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A study of the guillotine as a cultural artifact, examining its representation in the arts, both high and low, over the course of two centuries.
A Life of Solitude is a biography of Polish playwright Stanislawa Przybyszewska (1901-35). One of the finest plays about the French Revolution, The Danton Case, was written by this unknown Polish woman living in obscurity in the free city of Danzig. The illegitimate daughter of writer Stanislaw Przybyszewski, she became a writer against long odds and at the cost of her health, her sanity, and eventually her life. A Life of Solitude shows how she chose her vocation, examine her ideas about writing, and reveal her struggle with material existence. Tragically, she came to substitute creativity for life and clung to her sense of calling with a stubbornness that dulled the instinct for self-preservation and led to her death from morphine and malnutrition at age thirty-four.
(Applause Books). From Aristotle's Poetics to Vaclav Havel, the debate about the nature and function of theatre has been marked by controversy. Daniel Gerould's landmark work, Theatre/Theory/Theatre , collects history's most influential Eastern and Western dramatic theorists poets, playwrights, directors and philosophers whose ideas about theatre continue to shape its future. In complete texts and choice excerpts spanning centuries, we see an ongoing dialogue and exchange of ideas between actors and directors like Craig and Meyerhold, and writers such as Nietzsche and Yeats. Each of Gerould's introductory essays shows fascinating insight into both the life and the theory of the author. From Horace to Soyinka, Corneille to Brecht, this is an indispensable compendium of the greatest dramatic theory ever written.
On melodrama.
Asks important questions about the very nature of stories and examines why we read stories rather than just learning the endings.
From Aristotle's Poetics to Václav Havel, the debate about the nature and function of theatre has been marked by controversy. Daniel Gerould's landmark work, Theatre/Theory/Theatre, collects history's most influential Eastern and Western dramatic theorists--poets, playwrights, directors, and philosophers--whose ideas about theatre continue to shape its future. Each of Gerould's introductory essays shows fascinating insight into both the life and the theory of the author. From Horace to Soyinka, Corneille to Brecht, this is an indispensable compendium of the greatest dramatic theory ever written. (back cover).
A collection of essays representing Anders's thinking over several decades, 'Between Fire and Sleep' offers a fresh understanding of modern Polish cultural identity.
First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
This play, by Futurist poet Bruno Jasienski, is an outstanding example of the joining of left-wing politics and avant-garde interest in human mechanization that characterized the experimental theatre of Poland in the inter-war years. Stalinism and the purges cut short Jasienski's career and prevented productions of his play for many years - except for a brilliant constructivist staging in Prague in 1933. The Mannequins' Ball can now take its place along with Capek's R.U.R. as one of the major twentieth-century dramas making use of the themes and techniques of human automata. Reproduced in this volume are the eight woodcuts by Moor which accompanied the original Moscow publication in 1931.
The translation of Felicja Kruszewska's A Dream introduces a major play by a twentieth-century female playwright to the English-speaking world. On March 7, 1927 A Dream - a large-scale expressionistic drama by an unknown poet - burst on the Polish theatrical scene in a dazzling debut production by the young actor Edmund Wiercinski, who would become one of the outstanding directors of his time. The play's hallucinatory visions of the rise of fascism and the heroine's longing for a providential savior on a white horse spoke directly to Polish audiences about their deepest anxieties. During the next two years A Dream received three additional stagings and became the subject of lively debate and controversy. The play, which has been successfully revived in 1974, is an outstanding example of European expressionism. The volume also contains An Excursion to the Museum, by the contemporary Polish poet, playwright, and short-story writer Tadeusz Rozewicz. A disturbing account of an utterly mundane visit to Auschwitz, the tale is a brilliant example of the playwright's technique of poetic collage.