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  The History of King Lear

  Nahum Tate

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  The History of King Lear is an adaptation by Nahum Tate of William Shakespeare's King Lear. It first appeared in 1681, some seventy-five years after Shakespeare's version, and is believed to have replaced Shakespeare's version on the English stage in whole or in part until 1838. Unlike Shakespeare's tragedy, Tate's play has a happy ending, with Lear regaining his throne, Cordelia marrying Edgar, and Edgar joyfully declaring that "truth and virtue shall at last succeed." Regarded as a tragicomedy, the play has five acts, as does Shakespeare's, although the number of scenes is different, and the text is about eight hundred lines shorter than Shakespeare's. Many of Shakespeare's original lines are retained, or modified only slightly, but a significant portion of the text is entirely new, and much is omitted. The character of the Fool, for example, is absent. Although many critics — including Joseph Addison, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, and Anna Jameson — condemned Tate's adaptation for what they saw as its cheap sentimentality, it was popular with theatregoers, and was approved by Samuel Johnson, who regarded Cordelia's death in Shakespeare's play as unbearable. Shakespeare's version continued to appear in printed editions of his works, but, according to numerous scholars, including A.C. Bradley and Stanley Wells, did not appear on the English stage for over a hundred and fifty years from the date of the first performance of Tate's play Actors such as Thomas Betterton, David Garrick, and John Philip Kemble, who were famous for the role of Lear, were portraying Tate's Lear, not Shakespeare's. (Summary by Wikipedia) 
   
  CastKing Lear: Bob GonzalezGloster: Martin GeesonKent: Arielle LipshawEdgar: Dublin GothicEdmund, the Bastard: Elizabeth KlettCornwall: David GoldfarbCornwall's Servant/Old Man/Gentleman/Servant: Algy PugAlbany: Noel BadrianBurgundy/Physician: VikingJamesGoneril's gentleman: KristingjAttendant/Messenger: CJacobAArante/Herald: Tiffany Halla ColonnaFirst Ruffian/Officer: Nathaniel W. C. HigginsSecond Ruffian/Captain: Robert HoffmanGonerill: Bev J. StevensRegan: Liberty StumpCordelia: Miss AvariceNarrator: Algy PugIntroduction/Prologue/Dramatis Personae: Martin GeesonAudio edited by Phil Chenevert

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  The Poetry of Aphra Behn

  Aphra Behn

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  Aphra Behn was a prolific and well-established poet and playwright but facts about her life remain scant and difficult to confirm. What can safely be said is that Aphra Behn is regarded as a key English playwright and a major figure in Restoration theatre.  Her poetry is now far more appreciated and seen as a breakthrough for women of the 17th Century and beyond.  
   
  Aphra was baptised on 14th December 1640 and grew up with the gathering tensions leading to the English Civil War, a time of much division and difficulty as the King, Parliament, and their respective forces, came closer and then finally into open conflict. 
   
  By 1664 her marriage was over, less than a year after it began. She now used Mrs Behn as her professional name and moved towards pursuing a more sustainable and substantial career, working for the King's Company and the Duke's Company players as a scribe. Her first play ‘The Forc’d Marriage’, was staged in 1670, and thereafter many followed, including her later comic works, which were more commercially successful.  She wrote 19 plays in all and contributed to many others as well as several works of prose. 
   
  Along with her literary career there are claims she was a spy, that she travelled abroad, possibly as far as Surinam.  She also claimed to have met a slave leader in Africa and based her story ‘Oroonoko’ on his life.  Other accounts suggest that during her life she was also known as Ann Behn, Agent One-Sixty and Astrea. Her financial troubles seem to have also incurred her a brief stay in a debtors' prison. Whatever the truth, both her life and work seem rich, textured and full of adventure. 
   
  From the mid 1680’s Aphra’s health began to decline.  This was exacerbated by her continual state of debt and descent into poverty although she was often fond of saying that she had led a ‘life dedicated to pleasure and poetry.’ 
    
  Aphra Behn died on 16th April 1689. She is buried in the East Cloister of Westminster Abbey and the inscription on her tombstone reads: "Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be Defence enough against Mortality."  
  1 - The Poetry of Aphra Behn - An Introduction 
  2 - The Disappointment by Aphra Behn 
  3 - On a Juniper Tree, Cut Down to Make Busks by Aphra Behn 
  4 - The Willing Mistress by Aphra Behn 
  5 - To Lysander by Aphra Behn 
  6 - Love Armed by Aphra Behn 
  7 - On Desire by Aphra Behn 
  8 - The Counsel by Aphra Behn 
  9 - Love's Witness by Aphra Behn 
  10 - The Invitation by Aphra Behn 
  11 - To Mrs B by Aphra Behn 
  12 - On Her Loving Two Equally by Aphra Behn 
  13 - The Dream by Aphra Behn 
  14 - Song by Aphra Behn 
  15 - A Ballad on Mr J H to Amoret, Asking Why I Was So Sad by Aphra Behn 
  16 - The Return by Aphra Behn 
  17 - Oh How the Hand the Lover Ought to Prize by Aphra Behn 
  18 - The Dog in the Manger by Aphra Behn 
  19 - Angellica's Lament by Aphra Behn 
  20 - A Congratulatory Poem by Aphra Behn 
  21 - A Letter to a Brother of the Pen in Tribulation by Aphra Behn 
  22 - Epitaph on the Tombstone of a Child, the Last of Seven That Died Before by Aphra Behn 
  23 - A Thousand Martyrs aka The Libertine by Aphra Behn 
  24 - On the Death of the Late Earl of Rochester by Aphra Behn

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  Encore

  Tony L. Harris

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  INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS! This is a dramatic suspense filled love story that provides an in-depth behind-the-scenes glimpse into the fast-pace and mysterious world of transportation-logistics.  The year is 1981 and life as young Tony once knew it is about to change forever. Come aboard and check out this young hero's journey as he learns how to navigate the fast lanes of life, love, and logistics in Southern California.

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  Our Gleaming Bones Unrobed

  Grant Loveys

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  Focused thematically around discovering the figurative bones beneath the skin of a situation/relationship/moment, the poems in this collection are at once memento mori — reminder of mortality — a celebration of life. Its two sections, body and bones delight in both the corporeal and the ethereal mysteries deep within the physical world. This haunting debut expresses complex ideas in simple, powerful Language.

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  Disconnect (NHB Modern Plays)

  Anupama Chandrasekhar

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  An urgent exposé of the realities behind the international call centre.
  Your credit card is maxed out, and you hang up the phone on Ross chasing your payments. But Ross is actually Roshan and though the sun is shining for you it's past midnight in his window-less call centre. With a new accent and invented back story, bright young graduates in India are renamed and rebranded as they work to claw back the cash spent by Americans crippled by debt.
  'a minor marvel... Disconnect is the Glengarry Glen Ross of our day. It raises profound questions of identity and refers to an even darker world than that of Mamet's play, but with added brio and lightness of touch' - Independent
  'gives us an insider's portrait of modern India and a fresh, poignant meaning to the insidious idea of the American dream' - Guardian
  'exciting and poignant, Disconnect keeps its audiences hooked throughout' - Daily Telegraph

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  The Ballad

  Oscar Wilde, Edna St. Vincent...

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  The ballad is one of the oldest poetic forms in English and are simply poems or songs that tell a story.  Traditionally they are composed in quatrains, with common meter that follow an a b c b rhyming structure and this, together with the simple language (often the dialect of the region), made them easier to memorise and recite by wandering minstrels as they were passed down orally.   
   
  Originally derived from the Medieval French the name suggests that they were to dance to and whilst widely used around Europe and other parts of the world, became characteristic of British poetry from the Middle Ages to the 19th century when it settled into our current usage of the term as a slow sentimental song. 
   
  By the 17th century the printed version of ballads, often with music and illustration, known as Broadsides or Broadsheets, circulated, probably in their millions throughout Britain and remained popular until the Victorian era when they lost prestige. 
   
  Whether they be folk, literary or lyrical, most ballads contain a self-contained, concise, plot driven story told in the third person narrative, often featuring dialogue and moving at a pace with an emotional urgency to arrive at a dramatic conclusion.  The subject of ballads are limitless and they can be tragic, historical or comic. 
   
  Maybe it’s because of childhood associations or that we all enjoy a cracking good story told in rhyme but as this volume demonstrates, the ballad has endless appeal.  We include favourites such as Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Edna St Vincent Millay’s The Ballad of the Harp Weaver, Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee as well as classics such as Sir Patrick Spens, the Ballad of Reading Gaol by Wilde and La Belle Dame Sans Merci by Keats.  There’s many more known and lesser known in this volume celebrating this most popular and accessible poetic form.

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