Wesker's Social Plays
Wesker's Social Plays

Author: Arnold Wesker

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2012-05-10

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1849435952

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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.

Wesker's Domestic Plays
Wesker's Domestic Plays

Author: Arnold Wesker

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2012-09-07

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 1849436916

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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.

Post-War British Theatre Criticism (Routledge Revivals)
Post-War British Theatre Criticism (Routledge Revivals)

Author: John Elsom

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-10-14

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1317557514

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This book, first published in 1981, sets out the critical reaction to some fifty key post-war productions of the British theatre, as gauged primarily through the contemporary reviews of theatre critics. The plays chosen are each, in their different ways, important in their contribution to the development of the British theatre, covering the period from immediately after the Second World War, when British theatre fell into decline, through the revival of the late 1950s, to the time in which this book was first published, in which British theatre enjoyed a high international reputation for its diversity and quality. This book is ideal for theatre studies students, as well as for the general theatre-goer.

British Playwrights, 1956-1995
British Playwrights, 1956-1995

Author: William W. Demastes

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 1996-10-23

Total Pages: 515

ISBN-13: 1567507433

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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.

Tragic Drama and Modern Society
Tragic Drama and Modern Society

Author: John Orr

Publisher: Springer

Published: 1989-03-16

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1349198293

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A study that examines the relationship between tragic drama of the late 19th and 20th centuries and present-day society. The author's theories are presented with excerpts from relevant plays, such as "Look Back in Anger", "The Glass Menagerie", "The Iceman Cometh" and "Hedda Gabler".

Modern and Contemporary Black British Drama
Modern and Contemporary Black British Drama

Author: Mary Brewer

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-09-16

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1137506296

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This indispensable overview of modern black British drama spans seven decades of distinctive playwriting from the 1950s to the present. Interweaving social and cultural context with close critical analysis of key dramatists' plays, leading scholars explore how these dramatists have created an enduring, transformative and diverse cultural presence.

British Realist Theatre
British Realist Theatre

Author: Stephen Lacey

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-03-11

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1134899823

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The British `New Wave' of dramatists, actors and directors in the late 1950s and 1960s created a defining moment in post-war theatre. British Realist Theatre is an accessible introduction to the New Wave, providing the historical and cultural background which is essential for a true understanding of this influential and dynamic era. Drawing upon contemporary sources as well as the plays themselves, Stephen Lacey considers the plays' influences, their impact and their critical receptions. The playwrights discussed include: * Edward Bond * John Osborne * Shelagh Delaney * Harold Pinter

Theatre and Community
Theatre and Community

Author: Emine Fisek

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-05-25

Total Pages: 87

ISBN-13: 1350315923

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This important contribution to the Theatre And series explores what the possibilities and limits of 'community' contribute to our understanding of theatre, and what theatrical practice and representation reveal about the tensions inherent in community settings. Drawing on case studies from wide-ranging locations, from the Middle East, to Latin America and South Asia, the text underlines the plurality of meanings associated with community, as well as the plurality of ways that theatre has engaged with those meanings. Interdisciplinary in its reach, this is the ideal companion for students of theatre and performance studies with an interest in applied theatre or performance in communities.

Twentieth-Century Drama Dialogue as Ordinary Talk
Twentieth-Century Drama Dialogue as Ordinary Talk

Author: Susan Mandala

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-12-05

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1351877240

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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.