Most Humane Way to Kill a Lobster
$10.41
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Most Humane Way to Kill a Lobster
Description not available.
Drama
As You Like It
$10.4
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As You Like It
One of Shakespeare`s early plays, written in 1598 or 1599, AS YOU LIKE IT is in many ways a typical Elizabethan romantic comedy, but it is also a satire in which Shakespeare ridicules many of the courtly-love conventions that were still current in his day: love as a disease, for example, and the lover as slave to his imperious mistress. In AS YOU LIKE IT, when these notions rear their heads, they are presented as silly absurdities. Orlando is in thrall to Rosalind, the simple shepherd Silvius is put through mental tortures by Phoebe--but ridiculing such formulaic excesses (Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love) and keeping the play grounded in reality, Shakespeare reminds his audience that true love can bring happiness and is a force for good. In Jaques`s famously acerbic soliloquy on the stages of a man`s life (which end in a second childhood followed by oblivion), he speaks of the naturalness and inevitability of change--and as the characters in AS YOU LIKE IT enter the Forest of Arden, they undergo changes that will ultimately lead to a transformation in their attitudes. Embittered men are reunited with the brothers they loathed, the rightful Duke is returned to his throne, and four absurdly warring couples are reconciled. The forest provides--as it does in many plays of the period--a pastoral interval in which the characters come to their senses and return to the city better people. In the course of the play, despite its light-hearted tone, Shakespeare does tackle some difficult questions involving love, aging, nature, and the coming of death.
Drama
The Picture of Dorian Gray
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The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde's classic work is about a man who sells his soul for eternal youth: only his portrait ages, while he remains forever handsome and young. Wilde's allegory, first published in 1890, provides an interesting take on the Faust myth and also a probing examination of human values. Wilde himself described it as the story of an idea that is old in the history of literature, but to which I have given new form. He was shocked and angered by the response to it by the English press, which considered the novel decadent, corrupting, and--worst of all--French-influenced.
Drama
Jesus O El Gran Secreto De La Iglesia - Spanish Edition
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Jesus O El Gran Secreto De La Iglesia - Spanish Edition
Description not available.
Drama
Monstrous Martyrdoms
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Monstrous Martyrdoms
The road will be red with monstrous martyrdoms, but we shall win.
Oscar Wilde wrote these words at the end of the nineteenth century after serving two years at hard labor for the crime of being homosexual.
This modern martyrdom is the subject of Lord Alfred's Lover, Eric Bentley's Brechtian dramatization of Wilde's last days.
H for Hamlet is another variation on the modern martyr play, this time in homage to Pirandello.
The protagonist thinks, or once thought, he was Hamlet.
Fantasy?
Perhaps.
But, to paraphrase Marianne Moore, there was a real toad in the imaginary garden--a real martyr in the toy theatre.
In German Requiem, Bentley takes inspiration from Heinrich von Kleist's play The Schroffenstein Family, which in turn is a version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The young star-crossed lovers in his play are martyrs of an internecine conflict much like those seen in recent history in Ireland and the Middle East.
Drama
The Grapes of Wrath
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The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck lived and worked with a group of migrant workers in California, from whom he drew the material for his great Dust Bowl saga of a wandering Okie family, the Joads. This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel awakened the American reading public to the plight of migrant workers and made Steinbeck famous worldwide. One of the most popular novels of the Great Depression, it has come to be regarded as a classic work of social realism and was made into an acclaimed movie.
Drama
Storm of the Century
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Storm of the Century
This is the screenplay of Stephen King's written-for-televsion Storm of the Century.
Drama
The Tempest
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The Tempest
Generally agreed to be Shakespeare`s last play, THE TEMPEST was most likely written in 1610. Twelve years before the action begins, Prospero--Duke of Milan--and his daughter, Miranda, were stranded by Prospero`s brother, Antonio, on a remote and idyllic island where Miranda has grown up happily among the beasts and flowers, never seeing any man but her father. Many years later, Prospero uses his powers and the help of Ariel, the sprite, to effect a shipwreck--hence the play`s title--that brings Antonio to the island, along with the king of Naples and his son, Ferdinand, who promptly falls in love with Miranda. Their love story, juxtaposed with Prospero`s revenge on his brother and his final act of mercy, form the basis of a simple plot. A combination of tragedy and romantic comedy, the play includes a happy ending that, finally, leans toward the latter. Unlike Shakespeare`s other plays, THE TEMPEST is full of magic and exoticism and what we now think of as special effects, using evocative music and extravagant imagery to create a mood of enchantment that, nonetheless, confronts serious questions about reality and illusion. Some interpretations of the play see Prospero--who, in his dazzling last speech, renounces his magic powers--as the aging Shakespeare bidding farewell to the theater. THE TEMPEST is also interesting because its events take place in a 24-hour period. And it is, of course, the source of a famous phrase: when the sheltered Miranda first lays eyes on Ferdinand, she exclaims,
Oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
Drama
The Vaudevilles
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The Vaudevilles
Five plays by the celebrated 19th-century Russian dramatist.
Drama