- Table View
- List View
Shylock on Trial: The Appellate Briefs
by Richard Posner Charles FriedWilliam Shakespeare is inextricably linked with the law, his plays rich in its terms, settings, and thought processes. In Shylock on Trial: The Appellate Briefs, the Hon. Richard A. Posner and Charles Fried rule on Shakespeare's classic drama The Merchant of Venice. Framed as a decision argued by two appellate judges of the period in a trial following Shylock's sentencing by the Duke of Venice, these essays playfully walk the line between law and culture, dissecting the alleged legal inconsistencies of Shylock's trial while engaging in an artful reading of the play itself. The resultant opinions shed fresh light on the relationship between literary and legal scholarship, demonstrating how Shakespeare's thinking about legal concepts and legal practice points to a deep and sometimes vexed engagement with the law's technical workings, its underlying premises, and its social effects.
Shylock's Daughter and Other Small Chips from Great Gems of Shak
by Jules TascaA fresh twist on characters from Shakespeare’s classics. Contensts (Click for descriptions.) Shylock’s Daughter Prince Lear The MacDuff Tragedy Friar Falstaff
El sí de las niñas
by Leandro Fernández de MoratínLa obra maestra de Leandro Fernández de Moratín y una de las piezas de teatro más importantes de la Ilustración española. El sí de las niñas, la más conocida de las comedias neoclásicas, narra, con estricta sujeción a los principios de unidad de acción, espacio y tiempo, la disolución del compromiso de matrimonio entre don Diego y Francisca, que está enamorada de un tercero. Crítica con la educación que se daba a las jóvenes en los conventos y con la costumbre de los matrimonios arreglados, esta comedia es, en su ligereza, un verdadero compendio del pensamiento ilustrado.
El sí de las niñas
by Leandro Fernández de MoratínDoña Irene piensa casar a su hija con don Diego, un rico solterón, pero el pretendiente tiene un sobrino -Carlos-, del que Paquita se enamora desbaratando los planes de su madre. La obra -que fue el mayor éxito teatral de su tiempo- reivindica el derecho a casarse por amor en lugar de por conveniencia, como todavía era frecuente a comienzos del siglo XIX. Ataca las costumbres e hipocresías de la época y critica la educación recibida por las mujeres.
Sicilian Epic and the Marionette Theater
by Michael BuonannoThis study analyzes the folkloric genres that comprise the repertoire of the marionette theater in Sicily. Here, epic, farce, saints' lives, bandits' lives, fairytales, Christian myth, and city legend offer the vehicles by which puppeteers comment upon, critique--perhaps even negotiate--the relationships among the major classes of Sicilian society: the aristocracy, the people, the clergy and the Mafia. The lynchpin of the repertoire is the Carolingian Cycle and, in particular, a contemporary version of The Song of Roland known in Sicily as The Death of the Paladins, a text which illustrates the means by which the Carolingian heroes--Charlemagne, Roland, Renaud, Ganelon, and Angelica--augment saints, bandits, Biblical figures and Sicilian folk heroes to provide the marionette theater its rhetorical function: the articulation and dissemination of the tools of Sicilian identity.
Sick Economies: Drama, Mercantilism, and Disease in Shakespeare's England
by Jonathan Gil HarrisFrom French Physiocrat theories of the blood-like circulation of wealth to Adam Smith's "invisible hand" of the market, the body has played a crucial role in Western perceptions of the economic. In Renaissance culture, however, the dominant bodily metaphors for national wealth and economy were derived from the relatively new language of infectious disease. Whereas traditional Galenic medicine had understood illness as a state of imbalance within the body, early modern writers increasingly reimagined disease as an invasive foreign agent. The rapid rise of global trade in the sixteenth century, and the resulting migrations of people, money, and commodities across national borders, contributed to this growing pathologization of the foreign; conversely, the new trade-inflected vocabularies of disease helped writers to represent the contours of national and global economies.Grounded in scrupulous analyses of cultural and economic history, Sick Economies: Drama, Mercantilism, and Disease in Shakespeare's England teases out the double helix of the pathological and the economic in two seemingly disparate spheres of early modern textual production: drama and mercantilist writing. Of particular interest to this study are the ways English playwrights, such as Shakespeare, Jonson, Heywood, Massinger, and Middleton, and mercantilists, such as Malynes, Milles, Misselden, and Mun, rooted their conceptions of national economy in the language of disease. Some of these diseases—syphilis, taint, canker, plague, hepatitis—have subsequently lost their economic connotations; others—most notably consumption—remain integral to the modern economic lexicon but have by and large shed their pathological senses.Breaking new ground by analyzing English mercantilism primarily as a discursive rather than an ideological or economic system, Sick Economies provides a compelling history of how, even in our own time, defenses of transnational economy have paradoxically pathologized the foreign. In the process, Jonathan Gil Harris argues that what we now regard as the discrete sphere of the economic cannot be disentangled from seemingly unrelated domains of Renaissance culture, especially medicine and the theater.
Sight Unseen and Other Plays
by Donald MarguliesIncludes: Found a Peanut, The Loman Family Picnic, The Model Apartment, What's Wrong with This Picture?, and Sight Unseen.. With a palpable affection for the traditions of the stage and a taste for surreal comedy, Margulies "manages to transform what might have been kitchen-sink drama into theatre that is unsettling, imaginative and quite hilarious"--Howard Kissel, New York Daily News
Sightlines
by Rage Theatre ProductionsEvery three years, over the last decade, the Mumbai-based theatre group RAGE - in collaboration with the Royal Court Theatre in London - organizes the Writers' Bloc Workshop. Offering a much-needed artistic retreat to playwrights, this workshop allows aspiring and professional playwrights a chance to perfect their scripts with established actors and professionals from within the industry. Apart from encouraging them to break free from the rigid boundaries of English theatre in India to fashion their own idiom, the workshop also ensures its playwrights access to the final pilgrimage of any script - the stage. As it stands today, the infamous debate on whether an Indian play written in English mirrors a bona fide Indian reality is no longer relevant. Using a vocabulary that is entirely their own - 'unaffected, homegrown and lyrical' - the three plays in this collection convincingly capture the peculiar accents and the particular chaos of our times. Rahul Da Cunha's 'Pune Highway' is set in a seedy hotel room where three friends, having just witnessed the gruesome murder of a fourth, are holed up, desperate to escape its consequences; Ram Ganesh Kamatham's 'Crab' takes a hard-talking look at the existential angst of a new generation, looking at once for purpose and an emotional safe place from an increasingly concrete world; Farhad Sorabjee's 'Hard Places' explores the unspoken borders that divide us from our loved ones and the violently disputed borders between countries. Bridging the invisible lines between the personal and the political and taking us to places and situations a little less familiar and safer than our own, these brilliantly written plays can be performed, and empathized with, across territories.
The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window
by Lorraine HansberryBy the time of her death thirty years ago, at the tragically young age of thirty-four, Lorraine Hansberry had created two electrifying masterpieces of the American theater. With A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry gave this country its most movingly authentic portrayal of black family life in the inner city. Barely five years later, with The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, Hansberry gave us an unforgettable portrait of a man struggling with his individual fate in an age of racial and social injustice. These two plays remain milestones in the American theater, remarkable not only for their historical value but for their continued ability to engage the imagination and the heart. With an Introduction by Robert Nemiroff
Signs of Life: Six Comedies of Menace
by Joan M. SchenkarJoan Schenkar, widely regarded as America's most original female contemporary playwright, is the author of numerous experimental plays which she refers to as "comedies of menace." Bristling with wit and intelligence, the collection features Signs of Life, Cabin Fever, The Universal Wolf, Burning Desires, The Last of Hitler, and Fulfilling Koch's Postulate. These plays explore issues of feminism and gender politics, history and memory, sexuality and violence, bringing to life such figures as Gertrude Stein and Marlene Dietrich, Hitler and Eva Braun, P. T. Barnum and Henry and Alice James, Claude Levi-Strauss and Roland Barthes. Schenkar's charged language and evocative stage directions invite the reader to become both performer and audience, and the experience is enhanced both by richly evocative stage directions and illustrations from productions of the plays. Initially written to be read like novels as well as staged, the plays provide a unique theatrical experience, an experience that can only be accessed by laughter.
Signs of Performance: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Theatre
by Colin CounsellSigns of Performance provides the beginning student with working examples of theatrical analysis. Its range covers the whole of twentieth century theatre, from Stanislavski to Brecht and Samuel Beckett to Robert Wilson. Colin Counsell takes an historical look at theatre as a cultural practice, clearly tracing connections between: * Key practitioners' ideas about performance * The theatrical practices prompted by those ideas * The resulting signs which emerge in performance * The meanings and political consequences of those signs It provides an understandable theoretical framework for the study of theatre as a an signifying practice, and offers vivid explanations in clear, direct language. It opens up this fascinating field to a broad audience.
Sila: The Arctic Cycle
by Chantal BilodeauIn Inuit mythology, "sila" means air, climate, or breath. Bilodeau's play of the same name examines the competing interests shaping the future of the Canadian Arctic and local Inuit population. <P><P>Equal parts Inuit myth and contemporary Arctic policy, the play Sila features puppetry, spoken-word poetry, and three different languages (English, French, and Inuktitut). There is more afoot in the Arctic than one might think. On Baffin Island in the territory of Nunavut, eight characters - including a climatologist, an Inuit activist and her daughter, and two polar bears - find their values challenged as they grapple with a rapidly changing environment and world. Sila captures the fragility of life and the interconnectedness of lives, both human and animal, and reveals in gleaming tones that telling the stories of everyday challenges - especially raising children and maintaining family ties - is always more powerful than reciting facts and figures. Our changing climate will have a significant impact on how we organize ourselves. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Arctic, where warming temperatures are displacing entire ecosystems. The Arctic Cycle - eight plays that examine the impact of climate change on the eight countries of the Arctic - poignantly addresses this issue. Sila is the first play of The Arctic Cycle. With its large-as-life polar bear puppets, the play is evocative and mesmerizing, beautifully blurring the boundaries between folklore and science.
Silence: Mabel and Alexander Graham Bell
by Trina DaviesIt only takes one spark of love to change the world forever. Mabel Hubbard Bell was a strong, self-assured woman—bright, passionate, and a complete original. Despite a near-fatal case of childhood scarlet fever that cost her the ability to hear, she learned to talk and lip-read in multiple languages. At nineteen, she married a young inventor named Alexander Graham Bell and became the most significant influence in his life. This is Mabel's story, offering the unique perspective of a woman whose remarkable life was forever connected to her famous, distracted husband. From inspiring invention to promoting public service, Mabel and Alec challenged each other to become strong forces for good. Silence is a beautiful and true love story about how we communicate.
The Silenced Theatre: Czech Playwrights without a Stage
by Marketa Goetz-StankiewiczSince the Soviet occupation of 1968 censorship has closed the curtain on free expression in Czechoslovakia. But plays continue to be circulated in typescript within the country, are regularly smuggled out for publication abroad, and continue to be produced without restriction in the West. This book is the first full-length study of Czechoslovak drama of the sixties and seventies. The author discusses the works of major playwrights, including Václav Havel, Pavel Kohout, and Josef Topol; and the influence of the great Czech writers Kafka and Hašek as well as Western writers such as Beckett, Sartre, and Albee. Czech and Slovak playwrights have responded in a distinctive, courageous, and often very funny manner to a political situation perhaps best labelled 'absurd.' The author depicts movingly their portrait of the horror–and the unintended humour–of life in a rigidly bureaucratic society, a theme of universal interest. The Silenced Theatre is the only detailed study of this dynamic and modern national theatre. This book will help to preserve Czech drama and create an awareness of its important role in Western literaturea role it continues to play even in exile from its homeland.
Silent Laughter
by Jane Milmore Billy Van ZandtComedy / 8m, 2f / New York audiences went wild for this gag-filled water sloshing, bed crashing, pie throwing craziness. Performed in black and white with title cards projected over the actors' heads, and a live theatre organ accompanying every doubletake, this comic tour de force stars a dashing hero who overcomes jail, poverty, World War I and a dastardly villain, Lionel Drippinwithit, to win the girl of his dreams. She is the heiress to the Thickwad Screw Factory, a firm that has been "Screwing the American Public since 1861." The biggest pie fight the theatre world has ever seen caps the silent action. More than a tribute to the slapstick antics of Chaplin, Keaton and Arbuckle - this is a reverential recreation of a bygone era.
Silent Laughter
by Billy Van ZandtComedy \ 8m, 2f \ Various sets with projections \ New York audiences went wild for this gag-filled water sloshing, bed crashing, pie throwing craziness. Performed in black and white with title cards projected over the actors' heads, and a live theatre organ accompanying every doubletake, this comic tour de force stars a dashing hero who overcomes jail, poverty, World War I and a dastardly villain, Lionel Drippinwithit, to win the girl of his dreams. She is the heiress to the Thickwad Screw Factory, a firm that has been "Screwing the American Public since 1861." The biggest pie fight the theatre world has ever seen caps the silent action. More than a tribute to the slapstick antics of Chaplin, Keaton and Arbuckle - this is a reverential recreation of a bygone era. \ "Hilarious! . . . Surprises abound in the inspired physical comedy." - Village Voice
The Silk Shirt
by Tim KellyDrama / 1m, 3f / Interior / An unemployed young actor and his wife live with his semi invalid mother and shy older sister until something turns up. Their life style conflicts with the mother's. The climax occurs when the wife returns with an expensive silk shirt for a good friend, now blind. The mother's outraged at the wife's extravagance and conflict's renewed until the sister -- understanding human motives -- asserts herself.
The Silver Apples of the Moon
by Jean Lenox ToddieDrama / 3m, 4f / The story of a college student from a rose-scented home hi the east who is sitting in a ten-foot circle in the searing sun of a high western desert. Why is the Indian elder sitting with her through hot days and cold nights? For what are they waiting? And who is the Indian woman warning her to return to the college town where her mother is spraying roses and her father, a professor, is writing poetry in the silver light of the moon. And what of her brother, restless in a home where you don't get desert unless you have a doctorate? And her grown sister still sticking chewing gum behind her headboard? Why do their letters call her home? This play, haunting and humorous, celebrates life, family love and the wisdom myths of native Americans. The prize-winning playwright's work has been performed on four continents.
The Silver Link
by Claire LorrimerUntil her father died, Adela Carstairs had lived in a secure and loving home. Then happiness was shattered when her mother remarries a cruel, hard-drinking man. With her younger brother and sister, Adela is forced to flee his drunken rages and they escape to London where they seek refuge in the squalor of the back streets. Addie's desperate hope is that her childhood companions, the Mallory twins, will find and rescue them. When all three find themselves caught up in the danger and terror of revolutionary France, the twins prove invaluable. It was to be an experience which would test their friendship, and love, to the limit.
Simone, Half and Half
by Christine RodriguezFourteen-year-old Simone is caught between cultures: Canadian, Québécois, and Trinidadian. She’s also torn between friends and the projects they want her to take part in. Her best friend Sarah wants them to compete in the talent show with a dance routine, but her new friend Jay has introduced her to the Black History and Culture Committee’s activism and its organizer, tenth-grader Vanessa. Though Sarah represents the comfort of what she knew growing up, Jay and Vanessa offer Simone an opportunity to get to know part of herself that she hasn’t explored yet. As pressure mounts on seeing both projects through, her friendships start to feel the strain and her loyalties are tested. Can Simone find the courage to stand up for what she believes in? Will her friends accept the choices she makes? And will she finally learn to be more comfortable with herself? Simone, Half and Half is a touching story about finding one’s place between identities and communities.
Simpatico
by Sam ShepardSet within the netherworld of thoroughbred racing, this hair-raisingly funny new play by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of True West explores the classical themes of memory, loyalty, and restitution. Simpatico launches readers into regions where high society meets the low life, and where, as one of the main characters observes, "someone is cutting someone else's throat."From the Trade Paperback edition.
A Simple Thing: A Novel
by Kathleen McClearyA Simple Thing is a lovely, truly heartwarming novel about the drastic measures two mothers take to keep their families safe. Kathleen McCleary, the critically acclaimed author of House and Home, tells the intertwining stories of Susannah Delaney and Betty Pavalak. Susannah moves her family to remote Sounder Island—a primitive retreat with no electricity—to escape television, the internet, and the dangerous, corrupting influences of the modern technological world. Decades earlier, Betty also came to the island to escape her demons. A Simple Thing is a poignant and unforgettable novel in the vein of Jacqueline Sheehan’s Lost and Found and The Art of Saying Goodbye by Ellyn Bache. It is a tale of family and friendship that Kristin Hannah fans will take into their hearts.
Simpleton The (Russian Theatre Archive Ser. #Vol. 19.)
by Sergei KokovkinFirst Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
The Sin of Youth
by Matheus Mundim Bruna PickerThe Sin of Youth by Matheus Mundim The Sin of Youth is about getting old and the desire to go back in time to change things, relive moments, and flames. The Sin of Youth is a contemporary novel with philosophical existentialist characteristics. The book portrays a moment in the life of young Jamie in which he wakes up in a room in another world. As he leaves the room, he sees a group of people and notes that they are all the folks he once knew and loved in his life, all together and gathered, drinking and partying. Impressed and extremely happy he approaches, confronting Thomas and Luke. They explain that the party was to honor the farewell of his youth. It was the last moment to hang out with everybody and say goodbye. Sad and frustrated, he asks what he can do. They then tell him about the Elder Wizard, who would own the time, and could help him maintain his youth. However, they warn: the way to reach the old man is difficult and tortuous, few have succeeded, and, mainly, time is short. Still, Jamie insists, following a path that makes him come across old memories, old loves, old "I's", wondering what his past "selves" would do if they knew the unfolding of such pure and delicate scenes. If they only knew how some words would mean after a few years. It is a mix of pain, sensitivity, frustration, and happiness to review some moments.
Sin, Sex & The CIA
by Michael ParkerFull Length, Comedy . Characters: 3 male, 4 female . Huge oil reserves have been discovered in the Chagos Islands. O.P.E.C. is pressuring the Chagosians to join the cartel. A C.I.A. agent and an under Secretary of State, whose life appears to be run by her libido, are sent to a C.I.A. safe house in the mountains of Virginia to begin negotiations for the U.S. to place the Chagos Islands under their protection. Unfortunately, no one knows who the islands' representative really is. We are left to wonder how the C.I.A. agent ever got the job. He gets caught in all his own booby traps, he electrocutes himself, he sets fire to himself, he gets a bucket stuck on his head, and finally locks himself in his own handcuffs! Add to the inevitable chaos, a stranded televangelist, his innocent secretary (or is she?), an ex-marine caretaker, who isn't what he seems to be, and a mysterious, glamorous neighbor, and you have a complex, laugh out loud farce, that can be played on any stage.