Three Late Medieval Morality Plays: Everyman, Mankind and Mundus et Infans

Three Late Medieval Morality Plays: Everyman, Mankind and Mundus et Infans
Author: G.A. Lester
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2014-05-29
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1408144085

"Take example, all ye that this do hear or see..." The Morality Play was popular in England between 1400 and 1600. It offers moral instruction and spiritual teaching with personal abstractions representing good and evil. Surviving plays from that period number about sixty and the three in this edition were among the first ten. Mankind is a plain, honest farming man who struggles against worldly and spiritual temptation. The bawdy humour and violent action in the play serve to make the moral point and instruct by example. Everyman portrays a man's struggles in the face of death to raise himself to a state of grace so that he may experience everlasting life. It is exceptional among the Moralities for this narrow focus on the last phase of life, and conveys its message with awe-inspiring seriousness. Mundus et Infans is more typical of the Morality genre. It shows an arrogant, bullying protagonist led astray by a single evildoer into a life of debauchery, before the inevitable conversion to virtue. In showing the whole of man's life it is the antithesis of Everyman, the action of which seems to take place in a single day.

Three Late Medieval Morality Plays

Three Late Medieval Morality Plays
Author: Godfrey Allen Lester
Publisher: W W Norton & Company Incorporated
Total Pages: 157
Release: 1990
Genre: Christian drama, English
ISBN: 9780393900545

'New Mermaids' are modernized and fully annotated versions of classic English plays. Each volume includes the playtext in modern English spelling, textual notes and a full introduction.

A Midsummer-night's Dream

A Midsummer-night's Dream
Author: William Shakespeare
Publisher:
Total Pages: 72
Release: 1734
Genre: English drama (Comedy)
ISBN:

National Sylvan Theatre, Washington Monument grounds, The Community Center and Playgrounds Department and the Office of National Capital Parks present the ninth summer festival program of the 1941 season, the Washington Players in William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," produced by Bess Davis Schreiner, directed by Denis E. Connell, the music by Mendelssohn is played by the Washington Civic Orchestra conducted by Jean Manganaro, the setting and lights Harold Snyder, costumes Mary Davis.

The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus

The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus
Author: William Shakespeare
Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand
Total Pages: 127
Release: 2024-04-01
Genre: Poetry
ISBN:

"The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus" by William Shakespeare is a gripping and intense drama that explores themes of revenge, betrayal, and the destructive consequences of violence. Set in ancient Rome, the play follows the tragic downfall of the noble general Titus Andronicus and his family as they become embroiled in a cycle of vengeance and bloodshed. At the heart of the story is the brutal conflict between Titus Andronicus and Tamora, Queen of the Goths, whose sons are executed by Titus as retribution for their crimes. In retaliation, Tamora and her lover, Aaron the Moor, orchestrate a series of heinous acts of revenge against Titus and his family, plunging them into a spiral of madness and despair. As the body count rises and the atrocities escalate, Titus is consumed by grief and rage, leading to a climactic showdown that culminates in a shocking and tragic conclusion. Along the way, Shakespeare explores themes of honor, justice, and the nature of humanity, offering a searing indictment of the cycle of violence and the capacity for cruelty that lies within us all.

King Lear

King Lear
Author: Jeffrey Kahan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2008-04-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1135973652

Is King Lear an autonomous text, or a rewrite of the earlier and anonymous play King Leir? Should we refer to Shakespeare’s original quarto when discussing the play, the revised folio text, or the popular composite version, stitched together by Alexander Pope in 1725? What of its stage variations? When turning from page to stage, the critical view on King Lear is skewed by the fact that for almost half of the four hundred years the play has been performed, audiences preferred Naham Tate's optimistic adaptation, in which Lear and Cordelia live happily ever after. When discussing King Lear, the question of what comprises ‘the play’ is both complex and fragmentary. These issues of identity and authenticity across time and across mediums are outlined, debated, and considered critically by the contributors to this volume. Using a variety of approaches, from postcolonialism and New Historicism to psychoanalysis and gender studies, the leading international contributors to King Lear: New Critical Essays offer major new interpretations on the conception and writing, editing, and cultural productions of King Lear. This book is an up-to-date and comprehensive anthology of textual scholarship, performance research, and critical writing on one of Shakespeare's most important and perplexing tragedies. Contributors Include: R.A. Foakes, Richard Knowles, Tom Clayton, Cynthia Clegg, Edward L. Rocklin, Christy Desmet, Paul Cantor, Robert V. Young, Stanley Stewart and Jean R. Brink

Three Sisters

Three Sisters
Author: Anton Chekhov
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Total Pages: 112
Release: 2017-12-11
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN:

The play focuses on the lives of three sisters, Olga, Masha, and Irina, young women of the Russian gentry who try to fill their days in order to construct a life that feels meaningful while surrounded by an array of military men, servants, husbands, suitors, and lovers, all of whom constitute a distractions from the passage of time and from the sisters' desire to return to their beloved Moscow.

The Late Plays of Tennessee Williams

The Late Plays of Tennessee Williams
Author: William Prosser
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2009
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780810863613

"Praised as one of the finest American playwrights of the 20th century, Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) left a legacy of theater classics, including The Glass Menagerie, Sweet Bird of Youth. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and A Streetcar Named Desire. Although he won two Pulitzer prizes for drama, Williams fell out of favor in the early 1960s, and after The Night of the Iguana his subsequent works suffered both critical and commercial failure. Even worse, several of his plays failed to get produced in his lifetime." "William Prosser directed six productions of Williams' plays, five of which the playwright saw, criticized, and often praised. Determined to liberate the playwright's later works from the literary purgatory to which they had been condemned by critics, Prosser examines the plays Williams produced from the early 1960s until his death. In several thoughtful essays. Prosser discusses such works as The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore, Slapstick Tragedy, Kingdom of Earth, The Red Devil Battery Sign, and Clothes for a Summer Hotel a portrait of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Besides offering reevaluations of these plays, each chapter may be seen as research and analysis for potential productions, Throughout the book, Prosser contends that Williams' talent was not destroyed but rather went on in different directions to create extraordinary, if misunderstood, works."--BOOK JACKET.

Festivals and Plays in Late Medieval Britain

Festivals and Plays in Late Medieval Britain
Author: Clifford Davidson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2016-12-05
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1351936611

Based in records and iconography, this book surveys medieval festival playing in Britain more comprehensively than any other work to date. The study presents an inclusive view of the drama in the British Isles, from Kilkenny to Great Yarmouth, from Scotland to Cornwall. It offers detailed readings of individual plays-including the York Creed Play, Pentecost and Corpus Christi plays and the little studied Bodley plays, among others - as well as a summary of what is known of their production. Clifford Davidson here extends the usual chronological range to include work typically categorized as early modern, enabling a juxtaposition of earlier plays with later plays to yield a better understanding of both. Complementing documentary evidence with iconographic detail and citation of music, he pinpoints a number of common misconceptions about medieval drama. By organizing the study around the rituals of the liturgical seasons, he clarifies the relationship between liturgical feast and dramatic celebration.

Eugene O'Neill's Last Plays

Eugene O'Neill's Last Plays
Author: Doris Alexander
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2005
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780820327099

This study draws on research concerning the lives of Eugene O'Neill, his family and his circle. It corrects and expands the biographical record on him and distinguishes the man and his life from the creations that were inspired by, and drew on, that life. Included are his attempted suicide, his tuberculosis, and his relationship with his parents.