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The Future of Ritual: Writings on Culture and Performance
by Richard SchechnerIn The Future of Ritual, Richard Schechner explores the nature of ritualised behaviour and its relationship to performance and politics. A brilliant and uncontainable examination of cultural expression and communal action, The Future of Ritual asks pertinent questions about art, theatre and the changing meaning of 'culture' in today's intercultural world. An exciting new work by the author of Performance Theory.
The Gallant Spaniard
by Miguel de CervantesThere are surprising omissions in the translated body of Spanish Golden Age literature, including in the corpus of Miguel de Cervantes. We have many highly competent translations of Don Quixote, but until now not a single English version of his play The Gallant Spaniard. Although Cervantes&’s dramatic works have always attracted less attention than his narrative fiction, there has been significant critical interest in this play in recent years, due in no small part to its unique portrayal of Christian-Muslim relations. Critics have argued persuasively about the value of The Gallant Spaniard in the service of a more general understanding of Cervantes in his last years, specifically in regard to his views on this cultural divide. This edition, translated by Philip Krummrich, consists of a critical introduction and a full verse translation of the play with notes.
The Garotters
by William Dean HowellsWilliam Dean Howells (1837-1920) was an American realist author and literary critic. He wrote his first novel, Their Wedding Journey, in 1871, but his literary reputation really took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which describes the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur in the paint business. His social views were also strongly reflected in the novels Annie Kilburn (1888) and A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890). While known primarily as a novelist, his short story "Editha" (1905) - included in the collection Between the Dark and the Daylight (1907) - appears in many anthologies of American literature. Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Ibsen, Zola, Verga, and, especially, Tolstoy, which helped establish their reputations in the United States. He also wrote critically in support of many American writers. It is perhaps in this role that he had his greatest influence.
The Gender Politics of Contemporary Performance in Northern Ireland (Contemporary Performance InterActions)
by Alexander CoupeThis book examines theatre and performance produced since the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement in the context of growing discontent with the failure of the peace in Northern Ireland to deliver genuinely transformative forms of social justice. The economic expansion that attended the peace accord propelled the growth of the region’s theatre and performance sector and assisted in increasing the representation of women and LGBTQ+ people across the arts. Despite this, much of the performance work produced since 1998 has illuminated the darker social consequences of Northern Ireland’s embrace of a specifically neoliberal vision of a ‘post-conflict’ society. Existing scholarship has already highlighted the role of theatre and performance in drawing attention to the misogyny and homophobia that has underwritten political antagonism in the North since partition. Instead, this book offers a sustained examination of contemporary performance makers that have engaged specifically with the reconstruction of gender norms amidst the region’s political and economic transformation. The story it tells is of an emerging current in theatre, performance art, and dance consisting of work concerned not only with uncovering the morbid symptoms of the neoliberal peace but also embodying those messy and everyday conditions of co-dependency, vulnerability and solidarity that both patriarchal nationalisms and androcentric individualism seek to deny.
The Genius of Shakespeare
by Jonathan BateThis fascinating book by one of Britain's most acclaimed young Shakespeare scholars explores the extraordinary staying-power of Shakespeare's work. Bate opens by taking up questions of authorship, asking, for example, Who was Shakespeare, based on the little documentary evidence we have? Which works really are attributable to him? And how extensive was the influence of Christopher Marlowe? Bate goes on to trace Shakespeare's canonization and near-deification, examining not only the uniqueness of his status among English-speaking readers but also his effect on literate cultures across the globe. Ambitious, wide-ranging, and historically rich, this book shapes a provocative inquiry into the nature of genius as it ponders the legacy of a talent unequaled in English letters. A bold and meticulous work of scholarship, The Genius of Shakespeare is also lively and accessibly written and will appeal to any reader who has marveled at the Bard and the enduring power of his work.
The Gentleman Clothier
by Norm FosterExperienced tailor Norman Davenport has barely opened the doors to his new clothing store in downtown Halifax when Sophie, an exuberant young woman, barges in looking for work, followed by Patrick, a single father who claims to be handy. Hesitantly Norman hires them both to tie up the last few threads before the grand opening. And whether Norman realizes it or not, he needs help getting into the twenty-first century to cater to the current tastes of his customers. When the shop’s first customer, Alisha Sparrow, a friendly, attractive woman, drops in looking for a suit for her husband, Norman is smitten against his better judgment. His sensible, modest world has become profoundly complicated in less than a week, and Norman longs to live in a simpler time. Unfortunately for him, his life is about to get messier as he wakes to find things are not what they used to be.
The Gift (Emily Bks.)
by Barbara BrowningIn the midst of Occupy, Barbara Andersen begins spamming people indiscriminately with ukulele covers of sentimental songs. A series of inappropriate intimacies ensued, including an erotically charged correspondence and then collaboration with an extraordinarily gifted and troubled musician living in Germany.
The Gift Of the Magi
by Peter EkstromTwo heart-warming one-act musicals based on the classic O. Henry stories capture the true spirit of giving. ( The Gift of the Magi and The Last Leaf ) This holiday favorite is set in turn-of-the-century New York City.
The Girl Who Loved Camellias: The Life and Legend of Marie Duplessis
by Julie KavanaghFrom the author of Nureyev, the definitive biography of the celebrated Russian dancer, now comes the astonishing and unknown story of Marie Duplessis, the courtesan who inspired Alexandre Dumas fils's novel and play La dame aux camélias, Giuseppe Verdi's opera La Traviata, George Cukor's film Camille, and Frederick Ashton's ballet Marguerite and Armand. Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, Greta Garbo, Isabelle Huppert, Maria Callas, Anna Netrebko, and Margot Fonteyn are just a few of the celebrated actors, singers, and dancers who have portrayed her. Drawing on new research, Julie Kavanagh brilliantly re-creates the short, intense, and passionate life of the tall, pale, slender girl who at thirteen fled her brute of a father and Normandy to go to Paris, where she would become one of the grand courtesans of the 1840s. France's national treasure, Alexandre Dumas père, was intrigued by her, his son became her lover, and Franz Liszt, too, fell under her spell. Quick to adapt an aristocratic mien, with elegant clothes, a coach, and a grand apartment, she entertained a salon of dandies, writers, and artists. Fascinating to both men and women, Marie, with her stylish outfits and signature camellias, was always a subject of great interest at the opera or at the Café de Paris, where she sat at the table of the director of the Paris Opéra, along with the director of the Théâtre Variétés, the infamous dancer Lola Montez, and others. Her early death at age twenty-three from tuberculosis created an outpouring of sympathy, noted by Charles Dickens, who wrote in February 1847: "For several days all questions political, artistic, commercial have been abandoned by the papers. Everything is erased in the face of an incident which is far more important, the romantic death of one of the glories of the demi-monde, the beautiful, the famous Marie Duplessis." With The Girl Who Loved Camellias, Kavanagh has written a compelling and poignant life of a nineteenth-century muse whose independent and modern spirit has timeless appeal.
The Girlfriend Act: Discover the swoony fake dating YA romance
by Safa Ahmed"Effortlessly charming and deeply moving, The Girlfriend Act has so much heart and humour" - Ann Liang, author of If You Could See The SunAspiring actress Farah Sheikh is tired of being in the background.Ex-child star Zayan Amin needs a break from the spotlight.And after a disastrous audition where she's told she doesn't "fit the aesthetic" for her university's play, Farah meets The Tragedies. A group of West London theatre kids rejected from the stage for similarly dubious reasons.Together, Farah and The Tragedies find themselves in the limelight and get the chance to perform. But, there's a catch. Recently disgraced child star, Zayan, will be involved.The deal: Zayan regains popularity via the publicity of his new romance, and in exchange, he'll star in (and more importantly, fund) a play for The Tragedies.Can Farah uphold her side of the bargain, and prove her critics wrong?"A heartfelt celebration of the communities we are born into and the families we choose for ourselves. A stunning debut with an everlasting impact." - Ananya Devarajan, author of Kismat Connection
The Glass Menagerie: Curriculum Unit (New Directions Book Ser.)
by Tennessee Williams Robert BrayNo play in the modern theatre has so captured the imagination and heart of the American public as Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. <P><P>Menagerie was Williams's first popular success and launched the brilliant, if somewhat controversial, career of our pre-eminent lyric playwright. <P>Since its premiere in Chicago in 1944, with the legendary Laurette Taylor in the role of Amanda, the play has been the bravura piece for great actresses from Jessica Tandy to Joanne Woodward, and is studied and performed in classrooms and theatres around the world. <P>The Glass Menagerie (in the reading text the author preferred) is now available only in its New Directions Paperbook edition. <P>A new introduction by prominent Williams scholar Robert Bray, editor of The Tennessee Williams Annual Review, reappraises the play more than half a century after it won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award: "More than fifty years after telling his story of a family whose lives form a triangle of quiet desperation, Williams's mellifluous voice still resonates deeply and universally." <P>This edition of The Glass Menagerie also includes Williams's essay on the impact of sudden fame on a struggling writer, "The Catastrophe of Success," as well as a short section of Williams's own "Production Notes." <P>The cover features the classic line drawing by Alvin Lustig, originally done for the 1949 New Directions edition.
The Global White Snake (China Understandings Today)
by Liang LuoThe Global White Snake examines the Chinese White Snake legends and their extensive, multidirectional travels within Asia and across the globe. Such travels across linguistic and cultural boundaries have generated distinctive traditions as the White Snake has been reinvented in the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and English-speaking worlds, among others. Moreover, the inter-Asian voyages and global circulations of the White Snake legends have enabled them to become repositories of diverse and complex meanings for a great number of people, serving as reservoirs for polyphonic expressions ranging from the attempts to consolidate authoritarian power to the celebrations of minority rights and activism. The Global White Snake uncovers how the White Snake legend often acts as an unsettling narrative of radical tolerance for hybrid sexualities, loving across traditional boundaries, subverting authority, and valuing the strange and the uncanny. A timely mediation and reflection on our contemporary moment of continued struggle for minority rights and social justice, The Global White Snake revives the radical anti-authoritarian spirit slithering under the tales of monsters and demons, love and lust, and reminds us of the power of the fantastic and the fabulous in inspiring and empowering personal and social transformations.
The Globalization of Theatre 1870–1930: The Theatrical Networks of Maurice E. Bandmann (Cambridge Studies in Modern Theatre)
by Christopher B. BalmeBetween 1895 and 1922 the Anglo-American actor and manager, Maurice E. Bandmann (1872–1922) created a theatrical circuit that extended from Gibraltar to Tokyo and included regular tours to the West Indies and South America. With headquarters in Calcutta and Cairo and companies listed on the Indian stock exchange, his operations represent a significant shift towards the globalization of theatre. This study focuses on seven key areas: family networks; the business of theatrical touring; the politics of locality; repertoire and publics; an ethnography of itinerant acting; legal disputes and the provision of theatrical infrastructure. It draws on global and transnational history, network theory and analysis as well as in-depth archival research to provide a new approach to studying theatre in the age of empire.
The Globe Guide to Shakespeare: The Plays, the Productions, the Life
by Andrew DicksonIn celebration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death and fully endorsed by Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, this is the ultimate guide to the life and work of the world's greatest playwright. With full coverage of the thirty-nine Shakespearian plays (including a synopsis, full character list, stage history, and a critical essay for each), this comprehensive guide is both a quick reference and an in-depth background guide for theatre goers, students, film buffs, and lovers of literature. Along with an exploration of the Bard's sonnets and narrative poems, The Globe Guide to Shakespeare features fascinating accounts of Shakespeare's life and the Globe Theater itself, with colorful details about each play's original performance. This comprehensive guide includes up-to-date reviews of the best films and audio recordings of each play, from Laurence Olivier to Baz Luhrmann, Kozintsev to Kurosawa. The Globe Guide to Shakespeare is the quintessential celebration of all things Shakespearian.
The Goat or Who is Sylvia?
by Edward AlbeeOn his 50th birthday, Martin, a world-famous architect prepares for a recorded interview by an old friend in the TV business; but in the course of the conversation a secret emerges that threatens to turn celebration to tragedy. The Goat is hugely enjoyable parable that plumbs the deepest questions of social constraints on the individual expression of love. "My plays are an examination of the American Scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation of complacency, cruelty and emasculation and vacuity, a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy keen" - Edward Albee Winner of the 2001 Tony Award for Best Play Shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, 2002
The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?: Broadway Edition
by Edward Albee“Four decades after Virginia Woolf sent shock waves through the mainstream theatre, Mr. Albee still asks questions that no other major American dramatist dares to ask." –Ben Brantley, The New York Times Three-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward Albee’s most provocative, daring, and controversial play since Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Goat won all the major awards for best new play of the year (Tony, New York Drama Critics Circle, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle). In the play, Martin-a hugely successful architect who has just turned fifty-leads an ostensibly ideal life with his loving wife and gay teenage son. But when he confides to his best friend that he is also in love with a goat (named Sylvia), he sets in motion events that will destroy his family and leave his life in tatters. The playwright himself describes it this way: “Every civilization sets quite arbitrary limits to its tolerances. The play is about a family that is deeply rocked by an unimaginable event and how they solve that problem. It is my hope that people will think afresh about whether or not all the values they hold are valid.”
The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?: Broadway Edition
by Edward Albee"Four decades after Virginia Woolf sent shock waves through the mainstream theatre, Mr. Albee still asks questions that no other major American dramatist dares to ask." -Ben Brantley, The New York Times Three-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward Albee's most provocative, daring, and controversial play since Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Goat won all the major awards for best new play of the year (Tony, New York Drama Critics Circle, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle). In the play, Martin-a hugely successful architect who has just turned fifty-leads an ostensibly ideal life with his loving wife and gay teenage son. But when he confides to his best friend that he is also in love with a goat (named Sylvia), he sets in motion events that will destroy his family and leave his life in tatters. The playwright himself describes it this way: "Every civilization sets quite arbitrary limits to its tolerances. The play is about a family that is deeply rocked by an unimaginable event and how they solve that problem. It is my hope that people will think afresh about whether or not all the values they hold are valid."
The God Of Isaac
by James ShermanAll Groups \ Comedy \ 3 m., 3 f., to play var. roles. \ Unit set. \ This hilarious and heartwarming play by the author of Beau Jest tells the story of a young man in search of spiritual identity. Isaac begins by informing the audience that "things may go a little differently tonight because my mother is in the audience" and, from the audience, his mother becomes a persistent presence in the play. Isaac tells how he learned about the threatened Neo Nazi demonstration in Skokie and he wonders how if this incident should concern him as an American Jew. Various characters that he encounters in funny and touching scenes offer a confounding array of possible positions to adopt and two women significantly affect the path of his journey. Intermittently, Isaac illustrates his inner conflict with fantastical parodies of old movies. \ "Hilarious, shrewd and touching." Chicago Sun Times.
The God of Ecstasy: Sex-roles and the Madness of Dionysos
by Arthur EvansOffers a new interpretation of Dionysian tragedy, analyzes Euripides' play, The Bacchae, and looks at what the play implies about the roles of men and women in society.
The God of Gods: A Critical Edition (Canadian Literature Collection)
by Carroll AikinsCarroll Aikins’s play The God of Gods (1919) has been out of print since its first and only edition in 1927. This critical edition not only revives the work for readers and scholars alike, it also provides historical context for Aikins’s often overlooked contributions to theatre in the 1920s and presents research on the different staging techniques in the play’s productions. Much of the play’s historical significance lies in Aikins’s vital role in Canadian theatre, as director of the Home Theatre in British Columbia (1920–22) and artistic director of Toronto’s Hart House Theatre (1927–29). Wright reveals The God of Gods as a modernist Canadian work with overt influences from European and American modernisms. Aikins’s work has been compared to European modernists Gordon Craig, Adolphe Appia, and Jacques Copeau. Importantly, he was also intimately connected with modernist Canadian artists and the Group of Seven (who painted the scenery for Hart House Theatre). The God of Gods contributes to current studies of theatrical modernism by exposing the primitivist aesthetics and theosophical beliefs promoted by some of Canada’s art circles at the turn of the twentieth century. Whereas Aikins is clearly progressive in his political critique of materialism and organized religion, he presents a conservative dramatization of the noble savage as hero. The critical introduction examines how The God of Gods engages with Nietzschean and theosophical philosophies in order to dramatize an Aboriginal lover-artist figure that critiques religious idols, materialism, and violence. Ultimately, The God of Gods offers a look into how English and Canadian theatre audiences responded to primitivism, theatrical modernism, and theosophical tenets during the 1920s.
The God of Hell: A Play
by Sam ShepardPulitzer Prize winner Sam Shepard's latest play is an uproarious, brilliantly provocative farce that brings the gifts of a quintessentially American playwright to bear on the current American dilemma.Frank and Emma are a quiet, respectable couple who raise cows on their Wisconsin farm. Soon after they agree to put up Frank's old friend Haynes, who is on the lam from a secret government project involving plutonium, they're visited by Welch, an unctuous government bureaucrat from hell. His aggressive patriotism puts Frank, Emma, and Haynes on the defensive, transforming a heartland American household into a scene of torture and promoting a radioactive brand of conformity with a dangerously long half life.From the Trade Paperback edition.
The God of Vengeance
by Sholem AschB B C correspondent David Mazower (Sholem Asch’s great-grandson) described THE GOD OF VENGEANCE as “admired, translated, parodied, panned, banned, prosecuted, withdrawn, forgotten, revived, celebrated.” An international sensation after its 1907 world premiere in Berlin at Max Reinhard’s Deutsches Theater, Asch’s play quickly became the first Yiddish drama performed in translation across Europe and America. Notoriety was a key part of its success. Nearly every production sparked some level of controversy due to the script’s conflicting themes of hypocrisy and religious faith, rebellion and tradition, its brothel setting, graphic domestic violence, “gutter poetry” reminiscent of Wedekind, and an unprecedented erotic scene of lesbian seduction. This pre-Holocaust drama is today circumscribed by a very different post-Holocaust world, but THE GOD OF VENGEANCE remains one of the great urban dramas of the Yiddish Theatre repertoire.
The Golden Age Musicals of Darryl F. Zanuck: The Gentleman Preferred Blondes
by Bernard F. DickBeginning with The Jazz Singer (1927) and 42nd Street (1933), legendary Hollywood film producer Darryl F. Zanuck (1902–1979) revolutionized the movie musical, cementing its place in American popular culture. Zanuck, who got his start writing stories and scripts in the silent film era, worked his way to becoming a top production executive at Warner Bros. in the later 1920s and early 1930s. Leaving that studio in 1933, he and industry executive Joseph Schenck formed Twentieth Century Pictures, an independent Hollywood motion picture production company. In 1935, Zanuck merged his Twentieth Century Pictures with the ailing Fox Film Corporation, resulting in the combined Twentieth Century-Fox, which instantly became a new major Hollywood film entity.The Golden Age Musicals of Darryl F. Zanuck: The Gentleman Preferred Blondes is the first book devoted to the musicals that Zanuck produced at these three studios. The volume spotlights how he placed his personal imprint on the genre and how—especially at Twentieth Century-Fox—he nurtured and showcased several blonde female stars who headlined the studio’s musicals—including Shirley Temple, Alice Faye, Betty Grable, Vivian Blaine, June Haver, Marilyn Monroe, and Sheree North. Building upon Bernard F. Dick’s previous work in That Was Entertainment: The Golden Age of the MGM Musical, this volume illustrates the richness of the American movie musical, tracing how these song-and-dance films fit within the career of Darryl F. Zanuck and within the timeline of Hollywood history.
The Golden Country
by Francis Mathy Shusaku EndoThe events described in this exciting and provocative three-act play, a companion piece to Endo's highly acclaimed novel Silence, take place in 1633, nearly a hundred years after Christianity was introduced into Japan. By this time, Japanese Christians were being cruelly persecuted by the government; every Christian searched out was made to apostatize or suffer a slow, agonizing death.The central character of The Golden Country is Father Christopher Ferreira, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary. Given shelter by a Christian farming community, everyone looks to him for help, including one of his chief persecutors. When, after cruel torture, Father Ferriera apostatizes to the disbelief of his Japanese converts, the play reaches a climax that is later capped only by the courage, nobility and love of the martyrs. Father Francis Mathy's detailed Introduction to this tightly constructed drama, which poses basic questions about the meaning of faith, love and fate, provides valuable historical background.
The Golden Labyrinth: A Study of British Drama (Routledge Revivals)
by G. Wilson KnightFirst published in 1965, The Golden Labyrinth provides a coherent and readable history of the essential nature of British drama in a single volume. The treatment is philosophical and imaginative, and full of enthusiasm and clarity which have made Professor Wilson Knight’s works, of Shakespearian and other interpretations, so famous. The chapters in this book have been organized according to literary periods and will appeal to both students of literature and casual readers.