"With this book, Paul Firestone, lifelong educator and theater aficionado, delivers one of the most comprehensive compendiums of essays on these vital works. Firestone's understanding of each play's substance is rich and impressive. His vast and ambitious examination takes into account many different elements-characters, plots, and symbolism, as well as the lives and psychology of the playwrights, the historical context in which the plays emerged, and their relevance on sociological, political, familial, psychological, and spiritual levels.".
A selection of early work—including two Pulitzer Prize-winning plays—from Eugene O'Neill, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature A Penguin Classic Included in this volume are seven one-act plays (The Moon of the Caribbees, Bound East for Cardiff, In the Zone, The Long Voyage Home, Ile, Where the Cross Is Made, and The Rope), and five full-length plays (Beyond the Horizon, The Straw, Anna Christie, and the classics The Emperor Jones and The Hairy Ape), all written between 1914 and 1921 and produced for the stage between 1916 and 1922. The majority of these plays are heavily influenced by German expressionism—Freud, Nietzsche, Strindberg, and the radical leftist politics in which O'Neill was involved during his youth. Also included in this unique collection is the little-known and highly autobiographical play The Straw, which draws on O'Neill's confinement in the Gaylord Farm Sanatorium.
Is there a heaven? Joe says no; it's all a bunch of hokum. His wife, Roberta, has always claimed to agree. But lately she's beginning to wonder, especially when they find themselves in church a lot, having reached the age when funerals are more frequent than weddings. Their granddaughter, Ellie, doesn't have time in her own busy life to ponder the afterlife. But when mortality confronts them, her grandmother's claim to have gone to heaven and back doesn't sound so crazy after all. With thoughtful storytelling and quiet wit, Brunstetter looks at beginnings, endings--and an enigmatic angel.
A selection of five plays by twentieth-century author and actress Alice Childress, including "Florence," "Gold through the Trees," "Trouble in Mind," "Wedding Band : A Love/Hate Story in Black and White," and "Wine in the Wilderness."
A selection of early work—including two Pulitzer Prize-winning plays—from Eugene O'Neill, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature A Penguin Classic Included in this volume are seven one-act plays (The Moon of the Caribbees, Bound East for Cardiff, In the Zone, The Long Voyage Home, Ile, Where the Cross Is Made, and The Rope), and five full-length plays (Beyond the Horizon, The Straw, Anna Christie, and the classics The Emperor Jones and The Hairy Ape), all written between 1914 and 1921 and produced for the stage between 1916 and 1922. The majority of these plays are heavily influenced by German expressionism—Freud, Nietzsche, Strindberg, and the radical leftist politics in which O'Neill was involved during his youth. Also included in this unique collection is the little-known and highly autobiographical play The Straw, which draws on O'Neill's confinement in the Gaylord Farm Sanatorium.
Without William Shakespeare, we wouldn’t have literary masterpieces like Romeo and Juliet. But without Henry Condell and John Heminges, we would have lost half of Shakespeare’s plays forever! After the death of their friend and mentor, the two actors are determined to compile the First Folio and preserve the words that shaped their lives. They’ll just have to borrow, beg, and band together to get it done. Amidst the noise and color of Elizabethan London, THE BOOK OF WILL finds an unforgettable true story of love, loss, and laughter, and sheds new light on a man you may think you know.