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Cleansed
''Cleansed'' is the third play by the English playwright Sarah Kane. It was first performed in 1998 at the Royal Court Theatre Downstairs in London. The play is set in a university which (according to the blurb of the published script) is operating as "an institution designed to rid society of its undesirables" where "a group of inmates try to save themselves through love" while under the rule of the sadistic Tinker. When the play premiered at the Royal Court in April 1998, Kane played the part of Grace for the last three performances because of an injury that the original actress suffered. It is sometimes claimed that Tinker was named after the theatre critic for British newspaper ''The Daily Mail'', Jack Tinker, whose review of Kane's first play ''Blasted'' was headlined "this disgusting feast of filth", but there does not appear to be any evidence of Kane confirming this. Sarah Kane's brother and executor of her estate, Simon Kane, in 2005 remarked that "overseas many, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Kane
Sarah Kane (3 February 1971 – 20 February 1999) was an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre director. She is known for her plays that deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture—both physical and psychological—and death. They are characterised by a poetic intensity, pared-down language, exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of extreme and violent stage action. Kane herself and scholars of her work, such as Graham Saunders, have identified some of her inspirations as expressionist theatre and Jacobean tragedy. The critic Aleks Sierz saw her work as part of a confrontational style and sensibility of drama termed "in-yer-face theatre". Sierz originally called Kane "the quintessential in-yer-face writer of the 990s but later remarked in 2009 that although he initially "thought she was very typical of the new writing of the middle 1990s. The further we get away from that in time, the more un-typical she seems to be". Ka ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Court Theatre Downstairs
The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England. In 1956 it was acquired by and remains the home of the English Stage Company, which is known for its contributions to contemporary theatre and won the Europe Prize Theatrical Realities in 1999. History The first theatre The first theatre on Lower George Street, off Sloane Square, was the converted Nonconformist Ranelagh Chapel, opened as a theatre in 1870 under the name The New Chelsea Theatre. Marie Litton became its manager in 1871, hiring Walter Emden to remodel the interior, and it was renamed the Court Theatre. Several of W. S. Gilbert's early plays were staged here, including '' Randall's Thumb'', ''Creatures of Impulse'' (with music by Alberto Randegger), ''Great Expectations'' (adapted from the Dickens novel), and ''On G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
In-yer-face Theatre
In-yer-face theatre is a term used to describe a confrontational style and sensibility of drama that emerged in Great Britain in the 1990s. This term was borrowed by British theatre critic Aleks Sierz as the title of his book, ''In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today'', first published by Faber and Faber in March 2001. An adjunct faculty member in Boston University's London graduate journalism programme, and co-editor of TheatreVoice, Sierz uses ''in-yer-face theatre'' to describe work by young playwrights who present vulgar, shocking, and confrontational material on stage as a means of involving and affecting their audiences. Etymology With respect to "in-your-face", Aleks Sierz wrote: Sierz has been mistakenly cited as coining the term "In-yer-face theatre", saying that "Although I certainly was the first to describe, celebrate and theorise this kind of new writing, which emerged decisively in the mid-1990s, I certainly did not invent the phrase." In his piece "A brief h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blasted
''Blasted'' is the first play by the British author Sarah Kane. It was first performed in 1995 at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in London. Synopsis The play is set in an expensive hotel room in Leeds. Ian, a foul-mouthed middle-aged tabloid journalist has brought a young woman, Cate, to the room for the night. Cate is much younger than Ian, emotionally fragile, and seemingly intellectually simple. Throughout Scene 1, Ian tries to seduce Cate, but she resists. All the while, Ian proudly parades his misogyny, racism and homophobia. The scene ends with the sound of spring rain. Scene 2 begins the next morning. Ian engages in frottage with Cate during one of her fits. Afterwards, Cate performs oral sex on Ian, biting him. Cate retires to the bathroom. A soldier unexpectedly enters the room brandishing a gun, and finds Cate has escaped through the bathroom window. The hotel room is then struck by a mortar bomb, and the scene ends with the sound of summer rain. In Scene 3, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ghost Sonata
''The Ghost Sonata'' ( sv, Spöksonaten, links=no) is a play in three acts by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg. Written in 1907, it was first produced at Strindberg's Intimate Theatre in Stockholm on 21 January 1908. Since then, it has been staged by such notable directors as Max Reinhardt, Olof Molander, Roger Blin, and Ingmar Bergman. Bergman directed it four times: in 1941, 1954, 1973, and 2000. Strindberg took the title from Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor, which he called 'The Gespenster Sonata', and also Piano Trio No. 5 in D major, known as the 'Ghost Trio'. ''The Ghost Sonata'' is a key text in the development of modernist drama and a vivid example of a chamber play. In it, Strindberg creates a world in which ghosts walk in bright daylight, a beautiful woman is transformed into a mummy and lives in the closet, and the household cook sucks all the nourishment out of the food before she serves it to her masters. Plot ''The Ghost Sonata'' relates the ad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg (, ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than sixty plays and more than thirty works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis, and politics during his career, which spanned four decades. A bold experimenter and iconoclast throughout, he explored a wide range of dramatic methods and purposes, from naturalistic tragedy, monodrama, and history plays, to his anticipations of expressionist and surrealist dramatic techniques. From his earliest work, Strindberg developed innovative forms of dramatic action, language, and visual composition. He is considered the "father" of modern Swedish literature and his '' The Red Room'' (1879) has frequently been described as the first modern Swedish novel. In Sweden, Strindberg is known as an essayist, painter, poet, and especially as a novelist an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Twelfth Night
''Twelfth Night'', or ''What You Will'' is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–1602 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play centres on the twins Viola and Sebastian, who are separated in a shipwreck. Viola (who is disguised as Cesario) falls in love with the Duke Orsino, who in turn is in love with Countess Olivia. Upon meeting Viola, Countess Olivia falls in love with her thinking she is a man. The play expanded on the musical interludes and riotous disorder expected of the occasion, with plot elements drawn from the short story "Of Apollonius and Silla" by Barnabe Rich, based on a story by Matteo Bandello. The first recorded public performance was on 2 February 1602, at Candlemas, the formal end of Christmastide in the year's calendar. The play was not published until its inclusion in the 1623 First Folio. Characters * Viola – a shipwrecked young woman who disguises herself a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna Hall, Susanna, and twins Hamnet Shakespeare, Hamnet and Judith Quiney, Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Ravenhill
Mark Ravenhill (born 7 June 1966) is an English playwright, actor and journalist. Ravenhill is one of the most widely performed playwrights in British theatre of the late-twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His major plays include ''Shopping and Fucking'' (first performed in 1996),Ravenhill, Mark. 2001. ''Plays:1''. Methuen. . p.1-91 ''Some Explicit Polaroids'' (1999), ''Mother Clap's Molly House'' (2000), '' The Cut'' (2006), ''Shoot Get Treasure Repeat'' (2007) and ''The Cane'' (2018). In 1999 he was one of the recipients of the V Europe Prize Theatrical Realities awarded to the Royal Court Theatre (with Sarah Kane, Jez Butterworth, Conor McPherson, Martin McDonagh). He made his professional acting debut in his own monologue ''Product'', at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Early life Ravenhill is the elder of two sons born to Ted and Angela Ravenhill. He grew up in West Sussex, England and cultivated an early interest in theatre, putting on plays with his brother w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dan Rebellato
Dan Rebellato (born 1968) is an English dramatist and academic born in South London. He is Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London and has written extensively for radio and the stage. He has twice been nominated for a Sony Award, and writes regularly for ''The Guardian'' Theatre Blog. Stage plays *''Chekhov in Hell''. 4–20 November 2010 at the Drum at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, before transferring to the Soho Theatre, London 20 April-14 May 2011 *''Beachy Head''. Written with Emma Jowett and Lewis Hetherington. Analogue: Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2009; National Tour, 2011. *''Static''. 22 April-10 May 2008 at the Soho Theatre, London *''Theatremorphosis''. Part of the CCA Glasgow's Stage Fright event 4 April-23 May 2009. *''Mile End''. Analogue: Edinburgh Festival, 2007. International tour, 2007. Southwark Playhouse, 2008. *''Here's What I Did With My Body One Day''. Lightwork: Pleasance Theatre, London. National Tour, 2006. Radio pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georg Büchner
Karl Georg Büchner (17 October 1813 – 19 February 1837) was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose, considered part of the Young Germany movement. He was also a revolutionary and the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchner. His literary achievements, though few in number, are generally held in great esteem in Germany and it is widely believed that, had it not been for his early death, he might have joined such central German literary figures as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller at the summit of their profession. Life and career Born in Goddelau (now part of Riedstadt) in the Grand Duchy of Hesse as the son of a physician, Büchner attended the Darmstadt gymnasium, a humanistic secondary school."Büchner, Georg." Garland, Henry and Mary (Eds.). ''The Oxford Companion to German Literature''. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. p. 121. In 1828, he became interested in politics and joined a circle of William Shakespeare a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Woyzeck
''Woyzeck'' () is a stage play written by Georg Büchner. Büchner wrote the play between July and October 1836, yet left it incomplete at his death in February 1837. The play first appeared in 1877 in a heavily edited version by Karl Emil Franzos, and was first performed at the Residence Theatre in Munich on 8 November 1913. Since then, ''Woyzeck'' has become one of the most influential and most often-performed German plays. Due to its unfinished nature, the play has inspired many diverging adaptations. Composition and textual history Büchner probably began writing the play between June and September 1836. It is loosely based on the true story of Johann Christian Woyzeck, a Leipzig wigmaker who later became a soldier. In 1821, Woyzeck, in a fit of jealousy, murdered Christiane Woost, a 46-year-old widow with whom he had been living; he was later publicly beheaded. Büchner's work remained in a fragmentary state at the time of his early death in 1837. The play was first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_-_Scene_from_'Twelfth_Night'_('Malvolio_and_the_Countess')_-_N00423_-_National_Gallery.jpg "Click for more on -> Twelfth Night")
