Widely regarded as one of the foremost dramatists of the nineteenth century, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) brought the social problems and ideas of his day to center stage. Creating realistic plays of psychological conflict that emphasized character over cunning plots, he frequently inspired critical objections because his dramas deemed the individual more important than the group.In this powerful work, Ibsen places his ...
One of the most durable myths in Western culture, the story of Faust tells of a learned German doctor who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power. Early enactments of Faust's damnation were often the raffish fare of clowns and low comedians. But the young Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) recognized in the story of Faust's temptation and fall the elements of tragedy.In his epic tre ...
The Cherry Orchard was first produced by the Moscow Art Theatre on Chekhov's last birthday, January 17, 1904. Since that time it has become one of the most critically admired and performed plays in the Western world, a high comedy whose principal theme, the passing of the old semifeudal order, is symbolized in the sale of the cherry orchard owned by Madame Ranevsky.The play also functions as a magnificent showcase for Chekhov's acute o ...
Widely considered the most popular modern French play, Cyrano de Bergerac has dazzled audiences with its wit and eloquence since it premiered in 1897.Cyrano, a quarrelsome, hot-tempered swordsman, as famous for his dueling skills and pugnacity as for his inordinately long nose, is hopelessly enamored of the beautiful Roxane. She, in turn, is in love with Christian, a handsome but inarticulate and slow-witted suitor. Asked for help by Christian i ...
In the opening scene of Arms and the Man, which establishes the play's embattled Balkan setting, young Raina learns of her suitor's heroic exploits in combat. She rhapsodizes that it is «a glorious world for women who can see its glory and men who can act its romance!» Soon, however, such romantic falsifications of love and warfare are brilliantly and at times hilariously unmasked in a comedy that reveals George Bernard Shaw at his bes ...
Zepaniah Bierman, a mustanger turned hunter, lies on the top of the rocky sandy arroyo. Sweat trickles down his face and stains the shirt across his back as the sun beats daggers of heat on the Chihuahuan desert. Out there is a scout for three riders that torched his ranch in Mesilla. The only way out of this eternal furnace is back to New Mexico; Zep will track them there encountering Mexican cavalry, Apaches, outlaws, and a strong-willed young ...
At an early age Jasmine Johns's lifelong ambition is to become a nurse. When she turns eighteen years old and preparing to begin her college career, she meets Paul Shelton, a suave African-American businessman-entrepreneur, who is juggling a legitimate and successful restaurant and a questionable private gentlemen's club and escort service. <br><br>Paul sets out to convince Jasmine being a part of his club is more pro ...
A drug dealer who doesn't want to deal anymore, Brazilian hit men, two shrewd trailer trash brothers, a mafia boss with a bad leg and a Chinese bodyguard fly through the pages of The Ariel. When it crashes, with 300 kilograms of pure cocaine, the trip is just beginning. Paul Hewlett is an Ivy League stockbroker crawls from the wreckage salvaging half the cargo. He has to unload it and disappear before the mob makes him disappear. The fli ...
Charlotte is afraid of love and of life.<br><br>Her confidantes are a rubber duck and a diary she calls Rajah. She tiptoes on the edge of the love cliff, but to her an imaginary love life is safer than taking the plunge with a real one. She dreams about men who remind her of her long lost love, Mason, yet when she bumps into him she panics and runs away.<br><br>Her heart crushed by a long-ago betrayal, Charlotte cannot fi ...
