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Drama & Plays
The author of such modern classics as The Bald Soprano, Exit the King, Rhinoceros, and The Chairs, Eugèegrave;ne Ionesco is "one of the most important and influential figures in the modern theater" (Library Journal). This crucial collection combines The New Tenant with Améeacute;dée and Victims of Duty--the plays Richard Gilman has called, along with The Killer, Ionesco's "greatest plays, works of the same solidity, fulness, and permanence as [those of] his predecessors in the dramatic revolution that began with Ibsen and is still going on." In Amédée, the title character and his wife have a problem--not so much the corpse in their bedroom as the fact that it's been there for fifteen years and is now growing, slowly but surely crowding them out of their apartment. In The New Tenant a similar crowding is caused by an excess of furniture--as Harold Hobson said in the London Times, "there is not dramatist . . . who can make furniture speak as eloquently as Ionesco, and here he makes it the perfect, the terrifying symbol of the deranged mind." In Victims of Duty, Ionesco parodies the conformity of modern life by plunging his characters into an obscure search for "Mallot with a t." In these as in all his plays, Ionesco poses and solves his tragicomic dilemmas with the brilliant blend of gravity and hilarity that is the hallmark of the absurdist theater.
This romantic drama portrays the travails of a wandering prince and the redemptive powers of a daughter's love. Driven from one end of the Mediterranean to another by the winds of fate, Pericles endures loss and heartbreak before his odyssey ends in a miraculous reunion. Shipwreck, famine, and other disasters punctuate this wondrous tale, in which a knight in rusty armor fights for his true love and a princess kidnapped by pirates retains her honor by setting a virtuous example for her captors.
Prologues delivered in the character of medieval English poet John Gower introduce each act of this unusual play, whose authorship has long been disputed. Written late in Shakespeare's career, Pericles was enormously popular in the 17th century and was the first of the playwright's dramas to be staged after the Restoration. The play fell into neglect until recent years, and now its charms are being rediscovered by modern audiences.
Prologues delivered in the character of medieval English poet John Gower introduce each act of this unusual play, whose authorship has long been disputed. Written late in Shakespeare's career, Pericles was enormously popular in the 17th century and was the first of the playwright's dramas to be staged after the Restoration. The play fell into neglect until recent years, and now its charms are being rediscovered by modern audiences.
MIKE POULTON'S TWO-PART STAGE ADAPTATION OF HILARY MANTEL'S ACCLAIMED NOVELS WOLF HALL AND BRING UP THE BODIES
Hilary Mantel's Thomas Cromwell novels are the most formidable literary achievements of recent times, both recipients of the Man Booker Prize. Adapted by Mike Poulton, the plays were premiered by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, Straford-upon-Avon, in December 2013, directed by Jeremy Herrin.