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The Visitors (play)
''The Visitors'' is a 1961 one-act play by British people, British playwright Joe Orton. The BBC and the Royal Court Theatre had considered the work but ultimately rejected it, despite both having insisted that the writing was "excellent." Orton's career took off in 1964 with the staging of his ''Entertaining Mr. Sloane'', and ''The Visitors'' (aka ''The Visit'') remained forgotten until its UK publication in 1998 by Nick Hern Books; a US edition from Grove Press followed in 1999. Synopsis Kemp, a man facing death, is visited in hospital by his middle-aged daughter, Mrs. Platt. She and the nurse exchange optimistic clichés that completely ignore the reality of his situation. Criticism Elaine Showalter describes it and ''Fred & Madge'', with which it was published, as reading "as if they had just been written, and are wittier than most of what gets staged in the West End", suggesting that they should be produced. Stephen Grecco describes the two plays as "replete with the redund ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Orton
John Kingsley Orton (1 January 1933 – 9 August 1967), known by the pen name of Joe Orton, was an English playwright, author, and diarist. His public career, from 1964 until his death in 1967, was short but highly influential. During this brief period he shocked, outraged, and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies. The adjective ''Ortonesque'' refers to work characterised by a similarly dark yet farcical cynicism. Early life Orton was born on 1 January 1933 at Causeway Lane Maternity Hospital, Leicester, to William Arthur Orton and Elsie Mary Orton (née Bentley). William worked for Leicester County Borough Council as a gardener and Elsie worked in the local footwear industry until tuberculosis cost her a lung. At the time of Joe's birth William and Mary were living with William's family at 261 Avenue Road Extension in Clarendon Park, Leicester. The same year that Joe's younger brother Douglas was born, 1935, the Ortons moved to 9 Fayrhurst Road on the Saffron Lan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British People
British people or Britons, also known colloquially as Brits, are the citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies.: British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, which can be acquired, for instance, by descent from British nationals. When used in a historical context, "British" or "Britons" can refer to the Ancient Britons, the indigenous inhabitants of Great Britain and Brittany, whose surviving members are the modern Welsh people, Cornish people, and Bretons. It also refers to citizens of the former British Empire, who settled in the country prior to 1973, and hold neither UK citizenship nor nationality. Though early assertions of being British date from the Late Middle Ages, the Union of the Crowns in 1603 and the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 triggered a sense of British national identity.. The notion of Britishness and a shared Brit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Playwright
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder (as in a wheelwright or cartwright). The words combine to indicate a person who has "wrought" words, themes, and other elements into a dramatic form—a play. (The homophone with "write" is coincidental.) The first recorded use of the term "playwright" is from 1605, 73 years before the first written record of the term "dramatist". It appears to have been first used in a pejorative sense by Ben Jonson to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre. Jonson uses the word in his Epigram 49, which is thought to refer to John Marston: :''Epigram XLIX — On Playwright'' :PLAYWRIGHT me reads, and still my verses damns, :He says I want the tongue of epigrams ; :I have no salt, no bawdry he doth mea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Court Theatre
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 Gu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Entertaining Mr
Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousands of years specifically for the purpose of keeping an audience's attention. Although people's attention is held by different things because individuals have different preferences, most forms of entertainment are recognisable and familiar. Storytelling, music, drama, dance, and different kinds of performance exist in all cultures and were supported in royal courts and developed into sophisticated forms, over time becoming available to all citizens. The process has been accelerated in modern times by an entertainment industry that records and sells entertainment products. Entertainment evolves and can be adapted to suit any scale, ranging from an individual who chooses a private entertainment from a now enormous array of pre-recorded produc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nick Hern Books
Nick Hern Books is a London-based independent specialist publisher of plays, theatre books and screenplays. The company was founded by the former Methuen drama editor Nicholas Hern in 1988. History Nick Hern Books was founded in June 1988,Sarah HemminInterview: Nick Hern ''The Independent'', 14 April 1994. Retrieved on 18 April 2009. when Nick Hern left Methuen to establish his own imprint under the aegis of Walker Books. In 1990, the NHB imprint was taken on by Random House. It became a fully independent company on 1 January 1993 when Nick Hern acquired the list from Random House, and he subsequently won ''The Sunday Times'' "Small Publisher of the Year Award" in 1994. First titles The first title published by Nick Hern Books was Nicholas Wright's '' Mrs. Klein'', which opened at the National Theatre in August 1988 before transferring to the West End and Broadway. There followed plays by Caryl Churchill, Arthur Miller, Mike Leigh and Stephen Sondheim, alongside theatre b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grove Press
Grove Press is an United States of America, American Imprint (trade name), publishing imprint that was founded in 1947. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, and Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an Alternative media, alternative book press in the United States. He partnered with Richard Seaver to bring French literature to the United States. The Atlantic Monthly Press, under the aegis of its publisher, Morgan Entrekin, merged with Grove Press in 1991. Grove later became an imprint of the publisher Grove Atlantic, Grove/Atlantic, Inc. Early years Grove Press was founded in 1947 in Greenwich Village on Grove Street. The original owners only published three books in three years and so sold it to Barney Rosset in 1951 for three thousand dollars. Literary avant-garde Under Rosset's leadership, Grove introduced American readers to European avant-garde literature and theatre, including French authors Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean Genet, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elaine Showalter
Elaine Showalter (born January 21, 1941) is an American literary critic, feminist, and writer on cultural and social issues. She influenced feminist literary criticism in the United States academia, developing the concept and practice of gynocritics, a term describing the study of "women as writers". Showalter has written and edited numerous books and articles focused on a variety of subjects, from feminist literary criticism to fashion, sometimes sparking controversy, especially with her work on illnesses. Showalter has been a television critic for ''People'' magazine and a commentator on BBC radio and television. She is a recipient of the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism. Career Showalter is a specialist in Victorian literature and the '' Fin-de-siècle'' (turn of the 19th century). Her most innovative work in this field is in madness and hysteria in literature, specifically in women's writing and in the portrayal of female characters. She is the Avalon Foundatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Review Of Books
The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published twice monthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review of Books'' was founded in 1979, when publication of ''The Times Literary Supplement'' was suspended during the year-long lock-out at ''The Times''. Its founding editors were Karl Miller, then professor of English at University College London; Mary-Kay Wilmers, formerly an editor at ''The Times Literary Supplement''; and Susannah Clapp, a former editor at Jonathan Cape. For its first six months, it appeared as an insert in ''The New York Review of Books''. It became an independent publication in May 1980. Its political stance has been described by Alan Bennett, a prominent contributor, as "consistently radical". Unlike ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (TLS), the majority of the articles the ''LRB'' publishes (usually fifteen per issue) are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Literature Today
''World Literature Today'' is an American magazine of international literature and culture, published at the University of Oklahoma. The stated goal of the magazine is to publish international essays, poetry, fiction, interviews, and book reviews for a non-academic audience. It was founded under the name ''Books Abroad'' in 1927 by Roy Temple House, a professor at the University of Oklahoma. In January 1977, the journal assumed its present name, ''World Literature Today''. History The first issue of ''World Literature Today (WLT)'' was published in 1927 and was 32 pages long. By its fiftieth year, issues of the magazine were more than 250 pages long. In 2006, ''WLT'' switched from a quarterly to a bimonthly publication. House served as editor from 1927 until his retirement in 1949. Todd Downing (writer), Todd Downing, a Choctaw author and former student of House's, worked for the publication in varying capacities between 1928 and 1934. House was succeeded as editor by the Germ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loot (play)
''Loot'' is a two-act play by the English playwright Joe Orton. The play is a dark farce that satirises the Roman Catholic Church, social attitudes to death, and the integrity of the police force. ''Loot'' was Orton's third major production, following ''Entertaining Mr Sloane'' and the television play ''The Good and Faithful Servant''. Playing with the conventions of popular farce, Orton creates a hectic world and examines English attitudes and perceptions in the mid twentieth century. The play won several awards in its London run and has had many revivals. Plot outline ''Loot'' follows the fortunes of two young thieves, Hal and Dennis. Together they rob the bank next to the funeral parlour where Dennis works and return to Hal's home to hide the money. Hal's mother has just died and the money is hidden in her coffin while her body keeps on appearing around the house. Upon the arrival of Inspector Truscott, the plot becomes bizarre as Hal and Dennis try to keep him off their trail ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
