Dramatists Of To Day

Fifty Modern and Contemporary and Dramatists is a critical introduction to the work of some of the most important and influential playwrights from the 1950s to the present day. The figures chosen are among the most widely studied by students of drama, theatre and literature and include such celebrated writers as: • Samuel Beckett • Caryl Churchill • Anna Deavere Smith • Jean Genet • Sarah Kane • Heiner Müller • Arthur Miller • Harold Pinter • Sam Shephard Each short essay is written by one of an international team of academic experts and offers a detailed analysis of the playwright’s key works and career. The introduction provides an historical and theatrical context to the volume, which provides an invaluable overview of modern and contemporary drama.

Miranda has done everything in her power to create a family completely different than the one she came from. But after a painful loss, Miranda suffers a lapse in judgment and invites her hilarious, complicated, and self-destructive mother, Ruth, to stay with her before her son’s bar mitzvah. As other needy family members show up in search of connection and second chances, Miranda’s already-strained relationship with her family is pulled to its breaking point. With all the kin in one place, will they all stay in one piece? A warm, heart-filled comedy about the scars of childhood and finding love, all grown up.

As the war in Vietnam rages halfway across the world, a generation of young people rise up to demand change. Among the movement are five radicals living together as a collective, where everything from money to romantic partners is shared. When two strangers suddenly enter the picture, the group’s delicate balance is set askew. Soon new dangers and old wounds threaten to tear the collective, and perhaps the movement, apart. DAYS OF RAGE explores the conflict between means and ends, ideals and practicality, and the perils of changing the world.

Excerpt from English Dramatists of to-Day Before asking the reader to follow me through the detailed examination of the works of our present-day dramatists contained in these pages, I wish to define my point of view and lay down clearly the latitude and longitude of my position. A very short glance at any of the following essays will show that I take a somewhat gloomy view of the present state of the drama. In this I am not singular. Pessimism is the prevailing attitude of the critical mind with regard to the theatre. The higher criticism despises and ignores it. One might examine the volumes of our great quarterlies ever since their foundation and find scarcely a word in which the existence of an English theatre is recognized. In one or two of the more modern reviews the weight of a name like Mr. Matthew Arnold's procures at long intervals the admission of a thoughtful but unpractical paper upon the theatre of the day. The lower criticism, again, in its more serious moods, inclines to despondency and lamentation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from Dramatists of to-Day: Rostand, Hauptmann, Sudermann, Pinero, Shaw, Phillips, Maeterlinck, Being an Informal Discussion of Their Significant Work Of old a "Critick " studied the masters in any given form of art and thus learned the rules of that art. He might then consider whatever came to his notice and pronounce it good or bad. We commonly do much the same sort of tiling now, when we read merely for fun. We have, every one of us, got together, consciously or unconsciously, some ideas on what's what as to novels or short stories or plays or pictures, and when we read or hear or see anything, we instinctively form some judgment of it according to whatever those ideas may be. The process we perhaps express by saying, "I don't pretend to know anything about criticism, but I know what I like." Whether we acknowledge it or not, we commonly form our opinion about current books and plays on some such basis. This mode of judgment, still popular with the general reader, was abandoned by many brilliant critics some time ago. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.