Download or read book Roots written by Arnold Wesker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-05-21 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's 1958. Beatie Bryant has been to London and fallen in love with Ronnie, a young socialist. As she anxiously awaits his arrival to meet her family at their Norfolk farm, her head is swimming with new ideas. Ideas of a bolder, freer world which promise to clash with their rural way of life. Roots is the remarkable centrepiece of Wesker's seminal post-war trilogy. It was first performed in 1959 at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, before transferring to the Royal Court. It is the second play in a trilogy comprising Chicken Soup with Barley and I'm Talking About Jerusalem. It went on to transfer to the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End. A true classic, Roots is an affecting portrait of a young woman finding her voice at a time of unprecedented social change. This Modern Classic edition features an introduction by Glenda Leeming.
Download or read book Wesker s Domestic Plays written by Arnold Wesker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-09-07 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Friends (1970), Esther is diagnosed with leukaemia, causing her friends to reassess their working-class identity, their imagined achievements as well as their own mortality. Bluey (1993) is a play about repressed memory resurfacing and three imagined futures that the protagonist cannot muster the courage to confront. In Men Die Women Survive (1990) a trio of estranged wives gather around the dinner table. As they conduct a post-mortem on their failed relationships a tale of betrayal and revenge emerges. Telling the story of a 44-year-old actress Gertie and her influence on Sam, a black teenager working as a car-park attendant, Wild Spring (1992) explores acting as a metaphor for the false images of ourselves with which we fall in love.
Download or read book Wesker s Social Plays written by Arnold Wesker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-05-10 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes the plays The Kitchen, The Rocking Horse Kid, Denial and When God Wanted a Son This volume of Oberon Books' Wesker series includes the author's most performed work The Kitchen (1957) produced in sixty cities from Rio de Janeiro to Tokyo, from Paris to Moscow, from Montreal to Zurich. This volume also contains Wesker's latest play The Rocking Horse Kid, about a black boy who wants to go round the world on a horse; the magical play for children Voices on the Wind and one of his most controversial plays Denial about 'the false memory syndrome' declared by an irate French critic of the Paris production '...a dangerous play.Wesker is a dangerous playwright.' He has also been described as 'a melancholy optimist' as evidenced by another of the plays in thisvolume When God Wanted a Son which explores the possibility that anti-Semitism like stupidity is in the bloodstream of human nature and here to stay. Few playwrights dare be as politically incorrect as Wesker.
Download or read book Wesker s Comedies written by Arnold Wesker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-09-07 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Wedding Feast an idealistic, altruistic shoe manufacturer arrives at an employee’s wedding, with disastrous consequences. One More Ride on the Merry-Go-Round features a comic plot involving academics who get high on a hash birthday cake, a recalcitrant daughter, and the appearance of an illegitimate son who is a magician. In Groupie 61-year-old Mattie Beancourt is shocked to discover her idol, the famous painter Mark Gorman, living alone in near poverty. She is sunny, he is curmudgeonly and the impact of their friendship is startling. Set against a scene of defiant old age, The Old Ones examines the eccentric rituals of old age and plays out the conflict between the optimistic and pessimistic spirit.
Download or read book Joy and Tyranny written by Arnold Wesker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-09-07 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘My preoccupation,’ says Arnold Wesker in his interview/portrait Ambivalences (published by Oberon Books) ‘with-violence-stemming from-perceived-intimidation-by-the-bright-ones who dare to be cleve ror simply different, began with an incident at school. While queuing for a school meal, one of the other boys wanted me to try his liquorice stick .I didn’t want to. This other pupil insisted. I continued to decline. I didn’tlike liquorice! That I didn’t want to share what he liked, what he thought was good, enraged the other boy who couldn’t bear my indifference to his taste, and he hit me. I’ve never lost this image of violence induced by the outsider, the one who dissents, the one who doesn’t share in what others like or believe. One day’, Wesker vowed, ‘I may write a play beginning with that image – of the boy who wants another boy to share his taste in liquorice and hits him because he doesn’t. It’ll be an exploration of the nature of violence.’ In late 2010 he wrote just such a play, Joy and Tyranny, but the playwright doesn’t describe it as a play, rather as: Arias and variations on the theme of violence. In fact it is a patchwork quilt knitting together many extracts from other of his works, as though throughout his career he was infusing those works, ghost-like, with a hidden play waiting the right time to emerge.
Download or read book The Wesker Trilogy written by Arnold Wesker and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Plays of Impasse written by Carol Rosen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of post–World War II plays set in “total institutions” such as hospitals, psychiatric wards, prisons, and military bases Plays of Impasse probes the structure and significance of the numerous and highly visible plays set in contemporary society’s dead ends—the hospitals, psychiatric wards, prisons, and military training camps so aptly described by Irving Goffman as “total institutions.” Carol Rosen shows how the setting in these plays tends to engulf and then to exclude the audience, turning an encompassing stage structure—a closed, controlling, absolute system—into a protagonist that overwhelms the characters. In discussions ranging from Harold Pinter’s The Hothouse to Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, she further maintains that the impasse of characters in reductive environments supplies a unifying image for post–World War II drama in general. This state of impasse pervades contemporary drama. Everyday activities and attempts to endure life in a parenthesis are vacated of traditional social or moral meaning onstage. The pain of this kind of survival, spatially fixed, is at the heart of Endgame, for example, an extreme instance of this mode of drama at the edge of existence. In plays such as Peter Nichols’s The National Health, Peter Weiss’s Marat/Sade, Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s The Physicists, David Storey’s Home, Brendan Behan’s The Quare Fellow, Jean Genet’s Deathwatch, and David Rabe’s The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, the splintered self, like the divided society, strives to endure against enormous, codified odds. Even in plays not depicting the rigidity of institutions, the contemporary dramatic mode is finally characterized by sparse, introspective action in a closed system—an onstage model of a world gone awry, a world at an impasse. Originally published in 1983. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book A Dictionary of Writers and their Works written by Christopher Riches and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-29 with total page 1431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 3,200 entries An essential guide to authors and their works that focuses on the general canon of British literature from the fifteenth century to the present. There is also some coverage of non-fiction such as biographies, memoirs, and science, as well as inclusion of major American and Commonwealth writers. This online-exclusive new edition adds 60,000 new words, including over 50 new entries dealing with authors who have risen to prominence in the last five years, as well as fully updating the entries that currently exist. Each entry provides details of a writer's nationality and birth/death dates, followed by a listing of their titles arranged chronologically by date of publication.
Download or read book Stages in the Revolution written by Catherine Itzin and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2021-09-05 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, first published in 1980, is a comprehensive study of the radical theatre movement in Britain from 1968 to 1978. The essays are based on first-hand interviews, with each section being introduced with a summary of key events before detailing the artists under examination.
Download or read book Robert Saxton Caritas written by Wyndham Thomas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-29 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Caritas relates the 'true', yet largely undocumented story of Christine Carpenter, a 14th-century anchoress who moves towards insanity as her desire for a divine revelation continues to be unfulfilled after a period of three years locked in her cell. Although physically isolated, she is aware of the worldly life and love that she has abandoned. The very essence of the drama is the dogmatic refusal of her Bishop to release her from her vows. Set against the backcloth of the Peasants' Uprising (1381), the libretto/play juxtaposes sacred and secular worlds, the relative power and servitude of rulers and serfs, and the terrifying ordeal of Christine who is caught between the inflexibility of the established church and her personal religious expectations. Such a narrative was to offer rich opportunities for musical characterization and evocation of the historical context of the action, as well as substantial challenges in pacing and integrating the sequence of dramatic 'snap-shots' that culminate in a scene of total despair. The colourful juxtaposition of secular life and that of a recluse in Act One culminates in a Second Act finale of immense dramatic power in which Saxton's vocal and instrumental writing reaches new heights - a landmark both in his output and in late 20th century opera. Caritas - first performed in 1991 - occupies an important position in Robert Saxton's output and, as Thomas argues, in British opera during the closing decades of the 20th century. Thomas provides a detailed contextual setting in which to evaluate Caritas, as well as presenting an analytical commentary on the structure, musical language, instrumentation, staging and production of the opera. Thomas concludes with a reflection on the reception of Caritas as well as looking forward to Saxton's later and future works. A CD of the first performance is included.
Download or read book A Companion to British Jewish Theatre Since the 1950s written by Jeanette R. Malkin and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-25 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first of its kind, this companion to British-Jewish theatre brings a neglected dimension in the work of many prominent British theatre-makers to the fore. Its structure reflects the historical development of British-Jewish theatre from the 1950s onwards, beginning with an analysis of the first generation of writers that now forms the core of post-war British drama (including Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter and Arnold Wesker) and moving on to significant thematic force-fields and faultlines such as the Holocaust, antisemitism and Israel/Palestine. The book also covers the new generation of British-Jewish playwrights, with a special emphasis on the contribution of women writers and the role of particular theatres in the development of British-Jewish theatre, as well as TV drama. Included in the book are fascinating interviews with a set of significant theatre practitioners working today, including Ryan Craig, Patrick Marber, John Nathan, Julia Pascal and Nicholas Hytner. The companion addresses, not only aesthetic and ideological concerns, but also recent transformations with regard to institutional contexts and frameworks of cultural policies.
Download or read book Twentieth Century Drama Dialogue as Ordinary Talk written by Susan Mandala and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Susan Mandala offers a series of in-depth investigations into how the dialogue of four modern plays 'works' with respect to the pragmatic and discoursal norms postulated for ordinary conversation. After an account of the often-heated debates between linguists and critics concerning the analysis of drama dialogue as talk, four plays are considered: Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, Arnold Wesker's Roots, Terence Rattigan's In Praise of Love, and Alan Ayckbourn's Just Between Ourselves. For readers unfamiliar with linguistic approaches to talk, a chapter outlining the major frameworks used in the analysis of the plays is also included. By considering both linguistic and literary perspectives, this book extends the boundaries of traditional criticism and shows how the linguistic study of conversation can contribute to our understanding of dramatic dialogue.
Download or read book Arnold Wesker written by Reade W. Dornan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The only collection of essays on one of Britain's Angry Young Men, this book contains discussions of most of Wesker's published plays with an emphasis on the more recent works. Essays reevaluate the plays that made Wesker a household name in Britain (the Trilogy, The Kitchen , and Chips with Everything). Clive Barker, co-director of Centre 42, gives a fresh account of that movement, and playwright Paul Levitt provides a previously unrecorded history of Caritas, Blood Libel, and Shylock. A personal profile of Wesker by novelist Margaret Drabble is reprinted from an earlier article. Original essays cover the theory and practice of theatre-Wesker's in-text stage directions, British television's adaptation of his plays, and an actor's and a director's perspectives on working with the playwright. Major international Weskerian critics are assembled here: Klaus Peter Mÿller and Heiner Zimmermann from Germany; Rossana Bonadei, Angela Locatelli, and Alessandra Marzola from Italy; Keith Gore, Glenda Leeming, Martin Priestman, Jeremy Ridgman, Margaret Rose, and Robert Wilcher from Great Britain; Menakshi Ponnuswami from India; Robert Gross, Kimball King, and Robert Skloot from the United States. These essays take a wide range of critical approaches from an exploration of gender, to semiotics, biography, and the New Historicism. This is the most comprehensive collection of criticism on Arnold Wesker to date. Every major Weskerian scholar writing in English has contributed a piece to this casebook. Originating in Germany, Italy, Great Britain, India, and the United States, their essays create an international cultural context for Wesker's plays. They also position his work among his contemporaries, in his historical era, and in the political and theatrical environment that defines his world. Furthermore, they form a biographical profile of Wesker, often giving us firsthand accounts of turning points in his career. Finally, some essays evaluate and interpret the major plays, dissecting and scrutinizing the formal elements that make them distinct. Their critical approaches are varied in that they make liberal use of semiotics, Bakhtinian and communication theory, cultural studies, and traditional readings. Their contributions compose a multi-faceted view of Wesker's life and work setting out fresh arguments for all his plays.
Download or read book British Playwrights 1956 1995 written by William W. Demastes and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1996-10-23 with total page 515 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year 1956 marked a point when British drama and theater fell into the hands of a group of young playwrights who revolutionized the stage. During that time, playwrights such as Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter made the British theater as rich, varied, and vital as any national theater in history. This reference chronicles the history of British theater from 1956 to 1995 by providing detailed information about the playwrights of that period. Included are entries for some three dozen British playwrights active between 1956 and 1995. Entries are arranged alphabetically to facilitate use. Each entry supplies biographical information, the production history for particular plays, a survey of the playwright's critical reception, an assessment of the dramatist's work, and primary and secondary bibliographies. A selected, general bibliography at the end of the volume directs the reader to important sources of additional information about this period in theater history.
Download or read book British Theatre Since the War written by Dominic Shellard and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: British theatre of the past fifty years has been brilliant, varied, and controversial, encompassing invigorating indigenous drama, politically didactic writing, the formation of such institutions as the National Theatre, the exporting of musicals worldwide from the West End, and much more. This entertaining and authoritative book is the first comprehensive account of British theatre in this period. Dominic Shellard moves chronologically through the half-century, discussing important plays, performers, directors, playwrights, critics, censors, and agents as well as the social, political, and financial developments that influenced the theatre world. Drawing on previously unseen material (such as the Kenneth Tynan archives), first-hand testimony, and detailed research, Shellard tackles several long-held assumptions about drama of the period. He questions the dominance of Look Back in Anger in the 1950s, arguing that much of the theatre of the ten years prior to its premiere in 1956 was vibrant and worthwhile. He suggests that theatre criticism, theatre producers, and such institutions as the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company have played key roles in the evolution of recent drama. And he takes a fresh look at the work of Terence Rattigan, Harold Pinter, Joe Orton, Alan Ayckbourn, Timberlake Wertenbaker, and other significant playwrights of the modern era. The book will be a valuable resource not only for students of theatre history but also for any theatre enthusiast.
Download or read book Tom Stoppard written by Tim Brassell and published by Springer. This book was released on 1985-03-18 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Arnold Wesker written by Arnold Wesker and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 1998 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A broad reference on London Jewish playwright Wesker (b. 1932) and his work, considering the politics in his plays, biographical aspects, historical perspectives, critical approaches, and the critical response. The 18 original essays discuss the failure and promise of socialism as personal contact in Roots, writing for radio in Yardsdale, the modernity of The Kitchen, women in his later plays, and other topics. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
