Publisher Description

Edited and introduced by Cairns Craig and Randall Stevenson. Ever since the major revival of dramatic writing and production in the 1970s, the style and the subject matter of Scottish writing for stage and screen has been a continuing influence on our contemporary culture, exciting, offending and challenging audiences in equal measure. Yet modern Scottish drama has a history of controversy, conflict and entertainment going back to the 1920s, notable at every turn for the vigour of its language and its direct confrontation with telling issues. The plays in this anthology offer a unique chance to grasp the different topics and also the recurrent themes of Scottish drama in the twentieth century. Gathered together in a single omnibus volume, there is the poetic eeriness of Barrie and the political commitment of Joe Corrie and Sue Glover; there is the Brechtian debate of Bridie and the verbal brilliance of John Byrne and Liz Lochhead; there is working-class experience and feminist insight; broad Scots and existential anxiety; street realism and a meeting with the devil; social injustice and raucous humour; historical comedy and tragic loss. Here is both the breadth and the continuity of the modern Scottish tradition in a single volume.

This monograph explores the development of Irish drama in the 20th century and discusses recent cultural critiques of the entire enterprise of the Irish theatre. Rollins interprets Yeats, Synge, Beckett, Friel and McGuiness among others as practitioners in a kind of national reformulation of ritual and memory. This is one of the most thorough one volume discussions of the greatest century of Irish dramatic creativity and influence. "...I am impressed with the critical writing in Ronald Rollins's RUIN, RITUAL AND REMBRANCE. His scholarship focuses on Ireland's intricate history and Yeat's definition of maimed Irish space " great hatred, little room." Rollins deals with three playwrights, Sean O'Casey, Denis Johnston and the contemporary Frank McGuiness and their response to the nationalist uprising of 1916. Rollins points up after artful consideration of the older dramatists, the special relevance of McGuiness' idea that the Ulster rebels of pre World War 1 are the same as the Dublin rebels of 1916, the flip side of the coin. These writer see each denomination in Ireland as ordinary, half inspired, half bigoted human beings curiously united in their defiant rhetoric. The central thrust of the study is a consideration of the nationalist poet/playwright and leader Patrick Pearse as a man lost in the labyrinth of revolutionary rhetoric; in Rollins approach to McGuiness' THE SONS OF ULSTER MARCHING TOWARDS THE SOMME, Rollins argues the proposition that the character Piper is a counter figure to Pearse, similarly involved in the ritual chants of war, youth and death. The difference is that the real life Pearse shot by the British survives as an icon of Irish republicanism while the fictional Piper lives to see the Protestant house of Ulster crumble. Rollin's work is full of insights like this. Buy the book." ---James Liddy " ...highly recommended." Professor Robert Mahony-Catholic University of America

In a world that tends to homologate, thus becoming, in every aspect of our lives, grey, flat and uniform, so creating the world of universal similarity (including language), does it still make sense today to talk about vernacular theatre? Tackling such a question implies uncovering the reasons for the disappearance of the many regional theatres that were present in Italy in the nineteenth century. There is no doubt that first the unification of the country in 1861, and then the language policies of fascism in the ‘30s were the final nails in the coffin for local theatres. It is also true, however, that what really determined their downsizing was the progressive loss of connection with their own environment. If we give an essentially superficial interpretation to the adjective “vernacular”, and in a play we see a canovaccio (plot) that the local star uses as a vehicle to show his talent through a series of modest mannerisms, then “vernacular” implies the death certificate of this type of theatre (once the star dies, his alleged dramaturgy dies with him and his mannerisms). On the contrary, if we identify in this adjective the theatre’s healthy attempt to develop a local, social and cultural analysis of its environment, it opens a whole new meaning and acquires a perspective that a national theatre can never aspire to. This is the case of Neapolitan theatre. It managed to survive and thrive, producing plays that were capable of critically describing modern and contemporary reality. Neapolitan playwrights forcefully proclaimed their roots as a primary source for their work. The city, in fact, became a direct expression of that cultural microcosm which provided them with the living flesh of their plots.

Dr Bigsby analyses the early unpublished plays and the major works of Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and Edward Albee.

Eugene O'Neill - Clifford Odets - Left-wing theatre - Black drama - Thornton Wilder - Lillian Hellman - Luigi Pirandello - Arthur Miller.

The final volume of Christopher Bigsby's critical account of American drama in the twentieth century.

Part 3. Drama of the Restoration and Early Eighteenth Century -- John Dryden, All for Love -- William Wycherley, The Plain Dealer -- George Farquhar, The Beaux' Stratagem -- George Lillo, The London Merchant -- John Gay, The Beggar's Opera -- Part 4. Drama of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries -- Dion Boucicault, The Shaughraun -- John Synge, The Playboy of the Western World -- Bernard Shaw, St. Joan

In this book, Susan Mandala offers a series of in-depth investigations into how the dialogue of four modern plays 'works' with respect to the pragmatic and discoursal norms postulated for ordinary conversation. After an account of the often-heated debates between linguists and critics concerning the analysis of drama dialogue as talk, four plays are considered: Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, Arnold Wesker's Roots, Terence Rattigan's In Praise of Love, and Alan Ayckbourn's Just Between Ourselves. For readers unfamiliar with linguistic approaches to talk, a chapter outlining the major frameworks used in the analysis of the plays is also included. By considering both linguistic and literary perspectives, this book extends the boundaries of traditional criticism and shows how the linguistic study of conversation can contribute to our understanding of dramatic dialogue.

American playwrights have made enormous contributions to world drama during the last century, and their works are widely read and performed. This reference conveniently introduces 10 of the most important modern American plays read by students. An introductory essay concisely overviews modern American drama, and each of the chapters that follow examines a particular play. Among the plays discussed are Thornton Wilder's Our Town, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, and August Wilson's The Piano Lesson. Each chapter includes a biography, a plot summary, an analysis of the play's themes, characters, and dramatic art, and a review of its historical background and reception. Chapters list works for further reading, and the volume closes with a selected, general bibliography.