Misalliance

George Bernard Shaw

Summary

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is revered as one of the great British dramatists, credited not only with memorable works, but the revival of the then-suffering English theatre. Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, left mostly to his own devices after his mother ran off to London to pursue a musical career. He educated himself for the most part, and eventually worked for a real estate agent. This experience founded in him a concern for social injustices, seeing poverty and general unfairness afoot, and would go on to address this in many of his works. In 1876, Shaw joined his mother in London where he would finally attain literary success. Written the first decade of the twentieth century, "Misalliance" is a sort of continuation of another of Shaw's play, "Getting Married". Set over the course of an afternoon, this play furthers Shaw's opinion that divorce should be an easily attainable thing.

Available since: 01/01/2011.

Poetry & Theatre

Other books that might interest you

Short Poetry Collection 083

Various

This is a collection of poems submitted by LibriVox volunteers for the months of September and October 2009.

Show book

Pop Music (NHB Modern Plays)

Anna Jordan

A play for anyone that's ever been a dick on the dance floor.
A wedding. A free bar. A blast from the past.
G and Kayla's lives are a mess but tonight they're determined to Have It Large. As their veins course with adrenaline and cheap prosecco, we follow them on an epic journey through thirty years of Pop.
Can the DJ save them as they become Dancing Queens, reliving their Teenage Dream, Staying Out For The Summer and Spicing Up Their Lives? Pop makes promises it can't keep, and soon they'll discover they have more in common than their taste in tunes.
Anna Jordan's play Pop Music is an emotionally contagious rollercoaster. It was premiered at Latitude Festival in July 2018 before a run at Birmingham Repertory Theatre and touring the West Midlands.

Show book

Voices from Ukraine: Two Plays...

Neda Nezhdana, Natal'ya Vorozhbit

Two powerful plays about the shattering impact of war, and the astonishing resilience of those living through it, written by two of Ukraine's leading playwrights.
'They've mobilised all the living now, the fifth call took the last of the living. But the war keeps on. So high command asked us.'
Sasha, a Colonel in the Ukrainian Army, has died suddenly of a heart attack, leaving his relatives Katia and Oksana to mourn for him. But a year later, as war intensifies, the army has resorted to recruiting the dead. Sasha is anxious to be resurrected so he can rejoin the fight, but can his family bear to lose him all over again? Take the Rubbish Out, Sasha by Natal'ya Vorozhbit blends reality and the supernatural in a startling exploration of the effects of war and conflict.
'I want to report a robbery... I was robbed. What was stolen from me? Almost everything... Home, land, car, work, friends, city, faith in goodness…'
Donbas, 2014. A nameless woman stands in the street, trying to sell a basket of kittens. She has lost everything else she holds dear. Her only remaining hope is to find a home for the kittens, since she cannot offer them one herself. Pussycat in Memory of Darkness by Neda Nezhdana is an unflinching examination of Russia's war on Ukraine through the brutalised eyes of one woman.
The two plays were translated by Sasha Dugdale and John Farndon, respectively, and performed in English at the Finborough Theatre, London, as part of their #VoicesFromUkraine season in 2022.
10% of the proceeds from sales of this book will be donated to the Voices of Children Charitable Foundation, a Ukrainian charity providing urgently needed psychological and psychosocial support to children affected by the war in Ukraine.

Show book

Lydia is gone this many a year

Lizette Woodworth Reese

LibriVox volunteers bring you 17 recordings of 'Lydia is gone this many a year' by Lizette Woodworth Reese. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for May 8th, 2010.

Show book

Run to Freedom

Dawn Forrester Price

KOFI'S QUEST. KWAME'S ARROW 
"Run to Freedom" is the first of a trilogy set on an 18th century Jamaican plantation. 13-year-old Kofi is an enslaved African who works in the pickney gang on McDermott Plantation. His father, Kwame, secretly trains him in tribal knowledge and hunting skills and embeds the urge to escape the plantation in Kofi's psyche. Kwame has been covertly meeting the Maroons, planning to escape, join the mountain warriors and provide intelligence to facilitate a successful raid for arms. ammunition and food. Kwame's chief intent is to rescue his family in the chaos of the attack and take them to live in the mountains with the freedom fighters. 
But something goes horribly wrong: Kwame is captured and killed. Vowing to succeed where his father failed, young Kofi makes an ill-timed attempt to run away: he is captured and punished severely. Though scarred for life as a result of his failed escape attempt, Kofi is undaunted and determined to try again. 
Will he succeed where his father failed?

Show book

Cut-up Apologetic

Jamie Sharpe

Up-and-coming poet Jamie Sharpe presents a finely tuned second collection

Cut-up Apologetic, Sharpe’s second collection, explores aging in a world where youth is terrible and something we desperately want back. These are poems about failing to leave our mark while marks are left on us — about the collective insatiability of emptying surroundings in an attempt to fill ourselves.

At the same time,  is naïve and playful even when examining fear expressed as discrimination or the ways restlessness transitions into an inertia spelling cultural death. Sharpe finds strange new horizons “extend(ing)/only backward, into memory.”

Show book