Other books that might interest you

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  Shangri-La (NHB Modern Plays)

  Amy Ng

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  Bunny, a young woman from the officially designated 'Shangri-La' in the Himalayan foothills of China's Yunnan Province, has witnessed her family's livelihood destroyed by mass tourism. She dreams of escape as a globe-trotting photographer.
  But what happens when the only thing you have to sell is your culture? When the only way to free yourself is to betray your roots?
  In Shangri-La, her first full-length play, Amy Ng lays bare the contradictions and private pain of cultural tourism. The play premiered at the Finborough Theatre, London, in 2016.

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  Sight Unseen

  Donald Margulies

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  Jonathan Waxman is a hugely successful artist. He receives exorbitant prices for his works, sight unseen. But a visit with his original muse and lover causes him to re-evaluate the success that now controls him. This Obie award-winning drama explores the artist’s role in society, the commerce of art, and the complications of love and memory.An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Adam Arkin, Jordan Baker, Anna Gunn and Randy Oglesby.

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  Chekhov: Shorts (NHB Classic Plays)

  Anton Chekhov

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  This collection features Chekhov's best-known short plays in brand new translations: three farces, two comic duologues and a monologue, all of them referred to by Chekhov as 'vaudevilles' and all written in the late 1880s before any of his great full-length plays. 'I don't much care for theatre,' he wrote at the time, 'but I do enjoy vaudevilles.'
  The Bear, The Proposal and The Wedding are all farces on the preposterous busness of courtship and marriage. A Tragic Figure and Swansong are comic duologues: one about a civil servant sweltering in Moscow coping with the incessant demands of his family from their summer dacha, the other about a melancholy old actor perked up by memories of past glories. On the Evils of Tobacco is a bittersweet monologue in which a scientific lecture is hijacked by thoughts of domestic misery.
  These accurate and actable translations by Chekhov expert Stephen Mulrine reveal a dramatist revelling in the broad comedy of human behaviour, a comedy which was refined in his later masterpieces.
  Highly entertaining, these comic shorts offer a fascinating insight into Chekhov's development as a dramatist, and will provide actors at any level - student, amateur or professional - with an ideal showcase.
  This edition also includes an introduction, a chronology of key dates, and a pronunciation guide.

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  Seven Ages

  Various Authors

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  ‘One of the best anthologies of the year… An arresting, deeply moving collection of the best of British poetry read by a star-studded cast.’ The Independent This exceptional anthology, based on Lord Owen’s published anthology Seven Ages – Poetry for a Lifetime, features many of Britain’s leading actors who have all given their services for charity. Shakespeare’s ‘seven ages’ speech (read by Sir Ian McKellen) punctuates the programme which contains over four hundred poems read by forty actors. Michael Caine reads Kipling’s ‘If’; Ralph Fiennes reads Hood’s ‘I Remember, I Remember’; John Cleese reads ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’; Pete Postlethwaite reads ‘Kubla Khan’.

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  If You Shut Your Eyes You'll...

  Ellen Palestrant

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  In If You Shut Your Eyes, You'll Hear Some Cosmic Verse, a collection of poems to be enjoyed by all ages, you will enter New Worlds of Possibility that are dreamlike, imaginative, humorous, lyrical, and thought-provoking. Poems from and inspired by The World of Glimpse, written and illustrated by Ellen Palestrant. A theatrical audio treat for people that will make you smile, laugh and get up and dance.

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  Sea Summit - Poems

  Yi Lu

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  Translated to English, this collection of contemporary Chinese poetry examines humanity’s relationship with nature and the ecological crisis. 
   
  Influenced by both the “gray, sinister sea” near the village where Yi Lu grew up during the Cultural Revolution, and the beauty of the sea in the books she read as a child, Sea Summit is a collection of paradox and questioning. The sea is an impossible force to the poet: it is both a majestic presence that predates man, and something to carry with us wherever we go, to be put “by an ancient rattan chair,” so we can watch “its waves toss” from above. Exploring the current ecological crisis and our complicated relationship to the wildness around us, Yi Lu finds something more complex than a traditional nature poet might in the mysterious connection between herself and the forces of nature represented by the boundless ocean. 
   
  Translated brilliantly by the acclaimed poet Fiona Sze-Lorrain, this collection of poems introduces an important contemporary Chinese poet to English-language readers. 
   
  Praise for Sea Summit 
   
  “Yi Lu is a theatre scenographer, and her poems brim with the imagistic tendencies we might expect from a visual artist. More specifically, her poetic style fits that of a theatrical set designer. Within the poetry of Sea Summit, the images are like set pieces. They play supporting roles as they help to tell the speaker’s stories. . . . Sensitive and poignant poetry.” —The Literary Review 
   
  “A compilation of over twenty years of work. . . . Yi’s poetry shows the world as staggeringly simultaneous, from a crowded conference room in the middle of the city to the titular wave rising under the incredible volume of the ocean. . . . This collection is a great introduction to Yi Lu, already one of the most widely read poets in China.” —The Los Angeles Review 
   
  “With this selection of more than 80 of her ecologically conscious lyric poems, Yi receives a generous introduction to English readers. The pastoral is Yi’s mode of choice, and the poems here take as their subject matter the natural world as well as the human experience of it. . . . Sze-Lorrain’s steadfast translations, presented en-face, make accessible one of China’s most famous woman poets.” —Publishers Weekly

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