The Last Days Of A Reluctant Tyrant

Author : Tom Murphy
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 112 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2010-01-25
Category : Drama
ISBN : 9781408145869

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The Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant by Tom Murphy Pdf

An epic family drama, shot through with dark humour, The Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant tells the tragic story of a family disintegrating, having lost its moral values. Arina is an ambitious woman. As a servant girl she marries into the degenerative family she works for; her ruthless energy saves it from bankruptcy and she expands the family estate into an 'empire'. As matriarch she rules with an iron hand, her avarice insatiable, until she questions what it is all for. She slackens her hold and loses her power to the hypocrisy and relentless grasping of her 'chosen son'. Inspired by The Golovlyov Family by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, The Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant is a haunting new work from leading Irish dramatist Tom Murphy, who has worked closely with the Abbey Theatre throughout his career. The play premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Ireland, on 3 June 2009.

Author : Michael West
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 98 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2010-07-10
Category : Drama
ISBN : 9781408135624

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Freefall by Michael West Pdf

There are things I haven't said. Things I want to say again. I need to think. I need more time. A sudden shock, and a man's life flashes before his eyes. He experiences an intense rush of extraordinary images and tangled memories, revelations and lost connections. People time and places swirl around him. As he valiantly attempts to stitch it all back together, will his luck hold out? The play's conceit follows a man who has suffered a stroke experiencing a series of flashbacks. Trapped within his own head, the audience are taken with him through a whistlestop tour of his life: a series of vivid, often painful episodes from childhood tragedy to crumbling marriage. In a beguiling portrait of mortality and humanity, Freefall explores memory, family and loss. From the author of Dublin by Lamplight and Foley, Freefall reunites award-winning Irish playwright Michael West with The Corn Exchange: Dublin's innovative theatre company who explore the boundaries and possibilities of theatre with their trademark style of Commedia dell'Arte. Freefall is a sharp, humorous and exhilarating look at the fragility of a human life, blending impressionistic beauty, poignancy and comedy.

Author : Patrick Lonergan
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2019-02-21
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781474262668

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Irish Drama and Theatre Since 1950 by Patrick Lonergan Pdf

Drawing on major new archival discoveries and recent research, Patrick Lonergan presents an innovative account of Irish drama and theatre, spanning the past seventy years. Rather than offering a linear narrative, the volume traces key themes to illustrate the relationship between theatre and changes in society. In considering internationalization, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Celtic Tiger period, feminism, and the changing status of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Lonergan asserts the power of theatre to act as an agent of change and uncovers the contribution of individual artists, plays and productions in challenging societal norms. Irish Drama and Theatre since 1950 provides a wide-ranging account of major developments, combined with case studies of the premiere or revival of major plays, the establishment of new companies and the influence of international work and artists, including Tennessee Williams, Chekhov and Brecht. While bringing to the fore some of the untold stories and overlooked playwrights following the declaration of the Irish Republic, Lonergan weaves into his account the many Irish theatre-makers who have achieved international prominence in the period: Samuel Beckett, Siobhán McKenna and Brendan Behan in the 1950s, continuing with Brian Friel and Tom Murphy, and concluding with the playwrights who emerged in the late 1990s, including Martin McDonagh, Enda Walsh, Conor McPherson, Marie Jones and Marina Carr. The contribution of major Irish companies to world theatre is also examined, including both the Abbey and Gate theatres, as well as Druid, Field Day and Charabanc. Through its engaging analysis of seventy years of Irish theatre, this volume charts the acts of gradual but revolutionary change that are the story of Irish theatre and drama and of its social and cultural contexts.

Author : Marina Carr
Publisher : Faber & Faber
Page : 187 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2017-01-05
Category : Drama
ISBN : 9780571337200

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Anna Karenina by Marina Carr Pdf

Vronsky What were you thinking about with your head stuck to the watering can? Anna Oh, the same, always the same. I was thinking about my happiness and about my unhappiness.Russia is changing. Rules have been broken. Chaos is looming. Families are falling apart. Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is an examination of a country in the midst of extraordinary change. Through the impact of one woman's decision, it looks at the troubling cost of love on the human soul. Marina Carr brings a new perspective to Anna Karenina in her stage adaptation of this epic love story, which opened at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in December 2016.

Author : Frank McGuinness
Publisher : Faber & Faber
Page : 187 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2016-10-27
Category : Drama
ISBN : 9780571335763

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Donegal by Frank McGuinness Pdf

The Day family are Irish country-music royalty and Irene is their queen. Her relatives are completely dependent on her success. But as Irene's star fades, the Days are facing financial destruction. When the heir to her musical throne, Jackie Day, returns from the States with a new girlfriend, resentments simmer. Does Irene have the strength to hold the clan together? And will Jackie save them with the gift of a song?

Author : Sean P. Summers
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 120 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2016-06-23
Category : Drama
ISBN : 9781350006867

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Tina's Idea of Fun by Sean P. Summers Pdf

Just wanna be a better mother, that's all... some sort of a decent mother. Tina can't get through to her son. Stuck on the drink and tormented by her past, what will she do to get his attention? Paddy is a quiet man just looking for someone to talk to. He's a Republican, but he'll shake his fist at anything these days. When Queen Elizabeth II makes her first visit to Ireland, Tina's post-protest party brings out the worst in everyone. What lengths will people go to, to make a connection? Tina's Idea of Fun was first published to coincide with the world premiere on the Peacock stage of The Abbey Theatre, Dublin in April 2016.

Author : Cynthia Marsh
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 399 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2020-05-18
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9783030443337

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Translated and Visiting Russian Theatre in Britain, 1945–2015 by Cynthia Marsh Pdf

This book tackles questions about the reception and production of translated and untranslated Russian theatre in post-WW2 Britain: why in British minds is Russia viewed almost as a run-of-the-mill production of a Chekhov play. Is it because Chekhov is so dominant in British theatre culture? What about all those other Russian writers? Many of them are very different from Chekhov. A key question was formulated, thanks to a review by Susannah Clapp of Turgenev’s A Month in the Country: have the British staged a ‘Russia of the theatrical mind’?

Author : Nicholas Grene,Chris Morash
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 688 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2016-07-28
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780191016349

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The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre by Nicholas Grene,Chris Morash Pdf

The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre provides the single most comprehensive survey of the field to be found in a single volume. Drawing on more than forty contributors from around the world, the book addresses a full range of topics relating to modern Irish theatre from the late nineteenth-century theatre to the most recent works of postdramatic devised theatre. Ireland has long had an importance in the world of theatre out of all proportion to the size of the country, and has been home to four Nobel Laureates (Yeats, Shaw, and Beckett; Seamus Heaney, while primarily a poet, also wrote for the stage). This collection begins with the influence of melodrama, looks at arguably the first modern Irish playwright, Oscar Wilde, before moving into a series of considerations of the Abbey Theatre, and Irish modernism. Arranged chronologically, it explores areas such as women in theatre, Irish-language theatre, and alternative theatres, before reaching the major writers of more recent Irish theatre, including Brian Friel and Tom Murphy, and their successors. There are also individual chapters focusing on Beckett and Shaw, as well as a series of chapters looking at design, acting and theatre architecture. The book concludes with an extended survey of the critical literature on the field. In each chapter, the author does not simply rehearse accepted wisdom; all of the authors push the boundaries of their respective fields, so that each chapter is a significant contribution to scholarship in its own right.

Author : Nicholas Grene
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2017-10-05
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781472568120

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The Theatre of Tom Murphy by Nicholas Grene Pdf

Tom Murphy shot to fame with the London production of A Whistle in the Dark in 1961, establishing him as the outstanding Irish playwright of his generation. The international success of DruidMurphy, the 2012-13 staging of three of his major plays by the Druid Theatre Company, served to underline his continuing appeal and importance. This is the first full scale academic study devoted to his theatre, providing an overview of all his work, with a detailed reading of his most significant texts. His powerful and searchingly honest engagement with Irish history and society is reflected in the violent Whistle in the Dark, the epic Famine (1968), the often hilarious Conversations on a Homecoming (1985) and the darkly Chekhovian The House (2000). Folklore and myth figure more prominently in the spiritual drama of The Sanctuary Lamp (1975), the Faustian Gigli Concert (1983) and the women's stories of Bailegangaire (1985). The range and reach of Murphy's theatre is demonstrated in this informed reading, supported by key interviews with the playwright himself and his most important theatrical and critical interpreters.

Author : Dennis Kennedy
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 705 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2010-08-26
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780199574193

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The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance by Dennis Kennedy Pdf

An authoritative reference covering primarily actors, playwrights, directors, styles and movements, companies and organizations.

Author : Paige Reynolds
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 309 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2020-09-24
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781108677165

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The New Irish Studies by Paige Reynolds Pdf

The New Irish Studies demonstrates how diverse critical approaches enable a richer understanding of contemporary Irish writing and culture. The early decades of the twenty-first century in Ireland and Northern Ireland have seen an astonishing rate of change, one that reflects the common understanding of the contemporary as a moment of acceleration and flux. This collection tracks how Irish writers have represented the peace and reconciliation process in Northern Ireland, the consequences of the Celtic Tiger economic boom in the Republic, the waning influence of Catholicism, the increased authority of diverse voices, and an altered relationship with Europe. The essays acknowledge the distinctiveness of contemporary Irish literature, reflecting a sense that the local can shed light on the global, even as they reach beyond the limited tropes that have long identified Irish literature. The collection suggests routes forward for Irish Studies, and unsettles presumptions about what constitutes an Irish classic.

Author : Eamonn Jordan,Eric Weitz
Publisher : Springer
Page : 866 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2018-09-18
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781137585882

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The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Irish Theatre and Performance by Eamonn Jordan,Eric Weitz Pdf

This Handbook offers a multiform sweep of theoretical, historical, practical and personal glimpses into a landscape roughly characterised as contemporary Irish theatre and performance. Bringing together a spectrum of voices and sensibilities in each of its four sections — Histories, Close-ups, Interfaces, and Reflections — it casts its gaze back across the past sixty years or so to recall, analyse, and assess the recent legacy of theatre and performance on this island. While offering information, overviews and reflections of current thought across its chapters, this book will serve most handily as food for thought and a springboard for curiosity. Offering something different in its mix of themes and perspectives, so that previously unexamined surfaces might come to light individually and in conjunction with other essays, it is a wide-ranging and indispensable resource in Irish theatre studies.

Author : Sebastian Barry
Publisher : Faber & Faber
Page : 94 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2009-12-03
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780571253289

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Tales of Ballycumber by Sebastian Barry Pdf

Here, now, listen, I'll tell you a tale . . . Daffodils are in bloom as dawn breaks over the foothills of Ballycumber, ushering in hope for a new day and stirring the ghosts of a past fraught with sorrow, anguish and emptiness. In search of advice, young Evans Stafford calls at the home of friend and strong-minded traditionalist, Nicholas Farquhar. The following day, as Farquhar learns the devastating consequences of this meeting, he discovers that his memories and words are governed by a buried history; a force far greater than himself. Sebastian Barry's Tales of Ballycumber premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in September 2009.

Author : Prof. A. Norman Jeffares
Publisher : The O'Brien Press
Page : 189 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2014-09-01
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781847176615

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A Short History of Ireland's Writers by Prof. A. Norman Jeffares Pdf

An introduction to all the leading Irish writers and some of the lesser known playwrights, novelists, short story writers, poets, placing them in context and providing a list of their works. Commentaries give brief but telling insights into their work. The story of Irish writing is followed, beginning with Swift, and working through playwrights Synge and O'Casey to Beckett and Friel; from nineteenth-century poetry through Yeats to Seamus Heaney and Paul Durcan; in novels, from Maria Edgeworth, through Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, Kate O'Brien, Flann O'Brien to contemporaries Julia O'Faolain, Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright.

Author : Brian Groves
Publisher : EDUCatt - Ente per il diritto allo studio universitario dell'Università Cattolica
Page : 138 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2014-04-04
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9788867801343

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Reflections on performance at work by Brian Groves Pdf