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Presented here are four epic history plays from Sir Arnold Wesker, which touch on the age-old conflicts caused by religion, science and the Establishment. Set in the Jewish ghetto of Venice, 1563, Shylock (1972) is based on the same three stories from which Shakespeare wove his play, The Merchant of Venice. The core plot remains, but the relationships and characterisations are very different. Caritas (1980) is at once the story of a monastic young woman in the fourteenth century but also a metaphor for the wrong decisions which can imprison us for life. In 1144 a young boy was found brutally murdered in Thorpe Wood. The Jews were accused of slaughtering a Christian child touse his blood for Passover and mock the crucifixion. Blood Libel (1991) investigates a calumny which persists to this day. Meanwhile Longitude (2002) tells of the eighteenth-century race to accurately measure longitude – and claim a £20,000 reward from Parliament.
Includes the plays The Four Seasons, Love Letters on Blue Paper and Lady Othello Spanning three decades of impassioned and inspiring work, the three plays in this volume show in cross-section Arnold Wesker's development as one of the key figures of late-twentieth-century drama. Each play grapples with the timeless problems accompanying two people in love. The most intimate and personal of relationships are placed under uncompromising scrutiny. Bold, elemental and structurally satisfying, The Four Seasons (1964) depicts the ebb and flow of a couple's relationship, its power games and its politics, over the course of its year-long life. In Love Letters on Blue Paper (1977) we witness the late-blooming love of a woman for her dying husband in a drama of memory and companionship. Playful, witty and continualy surprising, Lady Othello (1987) gets right to the heart of an urgent, all-consuming, passionate affair.
Rewriting Shakespeare’s Plays For and By the Contemporary Stage by Michael Dobson,Estelle Rivier-Arnaud Pdf
Why have contemporary playwrights been obsessed by Shakespeare’s plays to such an extent that most of the canon has been rewritten by one rising dramatist or another over the last half century? Among other key figures, Edward Bond, Heiner Müller, Carmelo Bene, Arnold Wesker, Tom Stoppard, Howard Barker, Botho Strauss, Tim Crouch, Bernard Marie Koltès, and Normand Chaurette have all put their radical originality into the service of adapting four-century-old classics. The resulting works provide food for thought on issues such as Shakespearean role-playing, narrative and structural re-shuffling. Across the world, new writers have questioned the political implications and cultural stakes of repeating Shakespeare with and without a difference, finding inspiration in their own national experiences and in the different ordeals they have undergone. How have our contemporaries carried out their rewritings, and with what aims? Can we still play Hamlet, for instance, as Dieter Lesage asks in his book bearing this title, or do we have to “kill Shakespeare” as Normand Chaurette implies in a work where his own creative process is detailed? What do these rewritings really share with their sources? Are they meaningful only because of Shakespeare’s shadow haunting them? Where do we draw the lines between “interpretation,” “adaptation” and “rewriting”? The contributors to this collection of essays examine modern rewritings of Shakespeare from both theoretical and pragmatic standpoints. Key questions include: can a rewriting be meaningful without the reader’s or spectator’s already knowing Shakespeare? Do modern rewritings supplant Shakespeare’s texts or curate them? Does the survival of Shakespeare in the theatrical repertory actually depend on the continued dramatization of our difficult encounters with these potentially obsolete scripts represented by rewriting?
Examines the basis of Harold Pinter's tense comedy and how it functions in his plays as well as covering the major drama from The Room to Other Places. Diamond argues that the metaphysical fear and emptiness so characteristic of the Pinter situation are inseparable from his use and abuse of literary and popular comic traditions.
Includes the plays Chips With Everything, Their Very Own and Golden City, The Journalists, Badenheim 1939 and, published here for the first time, Phoenix Phoenix, Burning Bright. Described variously as ‘a dangerous playwright, ‘a melancholy optimist’, and ‘the unique outsider in the British Theatre’, Arnold Wesker is one of Britain’s most celebrated playwrights. This latest volume in Oberon Books’ Wesker series brings together five of his political plays. It features some of his best-known works including Chips With Everything, perhaps the most celebrated of his plays, and about which Harold Hobson, writing in The Sunday Times in 1961, said ‘this is the first play of which the Establishment need be afraid.’
This engrossing book presents the first collection in more than three decades of one of America’s finest drama critics. Richard Gilman chronicles a major period in American theater history, one that witnessed the birth or spread of Off-Broadway, regional theater, nonprofit companies, and avant-garde performance, as well as growing interest in plays by women and minorities and in world drama. His writing, however, is more than a revealing look at an era. It is criticism for the ages. Insightful, provocative, and impassioned, the articles represent the full range of Gilman’s interests. There are essays, profiles, and book reviews dealing with such topics as the “new naturalism” in theater, Brecht’s collected plays, and the legacy of Stanislavski. There is also a generous sampling of Gilman’s comments on plays by O’Neill, Miller, Chekhov, Albee, Ibsen, Anouilh, Beckett, Ionesco, Pinter, Fugard, and many others.
A broad reference on London Jewish playwright Wesker (b. 1932) and his work, considering the politics in his plays, biographical aspects, historical perspectives, critical approaches, and the critical response. The 18 original essays discuss the failure and promise of socialism as personal contact in Roots, writing for radio in Yardsdale, the modernity of The Kitchen, women in his later plays, and other topics. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
The only collection of essays on one of Britain's Angry Young Men, this book contains discussions of most of Wesker's published plays with an emphasis on the more recent works. Essays reevaluate the plays that made Wesker a household name in Britain (the Trilogy, The Kitchen , and Chips with Everything). Clive Barker, co-director of Centre 42, gives a fresh account of that movement, and playwright Paul Levitt provides a previously unrecorded history of Caritas, Blood Libel, and Shylock. A personal profile of Wesker by novelist Margaret Drabble is reprinted from an earlier article. Original essays cover the theory and practice of theatre-Wesker's in-text stage directions, British television's adaptation of his plays, and an actor's and a director's perspectives on working with the playwright. Major international Weskerian critics are assembled here: Klaus Peter Mÿller and Heiner Zimmermann from Germany; Rossana Bonadei, Angela Locatelli, and Alessandra Marzola from Italy; Keith Gore, Glenda Leeming, Martin Priestman, Jeremy Ridgman, Margaret Rose, and Robert Wilcher from Great Britain; Menakshi Ponnuswami from India; Robert Gross, Kimball King, and Robert Skloot from the United States. These essays take a wide range of critical approaches from an exploration of gender, to semiotics, biography, and the New Historicism. This is the most comprehensive collection of criticism on Arnold Wesker to date. Every major Weskerian scholar writing in English has contributed a piece to this casebook. Originating in Germany, Italy, Great Britain, India, and the United States, their essays create an international cultural context for Wesker's plays. They also position his work among his contemporaries, in his historical era, and in the political and theatrical environment that defines his world. Furthermore, they form a biographical profile of Wesker, often giving us firsthand accounts of turning points in his career. Finally, some essays evaluate and interpret the major plays, dissecting and scrutinizing the formal elements that make them distinct. Their critical approaches are varied in that they make liberal use of semiotics, Bakhtinian and communication theory, cultural studies, and traditional readings. Their contributions compose a multi-faceted view of Wesker's life and work setting out fresh arguments for all his plays.
Shakespeare and the Modern Dramatist by Michael Scott Pdf
Theatre has never been afraid to adapt, rewrite and contemporize Shakespeare's drama since theatre by definition is a living medium involving a corporate creativity. Shakespeare himself rewrote or adapted old plays and stories and since writing his dramas have experienced many transformations. Recent dramatists following this age-old tradition have rewritten some of Shakespeare's plays for the contemporary stage or modelled their drama on formulations used by him. Michael Scott examines a selection of such plays written in the last forty years. Some, such as Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot or Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead have become famed. Others such as Ionesco's Macbett are less well known but are no less signficant. Edward Bond's Lear, Arnold Wesker's The Merchant and Charles Marowitz's Collages represent an attempt by some modern dramatists to challenge a particular ideology which appears to have appropriated Shakespeare to itself. The book concludes with an examination of some recent trends in Shakespearean production, particularly by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
A History of British, Irish and American Literature by Hans-Peter Wagner Pdf
The third revised and enlarged edition contains discussions of British, Irish and American literary works up to 2020. Focussing on outstanding writings in prose, poetry, drama and non-fiction, the book covers the time from the Anglo-Saxon period to the 21st century. The feature that makes this literary history unique among its rivals is the coverage of television/web series as a particular form of postmodern drama. The chapters on recent drama now contain detailed analyses of the development of TV and web series from Britain, Ireland and America, with extensive discussions of those series now considered classics. In addition, there are several major innovative features. To begin with, each century is introduced by a survey of the socio-political and cultural backgrounds in which the literary works are embedded. Furthermore, extensive visual material (more than 160 engravings, cartoons and paintings) has been integrated. This visual aspect as well as the introductory sections on art for each century give the reader an excellent idea of the symbiosis between visual and literary representations. Further innovative aspects include - discussions of non-fictional works from literary criticism and theory, travel writing, historiography, and the social sciences - analyses of such popular genres as crime fiction, science fiction, fantasy, the Western, horror fiction, and children’s literature - footnotes explaining technical and historical terms and events - a detailed glossary of literary terms - chronological tables for British/Anglo-Irish and American literatures an updated (cut-off date 2020), extensive bibliography containing suggestions for further reading
