(Applause Books). Ten French farces as translated by Norman R. Shapiro, including the title play by Feydeau and: The Poor Beggar and the Fairy Godmother (Allais) * Boubouroche, or She Dupes to Conquer (Courteline) * It's All Relative (Labiche) * Mardis Gras (Meilhac and Halevy) * and more.
The standard location tool for full-length plays published in collections and anthologies in England and the United States since the beginning of the 20th century, Ottemiller's Index to Plays in Collections has undergone seven previous editions, the latest in 1988, covering 1900 through 1985. In this new edition, Denise Montgomery has expanded the volume to include collections published in the entire English-speaking world through 2000 and beyond. This new volume lists more than 3,500 new plays and 2,000 new authors, as well as birth and/or death information for hundreds of authors. Representing the largest expansion between editions, this updated volume is a valuable resource for libraries worldwide.
Offers brief summaries of the plots of one hundred operas, and includes background commentary and recommendations for favorite recordings of each opera.
(Applause Books). Here is the first-ever collection of classic comic sketches from the bawdy, rowdy world of our slum music halls! Habitues of Burlesque (and sons of habitues) will revel in the boisterous stock scenes and blackouts of this uniquely American form of popular entertainment. Features a foreword by Dick Martin.
But whether for the actor looking for the je ne sais quoi selection for an upcoming audition or for the reader looking in vain through the "humor" section of the local bookstore, this collection will provide classic French wit and wickedness."--BOOK JACKET.
Essays on French dramatists writing during a period when Paris and the provinces saw thousands of dramatic works in a myriad of genres. These plays offered not only entertainment, but broached serious political and social issues as well, during a time of government censorship. Includes information on the various forms of theatrical entertainment, and the various types of playwriting, including melodrama, romantic drama, tragedies, comedies and realistic dramas.
Wild plots and quicksilver wit characterize the plays of Georges Feydeau. Called the greatest master of French comedy since Moliere by admirers such as Kenneth Tynan, Feydeau reflects the lusty tradition of the French bedroom farce as well as the tough exorbitant humor later to find full expression in the theater of the absurd. The plays offered in this volume represent the major stages of Feydeau's career. The one-act Wooed and Viewed was his first comedy, written in 1880. On the Marry-go-Wrong shows Feydeau on the way to becoming a master of mad imbroglio, a talent that he demonstrates in Not by Bed Alone. Going to Pot is a one-act play of conjugal strife of the emotional intensity that marked his work toward the end of his career.
Farce has always been relegated to the lowest rung of the ladder of dramatic genres. Distinctions between farce and more literary comic forms remain clouded, even in the light of contemporary efforts to rehabilitate this type of comedy. Is farce really nothing more than slapstick-the "putting out of candles, kicking down of tables, falling over joynt-stools," as Thomas Shadwell characterized it in the seventeenth century? Or was his contemporary, Nahum Tate correct when he declared triumphantly that "there are no rules to be prescribed for that sort of wit, no patterns to copy; and 'tis altogether the creature of imagination"? Davis shows farce to be an essential component in both the comedic and tragic traditions. Farce sets out to explore the territory of what makes farce distinct as a comic genre. Its lowly origins date back to the classic Graeco-Roman theatre; but when formal drama was reborn by the process of elaboration of ritual within the mediaeval Church, the French term "farce" became synonymous with a recognizable style of comic performance. Taking a wide range of farces from the briefest and most basic of fair-ground mountebank performances to fully-fledged five-act structures from the late nineteenth century, the book reveals the patterns of comic plot and counter-plot that are common to all. The result is a novel classification of farce-plots, which serves to clarify the differences between farce and more literary comic forms and to show how quickly farce can shade into other styles of humor. The key is a careful balance between a revolt against order and propriety, and a kind of Realpolitik which ultimately restores the social conventions under attack. A complex array of devices in such things as framing, plot, characterization, timing and acting style maintain the delicate balance. Contemporary examples from the London stage bring the discussion u