“There’s an irresistible joy to reading these plays…examining them at leisure without the urgent propulsive forward movement of the theater, reveals beauties and resonances uniquely literary.” —Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director, The Public Theater, from his foreword Plays for The Public includes: The Gods Are Pounding My Head! (AKA Lumberjack Messiah) “Richard Foreman is the ultimate theater auteur and mind-roiling warlock of avant-garde drama… Gods is an extravaganza of tightly orchestrated hallucinogenic visual effects, bruising slapstick and intense, cryptic lines… It is majestically mad and funny.” —New York Times Idiot Savant “Vintage Foreman: ravishing, perplexing, scary, a sensual and intellectual message for those weary of causality and psychology.” —Time Out New York Old-Fashioned Prostitutes “What makes Mr. Foreman’s work so entertaining is his ability to turn these classic, head-scratching concerns into phantasmagorical vaudevilles in which all the world’s a stage that keeps changing shape on you… Mr. Foreman is a grandmaster.” —New York Times This volume features the two plays sumptuously produced at The Public Theater in New York City that mark the culmination of Richard Foreman’s unstintingly inventive, astonishing career in theater, just as he was beginning to devote his creative energies entirely to filmmaking.
"Richard Foreman reinvented dialogue, action, sound, stage design, and philosophical groundwork as no other stage artist in our history."—PEN/Laura Pels Master American Dramatist Award citation These writings, collected from two earlier books now long out-of-print along with two recent interviews, provide a fascinating window into Richard Foreman's singular mind and creative process. Also included is The Gods Are Pounding My Head! (AKA Lumberjack Messiah), his last play before transitioning to more multi-media work. Richard Foreman has written, directed, and designed more than fifty of his own plays, both internationally and at his Ontological-Hysteric Theater, which he founded in 1968. He has received many OBIE awards, an NEA Lifetime Achievement Award, and a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship.
This brand new collection of plays reaffirms Richard Foreman's status as "the reigning philosopher vaudvillian of the New York avant-garde". In addition to six new plays -- "Paradise Hotel", "The Universe", "Permanent Brain Damage", "Risk It! Risk It!", "Pearls for Pigs" and "Benita Canova" (the last two of which won Obie awards for Best Play -- this collection also boasts two essays. "On My Plays" and "Rules", which elaborate on Foreman's singular approach to the art of playwrighting. Filled with Foreman's signature wit and vision, Paradise Hotel is the work a true genius of American theater.
Richard Foreman has been creating avant-garde theatre in New York since founding his Ontological Hysteric company in 1968. Richard Foreman: An American (Partly) in Paris argues that Foreman can productively be viewed as a (partly) European artist, whose thinking and theatre-making have been radically shaped by contact with Europe.
The best-selling Sword of Rome novellas are collected together for the first time in one epic collection. The Sword of Rome series of novellas follow Julius Caesar and his centurion Lucius Oppius during their campaigns in Britain, Gaul and the Civil War. The stories are a blend of action, intrigue and Ancient History. 'Sword of Rome: The Complete Campaigns' includes: 'Sword of Rome: Standard Bearer'. Britain, 55 BC. Julius Caesar's invasion of the wild and mineral-rich land is becalmed, a stalemate exists between the forces of Rome and Britain. But the standard bearer of the Tenth Legion, Lucius Oppius, is about to display a depth of courage that will change the course of the invasion. 'Sword of Rome: Alesia'. Alesia, 52BC. Caesar's army stands upon the brink of annihilation, caught between two enemy armies. Oppius is ordered to venture north of Alesia to capture Vercingetorix's war chest of gold. He will be accompanied in his mission by one of Caesar's agents, the beguiling Livia - the centurion's former lover. As Caesar and Mark Antony face a battle for their lives outside the walls of Alesia, Oppius will have to fight against the odds to find and secure the gold. Yet will completing the mission exact too high a price? 'Sword of Rome: Gladiator'. Rome, 51BC. Lucius Oppius has left the battlefields of Gaul to venture to Rome. But he is about to discover the capital of the Empire can be every bit as dangerous as its provinces. Under orders from Caesar to secure an item of intelligence that will help him become a Consul again Oppius is manipulated into taking part in a gladiatorial contest. Oppius soon discovers that while in Gaul your the enemies stand before you in a shield wall in Rome they stab you in the back... 'Sword of Rome: Rubicon'. Ravenna, 50BC. Caesar's forces stand upon the borders of Gaul and Italy. The prospect of a civil war grows ever likelier each day. In Rome, Cicero attempts to secure a peace. Against him, a powerful faction in the Senate is bent upon destroying Caesar, for personal and political reasons. War hinges upon the will of Pompey, the only man capable of stopping Caesar. Caesar stands upon the banks of the Rubicon, an enemy of the state. The die is cast. An empire will now be at war, spearheaded by the two great men of the age... 'Sword of Rome: Pharsalus'. Pharsalus, 48BC. The battle will decide the fate of a civil war and empire. Caesar's forces are outnumbered, but he believes his veterans will not be outmatched. For one veteran, Lucius Oppius, the battle will be about revenge rather than glory. Oppius has vowed to avenge his father's death. His enemy is Flavius Laco - a former gladiator and an agent of Pompey the Great. Against the backdrop of one of Ancient History's most momentous battles two soldiers will wage their own personal war... Caesar, Pompey, Mark Antony, Brutus and Cicero all feature in the climax to the bestselling Sword of Rome series. Richard Foreman's books have been widely praised. Praise for 'Augustus: Son of Rome'. 'Augustus: Son of Rome forges action and adventure with politics and philosophy. This superb story is drenched in both blood and wisdom - and puts Foreman on the map as the coming man of historical fiction'. - Saul David, Author of the Zulu Hart series. Praise for 'Raffles: The Complete Innings'. "Classy, humorous and surprisingly touching tales of cricket, friendship and crime." - David Blackburn, The Spectator.
His work for the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Guthrie Theatre, the Paris Opera, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music has brought his unique vision to mainstream audiences with innovative productions of the classics and the works of other playwrights."--BOOK JACKET. "This new volume in PAJ's Art + Performance series is the first critical edition devoted to Foreman's work."--BOOK JACKET.
Richard Foreman has been writing, directing and designing avant-garde theatre in New York since he first founded his Ontological-Hysteric company there in 1968. In all that time, few directors have taken up the challenge of staging his problematic, rewarding texts, and Foreman's work remains under-explored by other practitioners. Richard Foreman: An American (Partly) in Paris argues that Foreman can productively be viewed as a (partly) European artist, whose thinking and theatre-making have been radically shaped by contact with Europe. Through a detailed account of his European productions, interviews with Foreman himself, a set of practical strategies for staging the plays and the full text of Foreman's previously unpublished play Georges Bataille’s Bathrobe (1983), Neal Swettenham introduces the director’s work to a new generation of readers and theatre-makers.
