Book Description
The leading figure of absurdist theater and one of the great innovators of the modern stage, Eugene Ionesco did not write his first play, The Bald Soprano, until 1950. He went on to become an internationally renowned master of modern drama, famous for the comic proportions and bizarre effects that allow his work to be simultaneously hilarious, tragic, and profound.
Customer Reviews:
"That's because we live in the suburbs of London and because our name is Smith.".......2007-04-06
I've seen The Bald Soprano and The Chairs performed, and it has been on my list for quite a while to read them both. The other two plays in the volume I saw as a kind of bonus.
The Chairs is the gem in the book. It was just as wonderful to read as it was to see. Ionesco and his feel for the absurdities in language is always charming, but the Chairs combines that sense of fun and the absurd with some very real pathos.
I was not familiar with Jack, and was glad to have a chance to read it. The bride with three noses and the absurd Grandmother and Grandfather Jack are wonderful characters-- I look forward to having an opportunity to see this staged.
Essential reading for people with an interest in the Theater of the Absurd.
Ionesco!.......2006-07-28
As history tells us, the Frenchman Eugene Ionesco was learning English in the late 1940s when he was struck by the arbitrary nature of the sentences used to teach foreign language. ("I have a dog. His name is Spot. My name is Duncan.") Their nihilism and nonsensicality became the basis for his first play, La cantatrice chauve -- The Bald Soprano. People who come across this play mostly love it or hate it (witness reviews here); I think it's one of the most most interesting things ever written. Those who dislike the bizarre will want to throw this book in the trash; the plays in this volume really are absurd, but they've got their own reason.
I've used one quotation from The Bald Soprano, from time to time, in response to the decisions of some of our political "leaders":
"Experience teaches us that when one hears the doorbell ring it is because there is never anyone there."
There is definitely stuff to be found here. Of Ionesco, I will always say: Worth a read.
Without a Doubt the Worst Book I Have Ever Read.......2006-05-22
This is simply the worst book that I have ever read. Without any doubts in my mind, I can say that Eugene Ionesco is the luckiest man alive for making money off of this horrible excuse for a book. Do not waste your money on trash like this. Paper wasted on this book could have been used for things much more important. The book was written to not make any sense. Do not try and say that it's funny or absurdist. I could write this filth in less than an hour. Blindfolded. And you could give the computer a spear even. Eugene Ionesco wrote this book for money and nothing else. If you call this book hilarious than you need to go out, see some good movies and then reconsider your thoughts about what is funny and what isn't. Do not waste your money on this book. I have wasted my time reading it thinking that there may be something rewarding at the end, but unsurprisingly it let me down and ended in a fantastically horrible fashion. You can call this book absurdist all you want, but your better off just calling it a fire starter.
review.......2005-12-11
The amount of creativity and ingenuity Ionessco holds as a playwright is remarkable. His plays are an inspiration to the avant-garde mind. To be short and sweet, I recommend this collection of plays. If you are an Ionesco fan, I also recommend checking out his literature for children.
HILARIOUS.......2004-05-02
I just finished being in a production of The Bald Soprano as Mrs. Martin. The best show I've ever been in. This script is amazing - every rehearsal the cast would be laughing until we all had tears in our eyes at the humor we found in this "anti-play". Absolutely brilliant - do yourself a favor and pick up this book.
Customer Reviews:
Forget what you know about classical tragedy..........2002-08-29
And forget what you know about Seneca the Stoic. In his tragedies, the younger Seneca gives full reign to what Nietzsche later (and perhaps unrelatedly) recognized as the Dionysian: lust, anger, revenge, and unadulerated humanity in its most elemental. Although some apprecition of classical mythology is needed to enter these texts fully, once you're in them, you look around, and find yourself in a house of horrors or else in the deepest region of the unconscious.
Read _Thyestes_, and you'll have the underpinning for horror and suspense from Poe to Jim Thompson to the _Blair Witch Project_.
You could take my word for it, or you could listen to Seneca's admirers and imitators: Webster, Jonson, Shakespeare...
Vulgar and unrestrained.......2000-04-04
As we all know, classical rules of poetry dictate that no violence must be shown on stage, that the protagonist must be admirable except for one fatal flaw, that the declamation must be dignified and poetic. Seneca violates all of these rules, plus many others. His protagonists are nothing but shrieking hysterical fools, and the stage is awash in blood by the end of every play. As for the "poetry," it is nonexistent. Perhaps I just read a bad translation, but I still recommend that anyone who is seeking a Roman imitation of Sophocles or Aeschylus to forgo Seneca.
Book Description
Euripides, the last of the three great tragedians of ancient Athens, reached the height of his renown during the disastrous Peloponnesian War, when democratic Athens was brought down by its own outsized ambitions. “Euripides,” the classicist Bernard Knox has written, “was born never to live in peace with himself and to prevent the rest of mankind from doing so.” His plays were shockers: he unmasked heroes, revealing them as foolish and savage, and he wrote about the powerless—women and children, slaves and barbarians—for whom tragedy was not so much exceptional as unending. Euripides’ plays rarely won first prize in the great democratic competitions of ancient Athens, but their combustible mixture of realism and extremism fascinated audiences throughout the Greek world. In the last days of the Peloponnesian War, Athenian prisoners held captive in far-off Sicily were said to have won their freedom by reciting snatches of Euripides’ latest tragedies.
Four of those tragedies are here presented in new translations by the contemporary poet and classicist Anne Carson. They are Herakles, in which the hero swaggers home to destroy his own family; Hekabe, set after the Trojan War, in which Hektor’s widow takes vengeance on her Greek captors; Hippolytos, about love and the horror of love; and the strange tragic-comedy fable Alkestis, which tells of a husband who arranges for his wife to die in his place. The volume also contains brief introductions by Carson to each of the plays along with two remarkable framing essays: “Tragedy: A Curious Art Form” and “Why I Wrote Two Plays About Phaidra.”
Customer Reviews:
Family love and hate.......2007-01-12
This translation of four plays by Euripedes is brilliant, clean and clear, without pretension. It offers the direct gaze of an Athenian at human emotion and human fate, which is considered a matter of luck more than character. For the Athenians matters of state and import are rooted in the family, where everything begins.
Whose got a mop?.......2006-11-10
There is so much blood letting in these plays I would hate to be the stage manager. What a clean up after every performance.
Seriously folks...
The plays are spellbinding. The insights into what motivates human beings are brilliant. I enjoyed reading these plays 10 times more than I ever thought I would. I read the review inThe New Yorker and thought I'd take a chance. (I don't normally read the classics)
I gave it to my wife who loved the plays as well.
Great job.
simple, clear, beautiful.......2006-09-08
I've owned copies of Euripides all my life and never got around to reading them, but when Grief Lessons came across my desk last week, I was compelled to read straight through it. The title alone speaks of Carson's special talent for reaching the heart of the matter. Grief Lessons. The layout of her character's dialogue, too, flows back and forth along the margins of the page so that your eye moves easily down the text. The characters speak simply, without flourishes, without annoying Victorian poetic touches. Grief Lessons opens up Euripides to you so clearly that you can hear the characters weeping and shouting at each other on the stage of your mind. At the same time, so simple is Carson's translation that her words have an open ended flexibility that let you imagine them being pitched almost any way. Is Admetus a typical egocentric or an oaf? I'd always felt sorry for Hippolytus, cursed unfairly by his father. Now I'd like to curse him myself. I've never seen pomposity in a youth so clearly shown in a play. Moreover, Euripides lived at the end of Greece's golden age. His cynicism of the gods and heroes plays very appropriately on the stage of today.
Average customer rating:
- Masterful Ibsen
- old but still good
- A translation to beat all others
- Four classic plays from Ibsen
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Four Major Plays: A Doll's House, Ghosts, Hedda Gabler, The Master Builder (Oxford World's Classics)
Henrik Ibsen
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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The Stranger
ASIN: 0192833871 |
Book Description
Taken from the highly acclaimed Oxford Ibsen, this collection of Ibsen's plays includes A Doll's House, Ghosts, Hedda Gabler, and The Master Builder.
Customer Reviews:
Masterful Ibsen.......2007-07-27
Rather predictably, the first play offered here is "A Doll's House", the most famous of Ibsen's works. Strangely enough, this ended up NOT being my favorite of the four plays provided in this small collection, but I'll get to that in a moment. Next we have "Ghosts", "Hedda Gabler", and finally "The Master Builder".
"A Doll's House", 86 pages long, is also provided here with the alternate German ending. The ending was deemed so scandalous that Ibsen was forced to write up another ending, in which things go slightly differently. "A Doll's House", a play about a woman who rather does the unthinkable (in that time, at least) to help her husband and then once again to herself, is remarkably interesting. Ibsen plays are generally extremely fun to analyze, simply because there's always something there. Nobody would read dull plays, after all. The alternate ending provided is actually the most interesting part of all. It shows us what the impact of this play was on society at the time that it came out. Perhaps we find these things somewhat more "normal" (though they're actually not, and are still considered rather scandalous) and acceptable, so this ending really reminds us of WHY this play was so impressive and WHY Ibsen was such a strange character for his time. An intriguing play, though not my favorite.
No, that falls to "Ghosts". A play that once again touches on difficult subjects that are most intriguing, "Ghosts" chilled me from beginning to end. It was a more interesting play, overall, because it seemed to me more human. That's not to say that "A Doll's House" wasn't human (it definitely is), but there was something about "Ghosts" that touched me more than the other plays. At 73-pages and with fewer characters, "Ghosts" is an easier play to really read, and certainly an enjoyable one.
"Hedda Gabler" changes things a bit. The plot suddenly becomes a bit more interesting with a touch more mystery and intrigue. There are moments that positively creeped me out ("I'm burning your child") and moments where I just shivered. The ending is a bit more intense than in the previous plays, though less surprising. The play felt very different from "Ghosts" or "A Doll's House", though it was still clearly an Ibsen "morbid but interesting" play.
For me, "The Master Builder" is the odd play out. It's the one that, a. Bored me the most, b. Seemed to take the longest (though only barely longer than "A Doll's House, at 88 pages, and shorter than the 97-paged long "Hedda Gabler"), and c. Seemed the least realistic. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the ending wouldn't seem to work on stage. I felt like at some point Ibsen kind of forgot that he was writing a play and mentioned things that wouldn't really work (unless they have a complex blue screen, but those didn't exist in his time...). There are ways around it, certainly, and it's a minor flaw, but I found that "The Master Building" just didn't have that spark that the other plays seemed to have. No, it's not a BAD play, but it's not my favorite among these either.
While there are many options out there for buying Ibsen plays, this one is certainly a good buy. While the Signet edition also gives us four plays for a few dollars cheaper, instead of the incredible "Ghosts", we get the reasonable "The Wild Duck". For those few dollars, I'd opt for "Ghosts". Also, the book type itself is better in this edition as opposed to the Signet Classics one.
Highly recommended to anyone interesting in a good play to analyze and enjoy. Enjoy!
old but still good.......2007-01-10
it was an older book, but it was in good shape. good plays too.
A translation to beat all others.......2001-06-21
James McFarlane's and Jens Arup's translations of Ibsen have long been classics and are arguably the best. Although they were published in England almost forty years ago, they still sound remarkably fresh and will be in print for many years to come.
In "A Doll's House" (1879), Ibsen casts us into the world of Nora Helmer, a young Norwegian housewife and Nordic Madame Bovary. Highlighting the restricted position of women in male-dominated society, the play sparked such an uproar in Scandinavia when it appeared that "many a social invitation during that winter bore the words: 'You are requested not to mention Ibsen's Doll's House!'" In fact, Hedwig Niemann-Raabe, the actress who was to play Nora on tour in Germany, was so appalled at the ending of this play -- at this female "monster" -- that she demanded Ibsen write an alternative one in German, which he did (a "barbaric outrage", in his words). McFarlane has appended this German-language ending (and a translation in English).
Based on the theme, "The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children," "Ghosts" (1881) is one of Ibsen's most riveting plays. Like "A Doll's House", it, too, was denounced on its début ("crapulous stuff", "an open drain", one London reviewer called it -- certainly a Victorian exaggeration). As in most of his plays, Ibsen probes the hypocrisies of patriarchal society, which he deems to be rotten at its core, and stultifying provincial life ("Doesn't the sun ever shine here?"). Typically, he also casts women in a favorable light.
"A Doll's House" and "Ghosts" established Ibsen's reputation as one of the finest playwrights in Europe, but his next two plays -- "Hedda Gabler" (1890) and "The Master Builder" (1892) -- gave him undisputed international fame. As McFarlane points out, the 1890s "were the years when the publication of a new Ibsen play sent profound cultural reverberations throughout Europe and the world." "Hedda Gabler" marks Ibsen's shift away from highly controversial dramas primarily concerned with social and sexual injustice to "domestic" plays that addressed the struggle of individuals to control each other, people who "want to control the world, but cannot control [themselves]." "Hedda Gabler" is a thoroughly electrifying drama about a married woman's devouring sense of decay and confinement. "The Master Builder", which Ibsen coupled with "Hedda Gabler", is his riveting look into sexual potency and the domination of youth by age.
These plays are not as dark and dirty as they might seem. Whatever reviewers may have said about them when they came out and whatever gloomy stuff psychiatrists have written about them since, if you're at all familiar with prime-time television, they won't offend you -- in fact, you probably wont even lift an eyebrow. Still, I found myself glued to them for hours and I've read them before. Find a copy for your shelf!
Four classic plays from Ibsen.......1996-10-31
Actually, I've only read two of these plays before but I did
want to list the names of the four included in this volume:
A Doll's House;
Ghosts;
Hedda Gabler;
The Master Builder.
Masterful social drama (to sound like a back-of-the-book blurb).
Seriously though, Ibsen's plays are wonderful.
Book Description
Have some toe-tapping, tongue-flapping fun with this brilliant new book by Newbery Award-winner Paul Fleischman and gifted illustrator Beppe Giacobbe. You'll have to see, shout, share, perform, and experience it to believe it!
Two's company . . . four's a blast! Especially when you're joining voices with family or friends. Around the kitchen table, on the front steps, or in the classroom, these rousing, rib-tickling, delicious poems will fill you full of the joy of reading aloud. Paul Fleischman won the Newbery Medal for JOYFUL NOISE: POEMS FOR TWO VOICES. Now he invites us to make more word music.
Settle back and chant "The Quiet Evenings Here," as Grandma rocks, the clock tick-tocks, Sister hums, raindrops rap, and no one cares a hoot for the noisy, fast-paced world outside. Delight in the gossipy "Seventh-Grade Soap Opera," alive with whispers, invitations, and hearsay about who's fibbing, eavesdropping, or holding hands with whom. Let the poignant "Ghosts' Race" reveal the secret hungry ghosts know—and their spirited take on mortal mealtime. Arranged in color-coded groups of four lines, one line per speaker, each poem weaves a rich tapestry of rhythm, sense, and sound.
Written by Paul Fleischman, the renowned author of WESLANDIA, and evocatively illustrated by Beppe Giacobbe, this hip, innovative, and extraordinary book will have readers of all ages sounding off.
Customer Reviews:
Great fun--can anybody actually do this???.......2005-01-04
Those who loved "A Joyful Noise" and "I Am Phoenix" will feel that they've hit upon a treasure trove in this group of poems for four voices. The only small disadvantages: this book only contains three poems (maybe somebody should write a sequel?), and the arrangement of the color-coded lines can be a bit confusing. (Each "voice," or color, can have more than one line on a page.)
So, have fun. And then go write a few masterpieces of your own. Keep the Big Talk going.
Book Description
'Inge has presented with astounding veracity the oppressive banality of the lives of his characters: the events of their lives have the nerve-lightening regularity of a dripping faucet. His female characters especially are engulfed by the bathos of their lives, and Inge capitalizes on this fact in order to heighten dramatically the moment of personal crisis which comes to each of them. In his four major successes--Come Back, Little Sheba; Picnic; Bus Stop; and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs--the play carries the audience through the moment of crisis; and the final curtain falls upon a note of hope and fulfillment.'--R. Baird Shuman
Customer Reviews:
FOUR AMERICAN PLAYS.......2003-09-25
Four plays by William Inge all published and produced on Broadway in the 1950s. The plays are underbellies of the American dream concerning modestly incomed average Americans facing conflict in a changing social environment, each with a deep dramatic sense of the human spirit riddled softly with a genuinely comedic edge. "Come Back, Little Sheba" is a low-key story of a recovering alcoholic which rises to thunderous and violent drama. "Picnic" follows two Kansas households whose lives are disrupted when a stranger comes to town during a Labor Day weekend. "Bus Stop" concerns an unlikely wedding engagement among a group of stranded passengers in a coffee shop bus stop. Only "Dark At The Top of The Stairs" is a little less focused in it's story of a 1920s family threatened by marital discord, the play is unfortunately reliant on a shock-value incident which seems to only serve as a melodramatic device. The book includes an essay by William Inges on being a successful playwright.
A Playwright in Need of Rediscovering?.......2001-07-31
Midwesterner William Inge was one of the most celebrated playwrights of his day. No one would have blinked to hear his name mentioned alongside Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams. Today he is not much thought of, except for the four popular movies spawned by the four plays in this anthology...
Inge may or may not be "world class," but he shouldn't go ignored. He dealt with the "little people," common Midwesterners and how they lived. Inge was superb at slowly revealing the subtext of their lives--the situations and mishaps that had got them to the point where a pivotal decision had to be made and there were only one or two options to consider.
"Come Back, Little Sheba" is the first play, and the one the movie industry left almost untouched. With today's hindsight it becomes easier to understand Lola's depression in the context of Doc's incipient alcoholism, and the fact that they feel stuck with each other in a joyless middle age. As with Shakespeare, Inge would have made a terrific psychotherapist.
"Picnic" is a Freudian's dream. Inge tells a realistic story of a twentyish beauty from the wrong side of the tracks who feels trapped into marrying one of the town gentry until a sexy drifter hits town. At the same time, without compromising realism, the subtext screams with repressed sexuality. Pay attention in particular to the three schoolteachers and how they talk about the statue in the high school. Cinematically, Rosalind Russell made the best of this meaty part. When the play was "opened up" into a movie, it gained realism with excellent cinematography and outdoor settings, but lost much of the hothouse atmosphere that is quintessentially Inge.
"Bus Stop" is the most optimistic of these four plays. It concerns a likeable but socially and sexually naive young cowboy from Montana who falls head over heels in love (and lust) with a young woman trying to make a living singing in a seedy bar/nightclub. How this young bronco gets busted is interesting to watch--it's kind of an anti-screwball comedy although it ends well. Again, Inge relates his characters through dialog and you couldn't ask for a more colorful slice of Fifties Americana than this busload of strangers stuck for the night in a rundown diner/bus stop. The movie was a fine vehicle for Marilyn Monroe but except for a few scenes, doesn't follow the stage play...
Re: "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs": Without giving too much of the plot away, this play concerns a character that unfortunately has become too much of a stock figure in American fiction: the father who is too busy making money to take much interest in his children. This father, specifically, is a traveling salesman, and despite his wife's insistence on maintaining all the 1920s proprieties, the children become uncomfortably aware why Dad is out on the road more than is strictly necessary. Inge turned the pace down on this one to match the children's slower pace of recognition that the ideal moral world they had been instructed to live by wasn't always followed.
For the money "Four Plays" is a great investment. In particular, I urge anyone with an interest in American theater to buy it. With plays that are 40 to 50 years old, Inge does not read like a contemporary playwright; his product is very 1950s. To today's upper-middle-class, therapy-aware audiences, some of his Freudian insights might come across as laughably overstated. Bit simply as works of literature these plays are well worth the reading.
Heartbreak Country.......2001-05-19
The plays of William Inge depict the character of a very specific place: Southeast Kansas. The longing-for-elsewhere among the inhabitants of that part of Kansas is crafted into all of Inge's stories. Inge's gift is his awareness of that yearning and how it effects Kansans' daily lives. His writing makes it compelling and universally poignant.
Four Plays: All Great!.......2000-08-02
Mr. Inge, in "Bus Stop," has crafted a tale of first love and cynicism that we can all relate to. People jaded by life, people wanting something more, people content with their lot... it's all here.
The other classics contained in this volume are also well worth your time to read.
A superb overview of one of America's Best.......2000-07-26
William Inge certainly has been overshadowed by his contemporaries Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller and yet he was certainly their equal in many ways. Williams, a close personal friend to Inge who suggested he enter the playwrighting profession, even said that Inge was his favorite. And although his work does lack the dense poetic symbolism of the aforementioned playwrights, Inge grounds his characters in true spare dialouge and often heartbreaking simplicity that deceptively hides complex characters.
Proving to be easy stagable and ultimately actable, Inge's dialouge develops out of carefully drawn characters enacting direct and clear objectives. All the plays represented here also feature opportunities(especially "Bus Stop" and "Picnic")for strong ensemble work. Having both directed and acted in several productions of Inge's scripts, I can say from experience that Inge's language connects easily and brilliantly to the actor.
Inge managed to make art that is thouroughly accessible while being most personal. His plays all occur in Kansas and the midwest and yet they are about all of us. Granted this collection would be more complete with his Academy Award Winning script for "Splendor in the Grass", but as it stands, this is a great collection from a great playwright who deserves respect as one of America's finest dramatists. Five out of five stars.
Amazon.com
Woody Allen's greatness as a director rests squarely on his stupendous talent as a writer. In the glory years from 1977 to 1980 he released his best--and best written--movies. Included in this volume are the scripts of Annie Hall, Allen's first mature film and the winner of the Best Picture Oscar; Interiors, his first serious work, a Bergmanesque treatment of a tortured family; Manhattan, his greatest and most characteristic movie, which concerns a writer's attempt to find true love in the comic wilderness of New York City; and Stardust Memories, his most satiric and personal piece, about the effects of fame on a film director who is standing at a crossroads in his life.
Book Description
This book contains the script to four of Woody Allen's movies: Annie Hall, Interiors, Manhattan and Stardust Memories.
Customer Reviews:
Do It For The Eggs.......2001-05-27
I bought this while studying screenwriting, assuming that owning ANNIE HALL and MANHATTAN would somehow deliver upon me some kind of ability, perhaps a bit of greatness via osmoseous (sp?).
I was wrong.
I also realized that MANHATTAN is based more on the visual than I had realized--the script, while great, isn't on the same level as ANNIE HALL; INTERIORS, which dissapointed me on the screen is a very good script; and--this just confirmed what I already knew--ANNIE HALL is a great great GREAT film.
Did I mention that ANNIE HALL is a great film?
Truly pointless.......2000-04-20
If you're a cineaste, it can be quite enlightening and entertaining to read the original shooting script that a favorite film was based on. In addition to the screenwriter's comments and directions, you usually get several scenes that were cut from the finished movie as well as occasional odd little changes in dialogue sprinkled throughout and an overall peek at some aspects of the creative process that a film goes through from inception to completion. Unfortunately, that's not the case with this book, since the four "screenplays" included are merely transcriptions from the finished films. VCRs were generally available when this book was first published in '82, so even back then this book was a pointless rip-off. Watch the films, skip the book.
Must have omnibus for Woody Allen fans and script writers........1999-05-23
This book contains "screenplays" of Woody Allen's most famous films including Manhattan and Annie Hall. It doesn't say screenplays on the cover, but that's what I figured it would be. Instead, what I got was a book that's not even script formatted. The publisher also adds his notes whenever he pleases to explain what's going on 'from the film' to the reader.
Hilarious.......1998-09-18
This great book includes the screenplays of two of Woody's best films, "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan." There's also "Stardust Memories" which is good, and "Interiors" which is, well...ok. Well worth the money.
Great read - Explores the human condition with insight........1998-04-24
This book cheered me along during a stay in hospital and so I will always remember it fondly.
To me, the scripts represent the best of Woody Allen as they are truthful and realistic. Humour is
sharp in the scripts (except for Interiors of course) as it exposes pretenses, hypocrisies & other human fallibilities. There is so much more
to this than clever lines. This should be a text for
aspiring scriptwriters. To any publishers reading
this, how about another compilation which has
"Husbands & Wives" and "Mighty Aphrodite" in it?!
Book Description
Marathon Man, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Princess Bride, Misery. Author royalties donated to the Motion Picture and Television Fund.
Customer Reviews:
Esential reading for all aspiring writers.......2002-09-29
Most people have seen these four films. Far fewer have read the screenplays. Because of the diversity of the material and the quality of the writing, this book is truly essential to all writers, especially those who want to write for the screen. Goldman's screenplays are unique. In effect, he has invented his own screen language. He's that rare beast, a screenwriter who cares about style.
Prepare to be thrilled and inspired.
Great for fans of screenplays and of The Princess Bride.......2001-02-06
Well, I've always enjoyed reading screenplays. In addition, I've loved The Princess Bride since I first saw it. I also loved Misery. However, I hadn't seen Butch Cassidy yet. Reading the screenplay made it mandatory.
Goldman's comments about the movies are a wonderful addition to the screenplays. I highly recommend this book.
Wonderful companion guide to four great films.......1998-04-20
An enthusiastic 'thumbs-up' to William Goldman for including four essays to accompany his wonderful screenplays.
If you wonder why the author chose the idea of using the grandfather as the storyteller in the "Princess Bride" or how beloved Andre the Giant was on the set of the film then this book is a must-read.
Want to know which major scene with Kathy Bates in "Misery" was changed over the objections of the screenwriter? It's all here, colorfully annotated by the author in his essays that preface each screenplay.
The most entertaining book I've read so far this year (1998). If you've enjoyed these movies then, by all means, read this book!
Book Description
Euripides' most important plays in one volume. Translations are taken in full text from other single volumes in the Focus Classical Library, by authors Michael Halleran, Anthony Podlecki, and Stephen Esposito, with notes and a new introduction. As with all Focus Classical Library titles, this anthology has been designed with the student of ancient drama in mind, including modern translations close to the original, informed by the latest scholarship, and with an extensive introduction, interpretative essay, and footnotes- all to the purpose of allowing the student to understand Greek drama, Greek mythology, and the context of Greek culture.
Customer Reviews:
Some significant cover damage, more than was described.......2007-09-27
I bought the book as "like new" so I had some high expectations. while my pages were unmarked and in order, the cover was bent, warped, dogeared, with rippled tears. Poor quality, and misfiled as "like new"
student review.......2004-12-08
I found all 4 plays in this book easy to read & easy to get into...this book was awesome & has made me a fan of Euripides.
Books:
- Free Fall (Revenge of the Sisterhood (Hardcover))
- Green Eggs and Ham and Other Servings of Dr. Seuss
- Hamlet (Folger Shakespeare Library)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- HOME RULES: TRANSFORM THE PLACE YOU LIVE INTO A PLACE YOU'LL LOVE
- HOW TO WALK IN HIGH HEELS: THE GIRL'S GUIDE TO EVERYTHING
Books Index
Books Home
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Rhinoceros and Other Plays
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