8284 shows
Clear filtersTV comic Barry meets private bankers John and Jane, who flatter him and try to elicit intimate details for an after-dinner speech. Barry instead seeks to exploit their eagerness, and the three repeatedly try to outwit one another and control the story.
A Renaissance comedy about misunderstandings between older and younger generations, set in Rome among characters from Dubrovnik. Its five-act text survives without its ending.
After Macbeth’s defeat, English commander Siward tries to build a new order in Scotland while Gruach continues the Moray claim to the throne through herself and her son. Their struggle, alongside resistance to the English occupation, extends Shakespeare’s history into a drama of nation-building and continuing violence.
Duplicity is a 1781 comedy play by the British writer Thomas Holcroft. The original Covent Garden cast included John Henderson as Mr Osborne, William Thomas Lewis as Sir Harry Portland, Richard Wilson as Sir Hornet Armstrong, Charles Lee Lewes as Squire Turnbull, John Edwin as Timid, Ralph Wewitzer as Mr Vandervelt, William Stevens as Scrip, Sarah Maria Wilson as Miss Turnbull, Elizabeth Inchbald as Melissa, Ann Pitt as Mrs Trip and Elizabeth Younge as Clara.
After the Second Anglo-Afghan War, Amir Abdul Rahman and Sir Mortimer Durand discuss the boundary later known as the Durand Line.
Act I Mr. Godboy has bought an enormous wardrobe. He is contractually obliged to provide a wardrobe for his upstairs tenants, Eric, and Doris Hoyden, he says, but at present, it stands in the living room, much to his wife May's annoyance. Godboy and May are in their fifties but have only been married for two years. May is already at the end of her tether with Godboy, as he spends all his spare time chatting to police at the police station about their latest cases and singing the praises of Inspector Hawkins. He is a trained chiropodist but has failed to get his career going. May and Godboy tell each other that they both have surprises for each other but won't reveal what they are. May is planning to walk out on her husband that day, while Godboy is planning to trap his wife in the new wardrobe and gas her with a new appliance he has bought. Before any of this can take place, however, Inspector Hawkins comes round unexpectedly, saying that he has heard a lot about Godboy from others at the police station, and as he was in the area conducting an operation he thought he would pop in. He explains that they are trying to catch the ‘Merrick Street attacker’, who has been stealing women's handbags. After he leaves, Godboy manages to lure May into the wardrobe, but as he is hurriedly preparing his gas appliance, she comes out of the wardrobe, packs her bags and leaves, oblivious to what Godboy has planned. Godboy then locks the wardrobe and pumps it full of gas. Act II The next day, Godboy agrees to remove corn from Doris's foot. Doris and Eric come down, but Godboy tells Eric he must leave them alone and should go and watch a film, which he does. As part of the treatment, Godboy insists that he must give Doris a bit of gas, but while he is fitting the gas mask Doris pulls out the pipe, giving Godboy a lungful of gas and sending him unconscious. Two hours later, Eric comes back to find Godboy delirious and claiming that Doris is dead in the kitchen. PC Hedderley, who has been helping investigate the Merrick Road attacker, comes round looking for Eric, who hides in the kitchen while Godboy is questioned. Once Hedderley leaves, Eric comes back insisting Godboy tell him where Doris is, believing that he has indeed killed her. But Hawkins and Hedderley quickly return, finding Eric, and asking to search his flat, where they find the stolen handbags. Doris returns and is shocked to find her husband arrested, and we find out that Hawkins has been obsessed with finding Doris for years, having once glimpsed her being searched at the police station. Eric suddenly realizes that Goboy must have murdered May and hidden the body in the wardrobe, and tells Hawkins. Godboy proudly allows Hawkins to fiddle open the padlock, saying it will be the crowning moment of his career. But to Godboy's surprise, the wardrobe is empty. Eric is led away, and Hawkins takes Doris under his wing, promising to train her up for the police force.
On a New York subway, the flirtatious encounter between Clay, a young Black man, and Lula, a white woman, turns into a confrontation over race and identity, ending in Clay’s murder as the cycle appears poised to repeat.
The play covers the final years of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, drawing on John Malcolm Brinnin's Dylan Thomas in America and Caitlin Thomas's Leftover Life to Kill.
The religious Light family and atheist Fife family are neighbors divided by conflict. Their children Reuben and Ada fall in love; after Reuben leaves and returns changed, he treats the hydroelectric dynamos as a god, brings Ada to them, shoots her and electrocutes himself.
Sostratos falls in love with the daughter of the ill-tempered farmer Knemon and seeks his consent to marry her. With help from Knemon’s stepson Gorgias, Sostratos proves his work ethic and helps rescue Knemon from a well. Knemon relents and blesses the marriage; Sostratos’s father also agrees to Gorgias marrying Sostratos’s sister, while Knemon is carried into the wedding celebration.
A multi-part poetic drama drawing on the Slavic commemoration of the dead. Its parts combine folk morality and ghosts, a romantic account of love and despair, an unfinished love-centered fragment, and a patriotic vision of Polish persecution and hoped-for liberation.
Zoe Akins had a self-confessed abhorrence for rewriting plays, and insisted Déclassée was presented on stage as she first imagined it. She specified further that only two minor cuts and one important deletion from the original play were made by Iden Payne in staging it. Act I (The drawing room of Sir Bruce Haden's London home. Evening) The scene opens on the aftermath of an argument at a bridge party. Sir Bruce Haden has accused Edward Thayer and Mrs. Leslie of cheating, and ordered Thayer to leave. Lady Helen sprang to Thayer's defense, saying she would leave too unless Sir Bruce apologized. This much is learned from the conversation of Harry Charteris, Sir Emmett Wildering, Charlotte Ashley, Mrs. Wildering, and Mrs. Leslie before the three antagonists appear. Thayer appears first, as the ladies fetch Lady Helen back from her room. To everyone's surprise, Sir Bruce Haden apologizes to Thayer. Lady Helen and Thayer have a long discussion; he reminds her she led him to believe she cared in the letters she wrote. But Lady Helen says that he was only a passing interest to her, and that they must not see each other again. The bridge games resume, and there is a momentary darkening of the stage to denote the passage of an hour. As the light rises, a furious Lady Helen excoriates Thayer and Mrs. Leslie for cheating again. She astonishes Thayer by insisting he now apologize to Sir Bruce. Thayer refuses; his reputation will be ruined if Sir Bruce talks. Thayer threatens to show her letters to Sir Bruce if she insists. Disgusted, Lady Helen calls Sir Bruce and the others back into the room and starts to tell them everything. (Curtain) Act II (The lounge of a Manhattan deluxe hotel. Three years later, late Friday afternoon.) The scene opens on a busy lounge room, with numerous tables occupied by bit players, whose conversation provides the following exposition: Sir Emmett Wildering, newly appointed ambassador, and Lady Wildering are on their way to Washington, D. C. They meet Charlotte Ashley, now appearing in a Broadway play, for tea. Lady Helen enters, and arranges a table with Jean for some guests coming later. She too comes in for background gossip, this time by the Wilderings and Charlotte, whom she hasn't yet seen. It appear that Sir Bruce waited a year before divorcing her, and in the two years since has remarried and acquired twin sons. Now enter Zellito and Alice Vance, and again the bit players' talk identifies them and gives their stories. The two women are seated by Jean, who next greets Lady Helen. Harry Charteris, who also came to New York, has joined the other English at their table. Spotting them at last, Lady Helen braces herself and approaches their table. They greet her in a cautious but friendly way, and make plans to get together soon. Lady Helen now joins the guests at her table as the English quartet depart. Rudolph Solomon is also there, and The Three Wonderful Waltons. Lady Helen senses Alice's disquiet at Rudolph's attention to her. Later, when they are alone, Lady Helen rejects Rudolph's suggestion to keep her, because Alice really loves him. Nevertheless, she accepts his invitation for a dinner party next Friday. As the check arrives, Lady Helen pulls off a pearl ring, her last jewel, and presents it to Jean, to cover the bill and the waiter's tip. (Curtain) Act III (The home of Rudolph Solomon. One week later, a Friday evening.) Lady Helen is delighted to see the exquisite items Rudolph Solomon has collected in Europe, including some treasures that once belonged to her own ancestors. She explains to Lady Wildering and Charlotte that the Gainsborough portrait on one wall is her own great-grandmother, who fell off a horse and died at age 30. Harry Charteris urges Lady Helen to stop her reckless ways and let someone take care of her. She is touched, but tells him "if I were your mother I would not let you marry me". Harry urges her to accept Rudolph then and stop drifting. Alice Vance arrives late and tells Rudolph she has given notice to her musical and will leave for Paris. She knows his fascination for Lady Helen and will set him free to pursue her. Rudolph presents Lady Helen with a string of pearls, made from those she had previously sold. He then tells her about Alice, and hints at marriage but does not propose yet. Lady Helen is ready to acquiesce, but the sudden uninvited entrance of Mrs. Leslie ends this opportunity. Mrs. Leslie is aghast at Lady Helen's presence and cuts her, at which Harry Charteris reminds her of how she cheated at cards in Lady Helen's home. Mrs. Leslie blames Edward Thayer, at which Rudolph suddenly has an epiphany: it is Thayer whom Lady Helen once loved but rejected. Thayer is now wealthy from diamond mines he discovered in South Africa, and is coming to the party. Determined to reunite them, he tells Lady Helen that he now thinks they shouldn't marry, then goes off to find Thayer. Lady Helen has misunderstood; she thinks even Rudolph now rejects her. Taking off the pearls, she wanders out into the street and is hit by a taxi cab. Mortally injured, she is brought into the house but dies as Thayer tries to tell her he loves her. (Curtain)
A middle-aged Jimmy Porter lives with his daughter Alison, whose contempt for his misanthropic rants grows as his old friend Cliff tries to mediate and her friend Helena offers support. Alison ultimately leaves her father.
At Dōjōji temple, a dancer enters despite a ban on women and dances before a new bell, then leaps as it crashes to the ground. The abbot recounts how a woman’s pursuit of the monk Anchin turned her into a serpent that burned him inside an earlier bell. The priests perform an exorcism, driving the dancer’s vengeful spirit into the river.
A play based on a real scandal is watched by people whose lives it depicts. As they recognize the story, they try to stop it; the staged lovers' conflict and the audience's own reactions begin to mirror each other, until Act III is canceled.
Bond's surrealist farce distorts Queen Victoria's court: the Queen is portrayed as a lesbian, her sons are conjoined twins, and a character eats a person in a queue. The play uses grotesque comedy to examine social attitudes and criminality.
A reclusive man hears every sound made by his neighbours. His extraordinary sensitivity traps him in other people’s private lives while intensifying his own longing for connection.
Lulu, rescued from street life and taken under the wing of Dr Schön, is married successively to Dr Goll, the painter Schwarz and Schön. Her relationships drive the men to death and culminate in her shooting Schön before being imprisoned. The play forms the first part of Wedekind’s Lulu pairing with Pandora’s Box.
Three sisters, long abandoned by their father, grapple with his apocalyptic climate forecasts. The eldest, a cabinet minister, weighs environmental protection against economic growth; the pregnant middle sister fears bringing a child into an uncertain future; and the youngest rebels against her career-minded sister. Their father’s predictions and the prospect of reconciliation bring the family back together.
Homa has built a new life in Canada after fleeing Iran. Her son’s relationship with a conservative Muslim woman brings old political wounds into the present and unsettles the family’s sense of safety.
East is a 1975 verse play by Steven Berkoff, dealing with growing up and rites of passage in London's rough East End. The play premiered at the Edinburgh Festival at the Traverse in 1975, with the production later transferring to the King's Head in London.
A semi-autobiographical play about growing up in a mixed-race, working-class family in 1970s Salford.
In Paraguay, Rudi learns that his father was an SS doctor at Auschwitz. He flees to Berlin and falls in love with Sarah, whose mother survived Auschwitz, as both confront the inherited consequences of the Holocaust.
With their father imprisoned for embezzlement and daughter Eleanora confined to an asylum, the Heyst family fears financial and emotional ruin. As Easter approaches, their ordeal opens the possibility of forgiveness and mercy.
In the first act, very successful but disenchanted architect Stephen Wheeler is lunching with his best friend from their days at Dartmouth College, rising avant-garde gay artist Drew Paley, in a trendy restaurant on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Seated at the adjoining table are Wall Street investment counselor Phoebe Kidde and her television producer brother Peter, who has just revealed he has AIDS to her. When boisterous homeless woman May Logan enters the restaurant and creates a scene, the four diners and their frazzled waitress Ellen find themselves thrown together, and they eventually strike up an unlikely alliance. In the second act, six months have elapsed, and the sextet are spending the weekend at Stephen's summer house in The Hamptons. Stephen and Phoebe find they share a mutual attraction, while Peter, unprepared to discuss his recent diagnosis, is trying to discourage Drew's amorous advances. Representing the lower class are Ellen and May, whose presence forces everyone to reexamine their lives and reevaluate their priorities.
London goldsmith Touchstone dismisses his idle apprentice Quicksilver and favors his dutiful apprentice Golding, who marries Touchstone's younger daughter Mildred. Meanwhile, vain Gertrude marries the fraudulent Sir Petronel, whose scheme to use her dowry for a voyage to Virginia ends in shipwreck and arrest. Quicksilver repents, and Touchstone restores him and reconciles the family.
The Whittakers' conventional household is disrupted when their only son John returns from France with Larita, a glamorous divorcée. As his family judges her past and John grows jealous, Larita exposes their hypocrisies and ultimately leaves him.
Ushiwaka, the young Minamoto no Yoshitsune, leaves Kurama temple and joins a merchant caravan. He orders a left-folded eboshi hat as a disguise; the Minamoto-sympathizing hatmaker and his wife refuse his sword as payment. When bandits attack, Ushiwaka uses the secret arts he learned from a tengu to defeat them and kill their leader Kumasaka.
Eclipsed takes place in the country of Liberia in 2003 at a bullet-ridden one room shack, which serves as an army camp for the rebel group called Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), which aimed to depose Charles Taylor, the then president of Liberia. The unseen Commanding Officer kidnaps two young women (Helena & Bessie) and makes them his "wives" by forcing them to have sex with him whenever he wants it. The women are helping to care for a bright 15-year-old (The Girl), who has also been abducted and raped after being discovered by the C.O.. Soon, Maima returns from the battlefield, where she was fighting as a soldier. She tries to convince The Girl to leave the C.O. and become a soldier with her. Rita, who works for a peace organization, makes occasional visits at the compound to end conflict. The Girl now seems to resign herself to her new life in the compound with limited options to choose from—stay with an abusive C.O. or become a soldier, while the others will try to make sense of this difficult situation.
Four working-class friends gather in Jean's bleak Kilburn bedsitter. Jean, a suicidal garage attendant, drinks heavily and makes destructive choices, while her friend Dawn arrives with husband Mick and his quiet companion Len; their drunken gathering exposes their shared frustration.
Hong Kong journalist Ella is sent to Beijing to cover the student movement in Tiananmen Square, where she meets Beijing student Ding Nan and Sichuan student Xu Jun. Twenty years later, they meet again and confront their memories and the convictions and choices of their youth.
In 1927 San Juan Hill, Caribbean immigrant Joseph Barton, a follower of Marcus Garvey, discovers that his daughter Annetta loves Eustace Baylor, an uneducated African-American man from the rural South. Their relationship exposes conflicts between Caribbean immigrants and African Americans.
Over a weekend in a small Irish Midlands town, unhappily married Billy drinks at local pubs and is infatuated with younger woman Imelda. His wife Breda, after losing weight, hopes to regain his affection by going out to meet him.
One Tuesday afternoon Wilfred and Lilian are reminded of their sister when the old nurse, Sarah, happens to bring out the frock Stella wore on her night of triumph at the Town Hall. The siblings argue over whether Stella was right to leave; as Wilfred is employed in Nigeria, Lilian complains that she feels obliged to stay at Eden End in order to keep her father company. They are listening to the gramophone when, to their amazement, Stella arrives home, her first return in eight years. Stella is enraptured by the familiar sights, and excitedly questions Wilfred and Lilian about what has happened in her absence. But when alone with Sarah she breaks down; her plans have come to very little. Her emotions are further stirred when Dr Kirby tells her how much he admires his daughter for boldly seeking her fortune, in contrast to his own decision to stay in northern England for the sake of his wife. He confides to her his belief that he has not long to live. Lilian notices the mark of a recently removed wedding ring on her left hand, and Stella admits to her that in Australia she married a fellow actor, Charles, from whom she is now separated. Not long afterwards the eligible bachelor, Geoffrey Farrant, arrives at the house and sees Stella. Their former attraction is revived, to the anger of Lilian. Charles Appleby arrives at Eden End that Friday; he has been called there by Lilian, who is jealous of Stella's easy relationship with Geoffrey. Charles interrupts their tryst, and Geoffrey is stunned to realise that Stella has failed to disclose her marriage. Stella confronts Lilian and Lilian tries to justify her actions, revealing her long-suppressed anger over Stella's "selfishness", which, she claims, led to their mother's premature death. On Saturday night Charles and Wilfred go out drinking. Stella expresses annoyance that Charles should lead her brother astray; Lilian takes the opportunity to continue their argument from the day before, and later Stella is again upset when her father, unaware of her lack of professional success, declares his admiration for her pluck. Realizing that she no longer fits in her former home, Stella announces her departure, on the pretext of having been cast in a new production. She and Charles leave on the Sunday train, and it seems that they will try to patch up their marriage.
A retired actress resists pressure to sell the house she loves, as family and romantic relationships complicate her effort to remain there.
Edgar; Or, Caledonian Feuds is an 1806 historical tragedy by the British writer George Manners. It was inspired by Ann Radcliffe's novel The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 9 May 1806. The original cast included Sarah Smith as Edgar, Henry Erskine Johnston as Osbert, Alexander Pope as Baron, William Chapman as Malcolm, William Claremont as Count Zulmio, Charles Klanert as Officer, Nannette Johnston as Matilda and Louisa Brunton as Emma. The Irish premiere took place at the Crow Street Theatre in Dublin on 30 April 1808.
Edgar Allan Poe returns as a one-man stage character to recount his life and correct false claims about him. The play combines his poetry, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-Tale Heart, personal episodes, and a full recitation of The Raven.
In the Scottish Highlands, the peasant Edgar guides the young Earl Osbert away from the castle of Malcolm, who murdered Osbert’s father. Their meeting rekindles the family feud: Osbert prepares to rally his clan for revenge, and Edgar offers to fight alongside him.
After a fortune-teller visit, white-collar worker Edmond leaves his wife and wanders through New York's underworld. Violence and escalating alienation lead him to murder, prison and a charged relationship with his cellmate, while the play examines fear, race, sexuality, faith and destiny.
Set in Paris in 1897, Alexis Michalik's comedy follows playwright Edmond Rostand as he creates Cyrano de Bergerac.
An anonymous five-act history play pits English king Edmund Ironside against Danish prince Canutus, while duplicitous Edricus repeatedly shifts sides and seeks power. The play ends with the kings agreeing to share England after combat.
A backstory play follows Edmund from birth to his appearance in King Lear, exploring the circumstances that shape his later actions.
The plays follows the relationship between a 26-year-old Liverpudlian working class hairdresser and Frank, a middle-aged university lecturer, during the course of a year. Susan (who initially calls herself Rita), dissatisfied with the routine of her work and social life, seeks inner growth by signing up for and attending an Open University course in English Literature. The play opens as 'Rita' meets her tutor, Frank, for the first time. Frank is a middle-aged, alcoholic career academic who has taken on the tutorship to pay for his drink. The two have an immediate and profound effect on one another; Frank is impressed by Susan's verve and earnestness and is forced to re-examine his attitudes and position in life; Susan finds Frank's tutelage opens doors to a bohemian lifestyle and a new self-confidence. However, Frank's bitterness and cynicism return as he notices Susan beginning to adopt the pretensions of the university culture he despises. Susan becomes disillusioned by a friend's attempted suicide and realises that her new social niche is rife with the same dishonesty and superficiality she had previously sought to escape. The play ends as Frank, sent to Australia on a sabbatical, welcomes the possibilities of the change.
Education is an 1813 comedy play by the British writer Thomas Morton. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 27 April 1813. The original cast included Charles Mayne Young as Count Villars, Charles Mathews as Sir Guy Stanch, John Fawcett as Mr. Templeton, Charles Kemble as Vincent Templeton, John Liston as Suckling, William Barrymore as Damper, John Emery as Broadcast, Mary Catherine Bolton as Rosine, Maria Theresa Kemble as Mrs Templeton, Sarah Booth as Ellen and Mary Ann Davenport as Dame Broadcast.
Edward II recalls his favourite Piers Gaveston, provoking opposition from the nobles. After Gaveston is killed, Edward elevates the Spencers; Isabella and Mortimer overthrow him, imprison and murder him, but Edward III ultimately executes Mortimer and takes the throne.
King Edward III pursues his claim to the French throne while resisting his attraction to the Countess of Salisbury, then campaigns in France. His son, the Black Prince, proves himself in battle, and the English secure victories at Crécy and Poitiers and capture Calais.
King Edward The Third; With The Fall Of Mortimer, Earl Of March is a 1690 tragedy, generally attributed to the English writers John Bancroft and William Mountfort. It was first performed by the United Company at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. It portrays the early years of the reign of Edward III and his defeat and execution of Roger Mortimer, Earl of March. The original Drury Lane cast included George Powell as King Edward the Third, Joseph Williams as Mortimer, Earl of March, William Mountfort as Lord Mountacute, Edward Kynaston as Delamore, John Hodgson as Sir Robert Holland, Anthony Leigh as Bishop of Hereford, James Nokes as Serjeant Eitherside, John Freeman as Nevill, George Bright as Sly, John Bowman as Earl of Leicester, Samuel Sandford as Earl of Exeter, Elizabeth Barry as Isabella and Anne Bracegirdle as Maria. When published it was dedicated to the politician Lord Sydney.
A two-part Elizabethan history play follows Edward IV’s courtship of Jane Shore, her attempts to use her influence to obtain pardons, and her expulsion after Edward’s death under Richard III.
Edward and Eleonora is a 1739 tragedy by the British writer James Thomson. Originally due to be performed at Covent Garden in 1739, the play was banned by the censor, the Lord Chamberlain Charles FitzRoy, Duke of Grafton, under the recent Licensing Act. This happened late into rehearsals in March 1739. The original cast was intended to feature Dennis Delane as Edward, Christiana Horton as Eleanor, James Rosco as Gloucester and Lacy Ryan as the Sultan. Thomson was closely identified with the Patriot Whigs opposed to the government of Robert Walpole. His play, ostensibly about Edward I and his wife Eleanor during the Ninth Crusade, was viewed as an attack on Walpole's policies and personal corruption. Because the play begins with Edward as a patriotic Prince of Wales compared favourably to his father Henry III, similarities were drawn with the strained relationship between George II and his son Frederick, Prince of Wales who was a backer of the Patriot Whigs. Thomson dedicated the published version of the play to Frederick's wife Augusta. The play finally premiered at Covent Garden on 18 March 1775, many years after Thomson's death. The cast included Thomas Hull, Robert Bensley, Ann Street Barry and Isabella Mattocks. It ran for seven performances.
Edward the Black Prince is a 1750 historical play by the British writer William Shirley. Written in the style of Shakespeare, it portrays the life of Edward the Black Prince an English leader in the Hundred Years War and father of Richard II. The original Drury Lane cast included David Garrick as Edward, Spranger Barry as Lord Ribemont, Edward Berry as Cardinal Perigot, John Sowdon as King John, William Havard as Arnold, Richard Winstone as Charney, Thomas King as Duke of Athens and John Palmer as Audley.
Business tycoon Sir Arnold Holt rises from humble beginnings, driven by the desire to secure social advancement for his son Edward, who never appears. His efforts for Edward lead to his moral decline.
Edwin is a 1724 tragedy by the British writer George Jeffreys. The original cast included Anthony Boheme as Edwin, Lacy Ryan as Leolin, Charles Hulett as Tudor, Thomas Walker as Albert, James Quin as Gomel, Richard Diggs as Morvid and Anne Parker as Adeliza.
Edwy and Elgiva is a historical tragedy by the English writer Fanny Burney. Written in 1790 it was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London on 21 March 1795. The original cast included John Philip Kemble as Edwy, Sarah Siddons as Elgiva, John Palmer as Aldhem, William Barrymore as Cedric, Thomas Caulfield as Ernulf, John Whitfield as Redwald, Robert Bensley as Dunstan, Robert Benson as Orgar, Charles Kemble as Sigebert, John Hayman Packer as Leofric, Walter Maddocks as Peasant, John Phillimore as Ruffian and Jane Powell as Eltruda. The prologue was written by the author's brother Charles Burney. Despite its high-profile cast including three members of the Kemble dynasty, it was withdrawn after only one performance.
Count Egmont resists the Duke of Alba's despotic rule and refuses to flee, trusting in justice and liberty. Imprisoned and abandoned by his people, he is sentenced to death; Klärchen's efforts fail, and she dies by suicide before Egmont's martyrdom becomes a call to fight oppression.
A reworking of Beckett's teleplay removes Joe from the stage and divides the accusing woman's speech among four performers, while the audience stands in for the man being addressed.
An isolated man sits in a room as an accusatory woman's voice recounts his past. In Atom Egoyan's staged version, a live camera projects the actor's face onto a scrim, bringing the audience close to the man's interior struggle.
Valentine Brose takes a factory boiler-room job but resists the regimented workplace, confounding its managers, moving his wife into the boiler room, and growing hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Eight short monologues form a portrait of a generation. In the original performance, the audience selected four of eight characters to speak while the unselected performers remained visible, underscoring the choices made and what they exclude.
An agitprop play based on the arrest and imprisonment of eight Communist Party of Canada leaders, including Tim Buck, and an attempted assassination of Buck in prison. Its performance was threatened with suppression, turning the production into a public controversy about censorship and the prisoners’ release.
Eighty in the Shade is a 1958 play by the British writer Clemence Dane. It was her final play and was written as a vehicle for her friend Sybil Thorndike who played a famous stage actress celebrating fifty years on the stage while confronting family problems. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle before transferring to the Globe Theatre in London's West End where it ran for 179 performances between 8 January and 13 June 1959. As well as Thorndike the cast included Lewis Casson, Robert Flemyng, Mary Peach and Valerie Taylor.
A theatrical examination of society’s obsession with sport as a publicly waged battle.
In five chronological acts, the play follows artists Ernst Herbeck and August Walla, who spent much of their lives as patients at the Gugging institution. Although they share a diagnosis, they interpret and reinterpret each other from profoundly different perspectives.
Through Einstein's recollections, chemist Fritz Haber's career is dramatized from scientific advances that help feed millions to his work on chemical weapons. Haber's ambition and nationalism strain his marriage to Clara Immerwahr and his friendship with Einstein, whose pacifism challenges the use of science for war.
Olympian deities debate Western literary standards, framing a work of literary criticism that explores the pursuit of knowledge and the foundations of Filipino speculative thought.
In an ordinary modern town, a man named Jesus encounters conflicts that echo the Passion of Christ.
After one child finds an unknown woman’s love letter to their father, the children try to prevent him from leaving the family for another woman.
As a dying man lies in bed, his friends debate his legacy for their own benefit, while his son pursues his father’s second wife and nurse. Three invisible shadows personify the man’s flesh and bloodline, soul, and imagined immortality; after he dies, the play tests whether literary achievement can truly make anyone immortal.
In sixteenth-century Rome, the penniless Spaniard Luzmán uses fabricated romance, nobility and bravery to extract money and favors from women. When Isabela discovers his fraud, his invented riches and identity collapse, leaving him abandoned and facing the consequences of his deceptions.
In a clandestine sewing shop in Mexico City, two sisters try to keep a census-taker from recording their business to avoid taxes. Their underpaid seamstress and the census-taker, himself struggling in an economic depression, expose the pressures of class conflict and informal work.
After the Mexican Revolution, unemployed professor César Rubio is mistaken for a missing revolutionary hero of the same name. He adopts the dead man’s identity, gains public acclaim and enters a campaign for governor, but a corrupt general knows the truth and has him killed; the crowd is then persuaded to celebrate Rubio as a hero.
In this short comic interlude, several mismatched couples petition a judge for divorce. A young wife resents caring for her elderly husband; other spouses complain of unemployment, deception and domestic burdens. The judge records their cases but grants no divorce, until musicians announce that a previously unhappy couple has reconciled.
A partial stage adaptation of Valle-Inclán’s novel Sonata de otoño, following the adventures of the womanizing Marquis of Bradomín, an aristocrat with Carlist political sympathies.
After the former lover of Doña Mencía visits her, her husband Gutierre mistakes the circumstances and becomes convinced she has been unfaithful. He has her bled to death in the name of honor. The king then orders Gutierre to marry Leonor, whose reputation he had earlier damaged, prompting a warning that Gutierre may again act as judge of his honor.
Painter Juan Roca marries Serafina but feels unable to capture her soul in his art. After her former lover reappears and abducts her during a fire, Roca wrongly believes she was unfaithful and kills her, turning private revenge into public dishonor.
Alberto loves his friend Armando but believes their love can only be possible if he becomes a woman. He bargains with the devil for transformation, while the devil tries to persuade him that they need not submit to the era's restrictive ideas of masculinity and morality.
After escaping prison, Sayed takes refuge with his uncle, a cook in a wealthy household, and helps serve the family while hiding from police. His encounters with the aristocracy create a comic comparison between the lives of rich and poor people in Arab society.
Two older women set out to try hitchhiking for the first time. Their mundane conversation progressively collapses into a breakdown of communication.
In autobiographical monologues interspersed with showtunes and pop standards, Elaine Stritch recounts her life and career, including her experiences in show business, alcoholism and romantic relationships.
A Dutch morality play uses an Everyman figure and allegory to deliver a didactic message.
Electra and her brother Orestes plot revenge for the murder of their father Agamemnon by their mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Orestes returns in disguise, and the siblings carry out their plan.
Electra and her returned brother Orestes plot revenge for Agamemnon's murder by killing Aegisthus and Clytemnestra. After they kill their mother, the siblings are overcome by grief and guilt; Castor and Pollux instruct them on atonement.
A modern authored reworking of the Electra story drawing on Aeschylus’s Oresteia, the Electra plays of Sophocles and Euripides, and Sartre’s The Flies.
Three generations of women navigate estrangement and dependence: eccentric Dorothea has raised her granddaughter Echo, while Dorothea's daughter Artie has kept her distance. After Dorothea suffers a stroke, Artie and Echo reconnect and begin to build a life together.
After surgery to eliminate her brain disease, Lorna loses her memory and fails to recognize her partner Carrie when they reunite after twenty years. Their past relationship appears in flashbacks as Lorna’s doctor, Miriam, wrestles with the treatment’s consequences.
A man visits a boutique seeking a gift for his seriously ill mistress. His conversation with the shopkeeper exposes his fears about love, rejection and the commitments he has failed to make.
As summer ends, social worker Devon visits her sister Simone, who works as a personal assistant on a wealthy Martha’s Vineyard estate. The owners are meant to be away, but the billionaire’s wife returns unexpectedly, disrupting the household.
Victor Krap withdraws from his bourgeois family and society, yet cannot attain the independence he seeks as family visits repeatedly interrupt his solitary life. The play’s three acts use shifting views of his apartment and a self-aware stage interruption to examine his frustrated desire for freedom.
Elfrid: or The Fair Inconstant, generally shortened to Elfrid, is a 1710 tragedy by the British writer Aaron Hill. Hill wrote the work in less than a fortnight. Set in Saxon England it featured Barton Booth as Athelwold, Charles Powell as King Edgar and Lucretia Bradshaw as Elfrid. Concerned about the play's modest reception, Hill wrote an afterpiece entitled The Walking Statue which proved to be more popular than the main play, and was revived numerous times. In 1731 Hill reworked the play and staged it under a new title Athelwold at Drury Lane. It marked his return to the London stage after an eight year absence. Although he hoped to persuade Robert Wilks to star in the title role, it ended up being played by Roger Bridgewater. Although Alexander Pope tried to generate interest, the new version lasted for three nights and met a largely poor reception.
On the night before the Earl of Essex's execution, Queen Elizabeth I meets Ned, an actor who plays women's roles in Shakespeare's company. As they discuss love, grief, gender, and the roles they perform, each confronts the cost of suppressing their passionate selves.
The Earl of Essex faces accusations of treason at Elizabeth’s court while concealing his love for the Duchess of Nottingham. His private loyalties become entangled with the suspicions and favour of the queen.
The play revolves around the turbulent love affair between the aging Queen Elizabeth I of England and her much younger suitor Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, who is ambitious for the throne.
In Elizabeth I's boudoir, the aging queen awaits the Earl of Essex, who is involved in a coup attempt, while preparing for their meeting with the help of Dame Grosslady, a transvestite beautician who speaks mostly in grammelot. Fo's play breaks the fourth wall and includes improvisations that entered the published script.
This speculative historical drama imagines fifteen-year-old Ella Fitzgerald’s incarceration at the New York Training School for Girls in 1933 and her escape. It follows the weeks afterward, when she returns to Harlem, wins an amateur contest at the Apollo Theater and begins the path toward a singing career.
Elling is a 2007 theatre adaptation by Simon Bent of the 2001 film of the same name. The film and play is based on the book of the same name of Norwegian author Ingvar Ambjørnsen. The play was directed by Paul Miller and produced at the Bush Theatre, London, it then transferred to the West End at Trafalgar Studios for a critically acclaimed twelve-week run, with John Simm in the title role (who was nominated for an Olivier award for best actor) Adrian Bower, Ingrid Lacey, Jonathan Cecil & Keir Charles. A different (and less successful) version of the play premiered on Broadway on November 21, 2010 using a completely different cast and director, it closed on November 28, 2010, after 9 performances and 22 previews. The cast included Brendan Fraser and Denis O'Hare playing the mismatched roommates who deal with common concerns related to friendship, work and women. It also starred Jennifer Coolidge as Reidun, Richard Easton as Alfons, and Jeremy Shamos as Frank.
Nineteen-year-old Iraq War veteran Elliot's story intertwines with those of his father, a Vietnam veteran, and grandfather, a Korean War veteran.
Elmerick, or Justice Triumphant is a 1740 tragedy by the British writer George Lillo. It was performed posthumously following his death the year before. It portrays the assassination of Gertrude of Merania, the consort of Andrew II of Hungary, and the play is part of the so-called Bánk bán tradition. The original Drury Lane cast included William Mills as Andrew II, William Milward as Conrade, James Quin as Elmerick, Richard Winstone as Belus and Thomas Wright as Bathori. The prologue was written by James Hammond.
In a West Indian restaurant in Hackney, Deli tries to keep the business afloat and his teenage son Ashley away from local gang culture, especially as Ashley is drawn toward gangster Digger.
Eloisa is a 1786 tragedy by the British author Frederick Reynolds. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 20 December 1786. The original Covent Garden cast included Joseph George Holman as Villiers, William Farren as Hainhault, William Macready as Courcy, Alexander Pope as Preux and Ann Brunton Merry as Eloisa. The Irish premiere took place at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin on 14 July 1787.
A Danish folklore comedy that localizes the legend of the Elven king to Stevns, incorporates the changeling motif, and casts King Christian IV as a detective unraveling the mystery.
Elvira is a 1763 tragedy by the British writer David Mallet. The original Drury Lane cast included David Garrick as Alonzo, Charles Holland as Don Pedro, John Hayman Packer as Don Roderigo, Susannah Maria Cibber as Elvira and Hannah Pritchard as the Queen.
A satire of the Iraq War told through commedia dell'arte masks, the play chronicles the conflict and mocks U.S. neoconservative political figures.
On a beach, Henry speaks to the sea and imagines his dead father beside him. He summons the voice of his absent wife Ada and recalls their daughter, while telling an unfinished story about Bolton, who begs his doctor Holloway for help. Henry’s fragmented memories and stories circle his father’s disappearance, his strained family relationships, and his effort to drown the sound of the sea with speech.
Screenwriter Colin and book editor Kate Rogers move from Melbourne to Sydney, where Colin chases film projects and Kate advocates for an Aboriginal author's novel. Their family and professional struggles satirize the film and publishing industries, while Sydney becomes the play's Emerald City of self-discovery.
Two unemployed former workers, a theatre prompter and a sacristan, squat in an abandoned house in Naples in an area deserted after an earthquake, while the building is close to collapse.
Four hundred years ago, Emilia Bassano wanted her voice to be heard. It wasn't. Could she have been the 'Dark Lady' of Shakespeare's sonnets? What of her own poetry? Why was her story erased from history?
Prince Hettore Gonzaga becomes obsessed with Emilia, who is about to marry Count Appiani. The prince's chamberlain Marinelli arranges the count's murder and brings Emilia to the prince's residence. Emilia asks her father Odoardo to kill her rather than leave her vulnerable to the prince's advances; he does so, then recoils from his act, while the prince banishes Marinelli.
Fourteen-year-old Emily arrives at the Gan family's Oberon Mansion in Singapore's Peranakan Emerald Hill to marry her cousin. The monodrama follows her life as daughter-in-law, society hostess, meddling matriarch and lonely grandmother.
The play follows Emma Goldman from her work in a textile factory in the late 1880s through her development as an anarchist, her persecution, and her 1917 anti-conscription protest shortly before arrest.
Across two parts, Ibsen follows Julian from a monitored Christian court through his search for spiritual truth and rise to emperor. Julian rejects Christianity in favor of paganism, calls for religious tolerance, and leads a failed campaign against Persia. He is killed, and the army welcomes a Christian successor.
A tragicomedy about business finance and bankruptcy, using a financial crisis to make a forceful plea for honesty.
At an institute for blind students who have adapted to their lives, Ignacio refuses to accept his blindness and unsettles the community with his longing to see. His conflict with fellow student Carlos escalates into murder; uncertainty over Ignacio’s death persists as Carlos recognizes his own suppressed distress.
Two London housewives rent an Italian villa for a holiday, bringing two difficult upper-class women along to share costs; the four clash and then bond, until the arrival of men disrupts their escape.
Judy Garland prepares for a London concert engagement with her fiancé Mickey Deans and pianist Anthony. Her hopes for a comeback collide with addiction and strained relationships.
In an isolated room after an apparent catastrophe, the blind and paralyzed Hamm depends on his servant Clov and his elderly parents, Nagg and Nell, who live in dustbins. Their bleak, repetitive exchanges and Hamm's tale of a starving man reveal their mutual dependence as Clov threatens to leave, yet remains in the room at the end.
The courtier Endymion loves Queen Cynthia and rejects his former lover Tellus, who has him enchanted into a decades-long sleep. Cynthia and Endymion’s friend Eumenides seek a cure while several romantic and comic subplots unfold; Cynthia’s favor finally restores Endymion and resolves the court’s conflicts. The comedy’s allegory presents Cynthia as a model for Elizabeth I.
Set at a factory in 1905, the play depicts conflict between its landowning partners and organized workers after the workers demand the removal of a cruel manager. The confrontation turns violent, leading to Skrobotov's death and a mass arrest; workers stand together as Akimov confesses.
A wealthy young man’s pursuit of a wife is repeatedly disrupted by friends and relatives acting from financial self-interest; confusion over a border marriage and several shifting engagements drive the farce.
Set in Bethnal Green, East London, the play depicts four waves of immigration—French Huguenot, Irish, Jewish, and Bangladeshi—over three centuries.
England Preserved is a 1795 historical play by the British politician and writer George Watson-Taylor. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 21 February 1795. The original cast included Alexander Pope as Earl of Pembroke, Thomas Hull as Bishop of Winchester, William Farren as Earl of Chester, Joseph George Holman as Earl of Surrey, James Middleton as William Mareschal, William Davies as Earl of Lincoln, John Richardson as Lord Robert Fitzwalter, William Macready as English knight, George Davies Harley as French Prince, William Claremont as Vicomte De Beaumant and Tryphosa Jane Wallis as Lady Surrey. It takes place during the era of the Earl of Pembroke who acts as Lord Protector on behalf of his infant nephew in the early fifteenth century.
An episodic examination of the history of British involvement in Northern Ireland, presenting different episodes from contrasting perspectives and responding to the Bloody Sunday shootings.
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