Best French Dramas & Plays

The Tony Award-winning play that focuses on the meaning of art (in the form of a solid white painting) as well as the meaning of friendship, to both the man who bought the painting and the two friends who come to see it." “This is not some irrelevant fringe production; it is a major intervention in the cultural debate of the country by people who are keen to keep the reactionary tides running. “ Art , which has been translated from the French by Christopher Hampton, is filled from first curtain to ending with a dazzling array of language.” ― Iris Fanger, Christian Science Monitor. “It's an actor's dream, a nonstop cross-fire of crackling language, serious issues of life and art expressed in outbursts that sound like Don Rickles with a degree from the Sorbonne.

Regarded as one of the greatest dramas ever written, Cyrano de Bergerac is the story of the silver-tongued soldier whose unfortunate looks drive him to woo his love by speaking for his handsome but dull-witted rival. In 1897, Cyrano de Bergerac won critical acclaim and spectacular popular success, and Rostand further solidified his position as the foremost of modern French romantic dramatists with L’Aiglon in 1900 and Chantecler in 1910. Specializing in performance studies and Early Modern France, she has published three books, including Corneille à l'affiche: vingt ans de créations théâtrales, 1980-2000 .

Caroline Aaron as Lise/Mother Marguerite. Hugo Armstrong as Le Bret. Kalen Harriman as Foodseller/Others. Gregory Itzin as Comte De Guiche. Hamish Linklater as Cyrano. Anna Mathias as Duenna/Others. Morgan Ritchie as Valvert/Bellerose/Others. Jason Ritter as Christian. André Sogliuzzo as Ragueneau/Ligniere/Others. Devon Sorvari as Roxane. Matthew Wolf as Cuigy/Others. Includes a conversation with Sue Lloyd, author of The Man Who Was Cyrano: A Life of Edmond Rostand.

This Norton Critical Edition includes all of Marie’s lais (short narrative verse poems); selected fables; and a generous excerpt from Saint Patrick’s Purgatory , a long poem based on a well-known medieval legend. Topics include “The Supernatural,” “Love and Romance,” “Medical Traditions,” “Fable Sources and Analogues: Similar Themes,” and “Purgatory and the Afterlife.” Ovid, Chaucer, Andreas Capellanus, Boccaccio, Aristotle, and Bede are among the authors included. Dorothy Gilbert has served on the faculties of the University of California at Davis, Mills College, Merritt College, and the California State University, East Bay; since retiring from the California State University, she has taught in the Fall Program for Freshmen at the University of California, Berkeley.

Martin Greenberg re-creates not only the text’s varied meter and rhyme but also its diverse tones and styles―dramatic and lyrical, reflective and farcical, pathetic and coarse, colloquial and soaring. Martin Greenberg’s revised version conveys the outrage yet also shows again and again why the poem does stand with the major works of the western tradition. He has taken a great German work, until now all but inaccessible to English readers, and made it into a sparkling English poem, full of verve and wit.

• An overview of Shakespeare's life, world, and theater. • A special introduction to the play by the editor, William and Barbara Rosen. • Selections from Plutarch's Lives of Noble Grecians and Romans , the source from which Shakespeare derived Julius Caesar • Dramatic criticism from Roy Walker, Maynard Mack, Richard David, and others. • A comprehensive stage and screen history of notable actors, directors, and productions. • Text, notes, and commentaries printed in the clearest, most readable text. • And more... Often referred to as the Bard of Avon, Shakespeare's vast body of work includes comedic, tragic, and historical plays; poems; and 154 sonnets.

Here in the authorized translation by James Graham-Luján and Richard L. O’Connell, with an illuminating biographical introduction by the poet’s brother, Francisco García Lorca, are three tragic dramas by the great modern Spanish poet and playwright which have caught the imagination and won the critical acclaim of the literate world. “Lorca is such a virtuoso of the theatre that he can use and control all its resources to present his poetic vision.”. - Kenyon Review.