Oscar Wilde was already one of the best known literary figures in Britain when he was persuaded to turn his extraordinary talents to the theatre. Between 1891 and 1895 he produced a sequence of distinctive plays which spearheaded the dramatic renaissance of the 1890s and retain their power today. The social comedies, Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, and An Ideal Husband, offer a .

The theatre for which Shakespeare wrote and acted was a cut-throat commercial entertainment industry. Yet his plays were also intensely alert to the social and political realities of their times.

This new edition of one of Shakespeare's greatest history plays offers a freshly considered text fully alert to its intense theatrical aspects. A helpful Introduction discusses the play's structure, language, and performance history, and the notes provide an illuminating commentary on details of the text.

An active approach to Shakespeare in the classroom.

This volume contains English translations of: Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard, with a new Introduction by Ronald Hingley.

Formerly part of the World Dramatists series of play collections by classic and modern playwrights, including foreign works in workable and accurate translations, this title and seven others are reissued in a new format under the heading, World Classics .

The French classical tragedy written in 1677.

Anton Chekhov's popularity in the west is without parallel for a foreign writer. He has been absorbed into our culture, and accepted as one of our own. His plays lend themselves easily to the stage, calling for actors with intelligence and common sense rather than a dramatic voice or histrionic skills.

Includes Prometheus Bound , Seven Against Thebes , The Persians and The Suppliant Maidens .

Spolin's improvisational techniques have changed the very nature and practice of modern theatre. This third edition updates the more than 200 now-classic exercises and adds 30 new ones. It adds 30 traditional theatre games that are frequently used as warm-ups.

Authoritative student edition of Brecht's most performed play. A vicious satire on the bourgeois capitalist society of the Weimar Republic, but set in a mock Victorian Soho.

Featuring sections, this work presents a range of questions for students. It also provides the background to Shakespeare's England .

A study of the playwrights who have dramatised the absurdity of the human condition. Esslin seeks to show how Beckett; Ionesco; Genet; Pinter and others have confronted a world in which there is no communication and where man flounders in a void; cut off from his roots and shorn of all certaintie

This selection of Bertolt Brecht's critical writing charts the development of his thinking on theatre and aesthetics over four decade

The Oxford Shakespeare General Editor Stanley Wells The Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the works for modern readers - a new, modern-spelling text, based on the 1623 Folio text - on-page commentary and notes explain meaning, staging, language and allusions - detailed introduction considers composition, sources, ..

This Student Edition of Chekhov's last and most elusive play, a study of the effect of social change on the values of individuals, includes notes on the life and career of the playwright, an introduction giving the background to the play and a guide to its interpretation.

Treating ancient plays as living drama.

This history of theatre is worldwide in scope, ranging from its ancient origins to the variety of forms which it has taken in our own age. The book covers acting, direction, stagecraft, theatre architecture and design, and the evolution of dramatic literature.

One of a series of titles first published by Faber between 1930 and 1990, and in a style and format planned with a view to the appearance of the volumes on the bookshelf. In this play, Stoppard parodies the philosophy lecturer, the detective thriller, the comedy of manners and the Whitehall farce.