Bøger af Eric Bentley

BERNARD SHAW ,

THE SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS & OTHER ITALIAN CLASSICS

IN SEARCH OF THEATER

The complete play scripts to: ÊThe MisanthropeÊ by Moliere English version by Richard Wilbur; ÊPhaedraÊ by Racine English version by Robert Lowell; ÊThe CidÊ by Corneille English version by James Schevill; and ÊFigaro''s MarriageÊ by Beaumarchais English version by Jacques Barzun.

BEFORE BRECHT

LIFE IS A DREAM

Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1934, Luigi Pirandello was one of the most original and powerful dramatists of his time-the playwright par excellence of the conflict between illusion and reality. His plays dramatize with force and eloquence the loneliness and isolation of the individual both from society and from himself. In Six Characters in Search of an Author, his greatest work, these themes are played out with characteristic brilliance. First performed in 1921, the play concerns six living characters-family members embroiled in their own human drama-who come to a theater and demand that the manager and his actors stage their life story. Filled with both humor and despair, Six Characters in Search of an Author is Pirandello's most extraordinary achievement-as it explores the fundamentally absurd and tragic nature of the human condition. This Signet Classic edition includes an introduction by Eric Bentley, the widely acclaimed writer, translator, and international theater authority.

Translated and adapted by Eric BentleyMusic by Arnold Black, William Bolcom, Lucas Mason, and Peter WinklerFlexible casting, 1m., 1f. or expanded to more actors as needed /Musical RevueA first draft of this entertainment was produced at The Ballroom in New York City in 1994, starring Alvin Epstein and directed by Isaiah Sheffer. Howard Kissel, Daily News, commented: "Bentley's pungent translations of Wedekind's lyrics have been set deftly by three composers, Arnold Black, William Bolcom and Peter Winkler... Tingle Tangle [as the work was then called] is well performed and invariably fascinating."For the Wedekind renaissance of the 21st century Eric Bentley has re-arranged the material and added to it. The piece now consists of two cabaret programs which could be performed together in one long evening or separately. The first program is framed by two Bentley ballads telling the stories of Spring's Awakening and The First Lulu, respectively. Within that frame is a varied series of Wedekind songs and spoken poems. The second program is framed by two Wedekind short stories, neither of them ever before presented on an American (or any other) stage. Within this second frame come poems and songs in which we meet another Wedekind, a wild poet who also had a tender, even elegiac side. The two-part show ends with a song by Eric Bentley and Arnold Black which celebrates, not Wedekind the rebel, but Wedekind the artist.

A definitive work by one of the greatest drama critics.

THE LIFE OF THE DRAMA

A collection of four plays written by homosexuals which speak bravely and confidently to all people in a positive affirmation of being homosexual. The plays are: "A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep", "Days of Cavafy", and two American plays, "Round Two" and "Wild Blue".