The beautiful Martina Josefina Catalina Cucaracha doesn't know coffee beans about love and marriage, so when suitors come calling, what is she to do? Luckily, she has her Cuban family to help! While some of the Cucarachas offer Martina gifts to make her more attractive, only Abuela, her grandmother, gives her some useful advice: spill coffee on his shoes to see how he handles anger. At first, Martina is skeptical of her Abuela's suggestion, but when suitor after suitor fails the Coffee Test, she wonders if a little green cockroach can ever find true love. After reading this award-winning retelling of the Cuban folktale, readers will never look at a cockroach the same way again. Carmen Agra Deedy delivers a delightfully inventive Cuban twist on the beloved Martina folktale, complete with a dash of café Cubano.
The genre of mélodrame à grand spectacle that emerged in the boulevard theatres of Paris in the 1790s - and which was quickly exported abroad - expressed the moral struggle between good and evil through a drama of heightened emotions. Physical gesture, mise en scène and music were as important in communicating meaning and passion as spoken dialogue. The premise of this volume is the idea that the melodramatic aesthetic is central to our understanding of nineteenth-century music drama, broadly defined as spoken plays with music, operas and other hybrid genres that combine music with text and/or image. This relationship is examined closely, and its evolution in the twentieth century in selected operas, musicals and films is understood as an extension of this nineteenth-century aesthetic. The book therefore develops our understanding of opera in the context of melodrama's broader influence on musical culture during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This book will appeal to those interested in film studies, drama, theatre and modern languages as well as music and opera.
Of all Russian writers, Chekhov is one of the best liked and most easily appreciated. Yet because his work is subtle and understated, we need help to understand him. Chekhov can be (as his friends complained) the most elusive of writers, and one who appears capable of having two opposite views and opposite intentions simultaneously. Donald Rayfield, one of the world's foremost Chekhov scholars, reveals the layers of meaning on which the stories and plays are built. All Chekhov's important works are studied: we see how closely the two genres are connected and gain insight into Chekhov's rapid development over his brief twenty years of creative life, from medical student supplementing his income by writing comic stories, to father of twentieth-century drama and narrative prose.
In this volume, highly esteemed scholar Kevin Vanhoozer introduces readers to a way of thinking about Christian theology that takes the work he began in the groundbreaking 2005 book, The Drama of Doctrine, to its next level. Vanhoozer argues that theology is not merely a set of cognitive beliefs, but is also something we do that involves speech and action alike. He uses a theatrical model to explain the ways in which doctrine shapes Christian understanding and forms disciples. The church, Vanhoozer posits, is the preeminent theater where the gospel is "performed," with doctrine directing this performance. Doctrines are not simply truths to be stored, shelved, and stacked, but indications and directions to be followed, practiced, and enacted. In "performing" doctrine, Christians are shaped into active disciples of Jesus Christ. He goes on to examine the state of the church in today's world and explores how disciples can do or perform doctrine. Written in an accessible and engaging style, Faith Speaking Understanding sets forth a compelling vision of what the church is and what it should be doing, and demonstrates the importance of Christian doctrine for this mission. Disciples who want to follow Christ in all situations need doctrinal direction as they walk onto the social stage in the great theater of the world. The Christian faith is about acknowledging, and participating in, the great thing God is doing in our world: making all things new in Christ through the Holy Spirit. Doctrine ministers understanding: of God, of the drama of redemption, of the church as a company of faithful players, and of individual actors, all of whom have important roles to play. In an age where things fall apart and centers fail to hold, doctrine centers us in Jesus Christ, in whom all things hold together.
Three fun-loving armadillo sisters need to cross a busy highway in this spirited spin on a classic tale. Lilly, Jilly, and Dilly decide the safest option to get to the new dance hall is to scurry through the culvert that runs under the road. But inside the culvert lurks a spindly legged coyote with a big appetite for "armadilly chili." The littlest sister, Lilly, manages to fast-talk her way past the coyote, as does her older sister, Jilly. When the coyote sees the size of the eldest, Dilly, she really starts licking her chops. But Dilly Armadilly Tuff is a stubborn gal with her own ideas about what a lonely coyote really needs! Jackie Mims Hopkins' hilarious retelling of "Three Billy Goats Gruff" features a southwestern twang and a delightful surprise ending. S. G. Brooks' lighthearted, appealing illustrations bring the colorful characters to life.
This book applies a dramaturgical perspective to familiar psychological topics including fear, greed, shame, guilt, rejection, well-being and terrorism. In presenting vivid illustrations of how our understanding of psychological problems can be enriched and enlivened by employing dramatic language and concepts, it brings the well-established field of narrative psychology to life. Providing an accessible and fresh understanding of psychological problems through the language and concepts of theatre, Karl Scheibe builds on the work of leading scholars in the field including Sarbin, Gergen, Bruner and Goffman. This exciting and accessible book acts as a sequel to Scheibe's, The Drama of Everyday Life, and will appeal to students and scholars of narrative and social psychology, theatre studies and the studies of self and identity.
Understanding Plays As Texts for Performance offers seventeen plays with critical commentaries that span the range of Western writing for the theatre from the Greeks to the post-moderns. This book introduces readers to dramatic writing as "pre-texts" for theatrical performance written not only to be read, but also to be performed by actors before audiences.
