Adapted by Alexandre Dumas from a script by Auguste Maquet, BATHILDA tells the story of a woman who's raped by Marcel, and becomes his lover for a time. After she leaves him and moves to Paris, she meets Deworde, her deceased spouse's nephew, and plans to marry him. But Marcel pursues her, determined that if he can't have her, no one else will either. He plays a cat-and-mouse game with Bathilda, Deworde, and his friend Guilaumin, until their final confrontation. Will Marcel have...
Ogres, trolls, demons – monsters, like violence, are always represented as male. Not this time. Celebrated playwright RM Vaughan gives us, in three one-act monologues, three very monstrous women. In A Visitation by St Teresa of Avila upon Constable Margaret Chance, we meet a middle-aged police officer whose world view is determined by her obsession with race, bloodlines and genetic determinism. The Susan Smith Tapes (made into a film for CBC and Showcase by Jeremy Podeswa) shows the...
The medieval morality play, which became popular in Europe during the 15th and 16th century, is a allegorical drama in which personal attributes are personified and the moral of choosing good over evil is generally conveyed. In this volume you will find one of the most famous examples of this genre in the play «Everyman» along with the following other plays: «The Deluge», «Abraham, Melchisedec, And Isaac», «The Wakefield Second Shepherds' Play», «The Coventry Nativity Play», «The Wakefield...
Alanna is surprised by the return of her step-brother and former lover, Kyle, when he shows up to work at the newspaper she writes for as the new head photographer. Unbeknownst to him, they have a daughter from the night before they last saw each other eight years previous. Can they forgive each other and rekindle the trust and love they once shared?
"The Iphigenia in Tauris is not in the modern sense a tragedy; it is a romantic play, beginning in a tragic atmosphere and moving through perils and escapes to a happy end. To the archaeologist the cause of this lies in the ritual on which the play is based. All Greek tragedies that we know have as their nucleus something which the Greeks called an Aition-a cause or origin. They all explain some ritual or observance or commemorate some great event." So begins the preface to «Iphigenia in...
The Count of Monte Cristo, one of the greatest adventure novels of all time, has been converted by the author into a series of four plays. In PART TWO, Edmond Dantes has escaped from the dreaded prison island of d'If after 14 years of captivity. He seeks out the fabulous treasure of Monte Cristo described to him by the Abbe Faria, and assumes the identity of the priest Busoni. Then he begins his odyssey of revenge, tracking down Caderousse and his wife, La Carconte, and finding the trail of...
Сборник содержит три пьесы Оскара Уайльда, ярко которые раскрывают различные грани его блестящего и парадоксального таланта: "Как важно быть серьезным", "Саломея" и "Поклонник леди Уиндермер". Все они и сегодня продолжают успешное сценическое существование.
Книга для чтения на английском языке.
First performed in 1923, “Saint Joan” is the celebrated play by George Bernard Shaw, the Irish playwright, social activist, and Noble Prize-winner. Premiering three years after Joan of Arc was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, Shaw wrote “Saint Joan” because he was dissatisfied with how the saint was often portrayed in literature and history and wanted to present a more realistic and human Joan. Considered Shaw’s only tragedy and one of his most significant works, “Saint Joan” follows the...
French dramatist Adolphe d'Ennery (1811-1899) follows the Faust story originally developed by Goethe, but with a leavening of humor that the German playwright lacked. Especially entertaining is the character of the female demon Sulphurine, who's created by Faust's servant Wagner to be his slave. Needless to say, this she-devil is no one's mistress! Faust initially repels the advances of Mephistopheles, but suddenly finds himself in love with the young woman Marguerite, whom...
“The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays” brings together Oscar Wilde’s most popular plays which first appeared between 1891 and 1895. Despite his relatively short theatrical career, Wilde’s plays have enjoyed a sustained popularity. A classic satire of Victorian society, “The Importance of Being Earnest” is one of the author’s most frequently performed works. The play trivializes its characters, who through a series of deceptions pretend to be people that they are not in order to escape...
Set in 1528, «Lady Inger of Ostrat» is Henrik Ibsen's historical drama based on Lady Inger of Austraat, who was the wealthiest Norwegian land-owner of her era. Swedish protesters of Danish rule of Norway, which since the Union of Kalmar in 1397 has largely become a province of Denmark, approach Lady Inger for her support in an insurrection against the Danes. As the fate of the nation of Norway lies in the balance, great political and personal intrigue abounds in this classic Ibsen drama.
A shadowy form moved in a crouch along the creek bank, a stout club upraised and silhouetted against the sparkling surface of the stream. It approached the forms of the man and the woman as they lay quietly on the rug in the moonlight near the water's edge. The woman's head rested on the man's chest as he lay on his back, as if in a deep sleep. The blows from the club came quickly and viciously, crushing the flesh and bone of the man's head and face, and then the...