdrawn after one performance. Miss Julie has since become one of Strindberg's most popular and frequently performed plays. This new version by highly-acclaimed playwright and translator David Eldridge is contemporary but faithful, and combines accessibility with fluency.
Download or read book The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary British Playwrights written by Martin Middeke and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-10-17 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary British Playwrights is an authoritative guide to the work of twenty-five playwrights who have risen to prominence since the 1980s. Written by an international team of scholars, it will be invaluable to anyone interested in, studying or teaching contemporary drama. Among the many playwrights whose work is examined are Sarah Daniels, Terry Johnson, Martin Crimp, Sarah Kane, Anthony Neilson, Mark Ravenhill, Simon Stephens, Debbie Tucker Green, Tanika Gupta and Richard Bean. Each essay features: A biographical sketch and introduction to the playwright A discussion of their most important plays An analysis of their stylistic and thematic traits, the critical reception and their place in the discourses of British theatre A bibliography of texts and critical material
Download or read book Pornography written by Simon Stephens and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pornography is Simon Stephens' stark and shattering new play that powerfully captures a portrait of a fractured, insecure Britain. Written in reaction to London crashing from the euphoria and promise at being awarded the 2012 Olympics into the chaos and reality of the 7/7 bombings, the play is composed of seven stories that serve as a countdown to the catastrophic attack on London. Each playlet focuses on a different individual dramatising their life in the run-up to the tragedy. Published to coincide with the English language premiere at the Traverse Theatre in August as part of the International Edinburgh Festival before transferring to the Birmingham Rep, this is the first stage play to confront the London bombings of 7 July 2005.
Download or read book pool no water and Citizenship written by Mark Ravenhill and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A famous artist invites her old friends out to her luxurious new home and, for one night only, the group is back together. However, celebrations come to an abrupt end when the host suffers an horrific accident. As the victim lies in a coma, an almost unthinkable plan starts to take shape: could her suffering be their next work of art? The group is ecstatic in its new found project until things slip out of their control and, to the surprise of all, the patient awakes... pool (no water) is a visceral and shocking new play about the fragility of friendship and the jealousy and resentment inspired by success. Citizenship is a bittersweet comedy about growing up, following a boy's frank and messy search to discover his sexual identity. It was developed as part of the National Theatre Shell Connections 2005 Programme
Download or read book The Artist Man and the Mother Woman written by Morna Pearson and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-12-02 with total page 75 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How my wee boy, as naive and pastey as he is, could get a grown woman tae go weak at the knees, screaming, as it appears you wis last night. When he's nae so much as accidently brushed up against a wifie afore, and there's nae internet or dirty magazines in the hoose tae speak o. And I ken, I've checked under his mattress. Nut, nae contact wi anither female in the world. Oh. 'Cept his mammy o course. 'Cept his mammy. Geoffrey Buncher is an art teacher. Until now his only meaningful relationship has been with his mother, Edie, who doesn't want her 'wee man growing up too fast'. But when one day he reads in the newspaper that he's working in amongst the top ten sexiest professions, he decides to advertise in the local papers for a wife. Straying outside of his comfortable existence where his mother continues to buy her middle-aged son's Ribena, Geoffrey enters a frightening world of adulthood and female companionship that he struggles to adjust to. Attraction manifests itself in warped and disturbing ways and leads to a terrifying conclusion. Written in Morna Pearson's trademark 'lurid, post-modern Doric' (Scotsman), and with hints of Joe Orton and Harold Pinter, The Artist Man and the Mother Woman is a wickedly funny, deceptively simple, surreal portrait of a spectacularly dysfunctional relationship. This world premiere was staged by the Traverse Theatre Company in the Traverse One space between 30 October and 17 November 2012, directed by Orla O'Loughlin.
Download or read book Martin Crimp s Theatre written by Clara Escoda Agusti and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-05-28 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reads Martin Crimp’s The Treatment (1993), Attempts on her Life (1997), The Country (2000), Face to the Wall (2002), Cruel and Tender (2004) and his adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull (2006) in the context of contemporary, late capitalist societies of control or of ‘spectacle’, and explores how female collapse in particular works as a form of denunciation of the violence of globalized, technological neo-liberalism. The book contends that Crimp is a post-Holocaust writer, whose dramaturgy is pervaded by the ethical and aesthetic debates that the Holocaust has generated in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Its main claim is that, by interpellating spectators through the defamiliarized language of collapse and testimony, Crimp invites spectators to contribute to detecting the seeds of ‘barbarism’ as they may detect them in their context, thus warning them about the introduction of violence in supposedly civilized relationships and thereby also contributing to overcoming the contemporary ethical impasse. The book finally argues that female characters who pass on their testimony are shown to the audience in the ‘process of becoming’ ethical bodies – namely, they are emerge as ethical out of the perceived necessity to integrate both the Other as essential parts of their beings, thus recovering an innate, Baumian sense of responsibility towards the Other.
Download or read book Rewriting the Nation written by Aleks Sierz and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-01-16 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years British theatre has seen a renaissance in playwriting that has been accompanied by a proliferation of writing awards, new writing groups and a ceaseless quest for fresh, authentic voices that will ensure the vitality and relevance of theatre in the twenty-first century. Rewriting the Nation is a perfect companion to Britain's burgeoning theatre writing scene that will prove invaluable to anyone wanting a better appreciation of why British theatre - at its best - remains one of the most celebrated and vigorous throughout the world. The books opens by defining what is meant by 'new writing' and providing a study of the system in which it is produced. It considers the work of the leading 'new writing' theatres, such as the Royal Court, the Traverse, the Bush, the Hampstead and the National theatres, together with the London fringe and the work of touring companies. In the second part, Sierz provides a fascinating survey of the main preoccupations and issues that have characterised new plays in the first decade of the twenty-first century. It argues that while under New Labour economic, political and social change continued apace, generating anxiety and uncertainty in the population, theatre has been able to articulate not only those anxieties and uncertainties but also to offer powerful images of the nation. At a time when the idea of a national identity is hotly debated, British theatre has made its own contribution to the debate by offering highly individual and distinctive visions of who we are and what we might want to become. In examining the work of many of the acclaimed and emerging British playwrights the book serves to provide a narrative of contemporary British playwriting. Just as their work has at times reflected disturbing truths about our national identity, Sierz shows how British playwrights are deeply involved in the project of rewriting the nation.
Download or read book Three Sisters written by Anton Chekhov and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-04-03 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “You won’t be here. Not in thirty years. You’ll have had a stroke, or I’ll have shot you. It’ll be one or the other.” Three sisters. Three thousand miles from home. Overworked Olga, wild Masha and idealistic Irina dream of returning. Living in a world of deceit, desire and hard drinking, it’s difficult but is there something else holding them back? Reinterpreted for the 21st century by award-winning writer Anya Reiss, this searing new version of Chekhov’s most haunting masterpiece reunites the team behind 2012′s critically acclaimed, sell-out hit, The Seagull.
Download or read book Festen written by David Eldridge and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-12-04 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Helge, the patriarch of a chain of restaurants, is celebrating his sixtieth birthday and everyone is coming home from the party including Helge's sons, Christian, Michael and his daughter Helene. Missing from the roster of invitees is Christian's twin sister, Linda, who recently committed suicide. The reason for her action and the repercussions from it, form the basis of the shocking and painful events that transpire during a twenty-four hour period. In the midst of dinner, Christian makes a startling accusation and, even as the disbelieving guests are choosing sides, the play slowly unwraps the truth. David Eldridge powerful new play is adapted from Thomas Vinterborg's screenplay of the very successful film, Dogme. Published to tie in with Almeida Theatre production in March 2004 directed by Rufus Norris
Download or read book Market Boy written by David Eldridge and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-06-22 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gloriously raucous rites-of-passage drama set in Romford Market 'You've got to talk to them son. Listen to them. Look for a way in. You're a handsome bloke - they'll love you. Give me a year and I'll teach you everything I know.' There's an art to selling stilettos and you'd better grasp it. Learn a good wind-up, learn the pull of cash, learn drugs, learn sex, and run wild with the market monkeys. Stay sharp in the ruthless world of Essex traders. Romford Market, 1985. This boy has everything to learn. A spectacular, savage, gorgeous yarn which brings a market jungle to the vast Olivier stage; a tale about the time Mrs Thatcher said we should embrace the marketplace; a story about losing your innocence. And your cherry. Following the critical success of his new version of Ibsen's The Wild Duck (Donmar Warehouse 2005), David Eldridge's Market Boy premieres on the National Theatre's Olivier stage on 25 May 2006.
Download or read book A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky written by David Eldridge and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-10-21 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a farm in the North East of England a family gathers. Five brothers and four generations feature in an epic play about hope, love, fear and the very end of time. A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky is a refreshingly subtle and compassionate vision of the world on the edge of apocalypse. Within a cosmological context, the focus is on a single family, their relations with each other and their unreconciled regrets, soon to become permanent. With an ensemble of strong, engaging characters, there are knotty, realistic family dynamics and a palimpsest of recent family history. The characters and dialogue are naturalistic but the serious themes are elucidated and alleviated with humour and quirky, surreal touches. The play represents a unique collboration between three of the UK's pre-eminent stage writers. The ambition of the partnership is matched by the ambition of the play's sweeping scope. Whilst the three voices collide, they also ring out individually without sacrificing the piece's coherent wholeness, and the play represents a rare, fascinating study in stage collaboration.
Download or read book Gundog written by Simon Longman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-04-11 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Land beneath our feet. Got all our blood inside it hasn't it? All that time. Belongs to us.†? On a farm in the middle of nowhere, sisters Becky and Anna try to hold their family together after the death of their mother. Time is always moving somewhere – but here it's very quiet. When they discover a stranger wandering aimlessly across the land, the three establish an unlikely partnership in their determination to survive. Simon Longman's Royal Court debut premiered at the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs in February 2018.
Download or read book Midsummer Mischief written by Alice Birch and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-06-25 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A volume of four new plays as part of the RSC’s Midsummer Mischief by Alice Birch, E. V. Crowe, Timberlake Wertenbaker and Abi Zakarian. The writers had the famous quote by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “Well-behaved women seldom make history” as an initial provocation and each writer has responded to this line in a unique and distinctive way. Contents: The Ant and the Cicada by Timberlake Wertenbaker A mysterious investor has set his sights on a prime piece of Greek real estate. Owned by two sisters whose lives and beliefs are at odds, and with debts rising all the time, the property's future is uncertain. In a Greek tragedy, everybody loses. Through the struggle between two very different sisters for control of their family home, Timberlake Wertenbaker's new play explores why we are willing to let the home of art and democracy crumble as the rest of Europe looks on. Revolt. She said. Revolt again. by Alice Birch You are expected to behave... Use the right words Act appropriately Don't break the rules Just behave This play is not well behaved Alice Birch examines the language, behaviour and forces that shape women in the 21st century and asks what's stopping us from doing something truly radical to change them. Winner of the George Devine Award for Most Promising New Playwright 2014 I can hear you by E.V. Crowe Tommy is dead. It's always tragic when they die young. People have posted loads of nice stuff on his Facebook page. His sister Ruth has returned for the funeral and wants to get it just right. Proper cutlery and a good spread. The send-off he deserved, and certainly better than they managed when mum died. The following Sunday Ruth's plans to leave again are interrupted as the doorbell rings and in walks a still very much dead, Tommy. E.V. Crowe's naturalistic supernatural play examines what the possibilities are for the women in Tommy's family, and questions if it's as easy for everyone to reveal what it is they want. This is not an exit by Abi Zakarian You wake up, tied to a radiator. Your hands are bound and there is a bag over your head. You know you should fight, but you don't know how or against whom. But you can't have it all: where would you put it? Abi Zakarian's new play is a funny and ferocious drama about the absurdity at the heart of modern womanhood, and what really stands in the way of fulfilment.
Download or read book Midnight Movie written by Eve Leigh and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-11-27 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Someone is having a sleepless night and browsing the internet. A girl fights for her life in a lift. New Window. A protest in Trafalgar Square. New Window. A naked man in a bathtub. New Window. Janelle Monae, dancing. The possibilities are endless. Even at 2am. That's the thing about being Extremely Online: there's no limit on where you can go.
