" It's moral vision, as well as the Miller voice, which remains as strong and unrelenting as a prophet's, that distinguish Broken Glass." - The New York Times When Sylvia Gellburg, a young Jewish woman living in Brooklyn, becomes partially paralyzed from the waist down, her husband Phillip is shocked: what could’ve caused this sudden condition? The answer is Kristallnacht , the horrific, anti-Semitic event occurring halfway around the world. As the Gellburgs reckon with this pogrom and with the breakdown of their own marriage, a terrifying thought emerges: will the Jewish people ever be able to avoid persecution? Broken Glass is one of Miller’s most moving and personal works, touching on themes of Jewish identity and anti-Semitism, winning him the Olivier Award for Best New Play in 1994. This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Ambika Singh, and Nupur Tandon, with commentary and notes that explore the play's production history (including excerpts from an interview with
‘ His drama is a piece of expert dramatic construction. Mr. Miller has woven his characters into a tangle of plot that springs naturally out of the circumstances of life today. ’ NEW YORK TIMES Three years on from the disappearance of his son, successful businessman Joe Keller has made a comfortable life for his family in America’s Midwest: despite being accused of supplying defective aircraft equipment in World War 2, he is altogether happy. But, when a shadowy figure from Joe’s past returns, his hidden truths are revealed, and the price of the American Dream is laid bare.Miller's first successful play on Broadway, All My Sons launched his career and established him as one of America’s greatest dramatists, also winning him the 1946 Tony Award for Best Author. An incisive indictment of greed, capitalism and self-interest, All My Sons is remembered as one of the playwright’s greatest works.This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Clare Gleitman, with commentary and notes
‘ It is Mr. Miller's notion, potentially a great one, that the Baums' story can help tell the story of America itself during that traumatic era.’ NEW YORK TIMES When the stock market crashes, the once-financially comfortable Baum family lose everything and are forced to leave their lofty home in Manhattan to live with relatives in Brooklyn: how can their pride, purpose and artistic endeavours survive such a sudden and shocking reversal of fortune?A sweeping, hard-hitting look at the Great Depression of the 1930s, The American Clock is a vaudevillian celebration of American resilience and optimism in the face of national crisis, and was performed on Broadway in 1980.This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Jane K. Dominik, with commentary and notes that explore the play's production history (including excerpts from interviews with designers of the 1980 Broadway production) as well as the dramatic, thematic and academic debates that surround it.
‘ A gentle, lyrical, Chekhovian evocation of the past, with that special unpretentious charm that special works sometimes have.’ NEW YORK TIMES At an auto-parts warehouse in Brooklyn, life seems frozen in time: as workers of every age commute in, nothing ever seems to change. Newcomer Bert, only 18 years old, hopes to escape this world, earnestly saving his wages for college… but can such a dream survive his workplace’s haze of hopelessness, despondency and alcoholism?A vivid rendering of life under the Great Depression, A Memory of Two Mondays perfectly captures the anxieties and concerns of the 1930s, autobiographically reflecting Miller’s own experience as an 18-year-old in this period.This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Stephen Marino, with commentary and notes that explore the play's production history (including excerpts from an interview with director Rob Roznowski) as well as the dramatic, thematic and academic debates that surround it.
‘ When the play focuses on the self-entrapment of the characters, Mr. Miller can be tender as well as trenchant’ NEW YORK TIMES Two strangers meet in a New England psychiatric clinic, each visiting their admitted, depressed wife: one is a humble carpenter with seven children, the other a successful businessman in a childless marriage; both have been forgotten by the promise of the American Dream.Described by Miller as 'a comedy about a tragedy', this one-act play highlights the devastating consequences for those who fail to achieve the purported riches of the American Dream; a reality many face.This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Ciarán Leinster, with commentary and notes that explore the play's production history (including excerpts from an interview with director David Thacker) as well as the dramatic, thematic and academic debates that surround it.
‘ Mr. Miller knows his audience… he is letting us know, the devil will have his due.’ NEW YORK TIMES When insurance agent Lyman Felt is hospitalised following a near-fatal car crash, both of his wives show up at his bedside and his duplicitous bigamy is revealed. As his shocked spouses – the prim Theo and the assertive Leah – reel from this revelation and their husband’s hypocrisy, an outrageous question is presented: is marriage actually easier this way?Touching on themes of betrayal, crisis and reconciliation, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan is one of Miller’s more controversial works, and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play in 1991. This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Thiago Russo, with commentary and notes that explore the play's production history (including excerpts from an interview with director David Esbjornson) as well as the dramatic, thematic and academic debates that surround it.
"The Price is one of the most engrossing and entertaining plays that Miller has ever written. " - The New Uork Times When patriarch of the Franz family dies, his two sons return home to dispose of the furniture crammed in his attic: one is a successful surgeon, the other gave up everything to support their father following the Great Depression. As the pair sort through these abandoned belongings, frustrations, secrets and surprise guests are uncovered.With its touching and farcical presentation of American life beyond the Vietnam War and Great Depression, The Price is widely recognised as one of Miller’s major works, earning him a Tony Award nomination in 1968.This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Yuko Kurahashi, with commentary and notes that explore the play's production history (including excerpts from interviews with the director and designers of the 2017 Arena Stage production) as well as the dramatic, thematic and academic debates that surround it.
‘ Much like Mr. Miller, Quentin is a witness to alarming public and personal catastrophes: the stock market crash, the Holocaust, the McCarthy witchhunts and the self-destruction of a show business idol to whom he is married. ’ NEW YORK TIMES Haunted by past romantic failures, Quentin, a New York City Jewish intellectual, retreats into his mind as he debates marrying for a third time: as he revisits past loves and losses, his mind and memory fragments under philosophical questions; are our failures really just our own? Or is possible to hide away from the mistakes of the past?One of Miller’s most personal plays, After the Fall takes place almost entirely inside the mind of the play's protagonist, who is often read as a stand-in for the playwright himself. Touching on themes of the Holocaust, McCarthyism and inherited sin, the play is one of the most discussed within Miller’s canon.This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Ramón Espejo-Romero, with commentary and notes
Contemporary Irish Documentary Theatre is the first anthology of Irish documentary drama. It features five challenging plays by Irish writers, and one by an international author, interrogating and com
I just think you shouldn t put people on pedestals that s all. It makes them seem perfect when they re not. Martha McDonald was a world-famous singer Grammy Hall of Fame resident, poster girl for revo
"In this exciting new anthology, Wesley Brown and Aimée K. Michel bring together six wonderfully teachable plays by some of the greatest American women dramatists of the past fifty years-- Ntozake Sha
The sixth collection of plays from award-winning playwright Richard Bean, including the world-conquering hit One Man, Two Guvnors, as well as Young Marx, his riotous take on Karl Marx's life in London
A unique play anthology featuring five gripping audio docudramas that each explore pivotal historical events in American history. From debates about the First Amendment and Freedom of the Press to the
How to Keep an Alien is a funny and tender autobiographical tale in which Irish Sonya and Australian Kate meet and fall in love, but Kate's visa is up and she must leave the country. Together they mus
This book offers a stimulating introduction to the Hokkien music drama known as liyuanxi (‘pear garden theatre’), heir and current expression of one of China’s oldest unbroken xiqu (‘Chinese opera’) traditions. It considers the genre’s history prior to the 20th century, its signal successes before and after the Cultural Revolution, and its national prominence today. Beginning with an analysis of the form’s aesthetics and techniques, it proceeds to an overview of its rich and distinctive narrative repertoire, including several dramas unique to the genre.Josh Stenberg illustrates liyuanxi ’s distinctive musical and narrative qualities and presents the performance art’s place, not only in Chinese drama and theatre history, but also in the culture of the historic port city of Quanzhou and the broader Hokkien region and diaspora. This study focuses on the work of the only professional theatre troupe in the genre, the Fujian Province Liyuanxi Experimental Theatre (FPLET), and examines
The plays of María Martínez Sierra were popular in Spain, South America and in translation on Broadway and London's West End in the first half of the 20th century but they were thought to be written by her husband, the celebrated director and playwright Gregorio Martínez Sierra. After his death, the authorship of his work was revealed to be that of María, making her one of the most important playwrights of her time.This edited collection features three plays by María Martínez Sierra, translated by Helen and Harley Granville-Barker, along with an introduction by Patricia O’Connor, University of Cincinnati, US, which examines María's extraordinary life and work, and the battle for her authorship to be recognized in both the Spanish-speaking and anglophone world. This volume focuses on plays centred on strong women; and each is translated by the eminent man of theatre Harley Granville-Barker and his wife, Helen, whose own story holds stark parallels to Maria's in terms of authorship. The
A Student Edition of one of the most defining plays of the twentieth century, which tells the history of the Scottish underclass and, in its style and mission, reconceived Scottish theatre.
This is the first full-length book to provide an introduction to badhai performances throughout South Asia, examining their characteristics and relationships to differing contexts in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Badhai’s repertoires of songs, dances, prayers, and comic repartee are performed by socially marginalised hijra , khwaja sira , and trans communities. They commemorate weddings, births and other celebratory heteronormative events. The form is improvisational and responds to particular contexts, but also moves across borders. For students of theatre and performance, anthropology, religion, gender and cultural studies, this book illuminates an important form of performance, considering its changing status and uncertain futures.The book draws from anthropology, theatre and performance studies, music and sound studies, ethnomusicology, queer and transgender studies, and sustained ethnographic fieldwork to examine badhai ’s place-based dynamics, transcultural features, and
The era known as the Thaw (1953-64) was a crucial period in the history of the Soviet Union. It was a time when the legacies of Stalinism began to unravel and when brief moments of liberalisation saw dramatic changes to society. By exploring theatre productions, plays and cultural debates during the Thaw, this book sheds light on a society in flux, in which the cultural norms, values and hierarchies of the previous era were being rethought. Jesse Gardiner demonstrates that the revival of avant-garde theatre during the Thaw was part of a broader re-engagement with cultural forms that had been banned under Stalin. Plays and productions that had fallen victim to the censor were revived or reinvented, and their authors and directors rehabilitated alongside waves of others who had been repressed during the Stalinist purges. At the same time, new theatre companies and practitioners emerged who reinterpreted the stylized techniques of the avant-garde for a post-war generation. This book argue
