Plays from the United Kingdom

Plays by playwright: S

TheatreBooks stocks plays in English from around the world and, of course, all plays published in Canada. We stock and sell plays from Samuel French Ltd., Dramatists Play Service and Dramatic Publishing Co., and the leading play publishers in Great Britain. We carry books on all aspects of theatre production, as well as opera and dance. If you don't find the title or playwright you are looking for, please stop by the store and ask, or contact us at action@theatrebooks.com, by phone at 416.922.7175, toll-free at 1.800.361.3414 or by fax at 416.922.0739.

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Plays are also listed by playwright, by last name.

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Three Revenge Tragedies
Gamini Salgado
Following the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign in the early seventeenth century, the new court of King James was beset by political instability and moral corruption. This atmosphere provided fertile ground for the dramatists of the age, whose plays explore the ways in which social decadence and the abuse of power resentment and lead inexorably to violence and bloody retribution. This collection brings together three archtypal plays of the era: The Revenger's Tragedy, The White Devil, and The Changeling. Softcover, 364 pp. $22.50.

Rough Crossings
Simon Schama & Caryl Phillips
Based on the book by Simon Schama and adapted for the stage by Caryl Phillips, Rough Crossings tells the heroic story of the resettlement of a group of former slaves in West Africa and of the bruising relationship between Peters and Clarkson, divided by the barriers of race, but united in their ambition for equality. M-12, F-4. Softcover, 126 pp. $23.00.

Saint Joan
Bernard Shaw
Charting the meteoric rise and fall of Joan of Arc and her mission to drive the English from France, Shaw's Saint Joan draws directly on the medieval records to cut through the sentiment that characterized previous literary treatments of her story. A powerful example of a new kind of history play, its staging of dissent and social constraint, personal responsibility and female assertion, as well as fervent adherence to a cause, gave it a powerful modernity in its own day and continuing resonance in ours. M-22, F-2. Softcover, 186 pp. $16.50.

Major Barbara
Bernard Shaw
Shaw's story of the conversion contest between the arms manufacturer Andrew Undershaft and his daughter, the Salvation Army Major, is a provocative dramatization of the relationship between money, power, and moral purpose. Softcover, 167 pp. $16.50.

Androcles and the Lion
Bernard Shaw
Androcles, a Greek tailor, is walking through the jungle when he encounters a fearsome lion, roaring in agony with a thorn embedded in its paw. Instead of fleeing in terror, the kind-hearted Christian bravely helps the wounded beast and pulls out the thorn. But the Roman Emperor is ruthlessly persecuting those of his religion, and Androcles soon finds himself among a group of fellow Christians in the Coliseum, forced to fight brutal gladiators or be thrown to the lions for refusing to make sacrifices to the Roman gods. Will their faith save them? Or is a bizarre coincidence needed? In this deceptively light-hearted and witty play, Shaw presents very different forms of faith - from the humanitarian Androcles and the brave and fearless Lavinia to the conscience-stricken Ferrovius - to create a shrewd reassessment of the nature of Christianity. Softcover, 157 pp. $12.50.

Man and Superman & Three Other Plays
George Bernard Shaw
Included in this volume are Candida, Shaw's first real success on the stage, Mrs. Warren's Profession, which poked fun at the Victorian attitude toward prostitution, The Devil's Disciple, a play set in the American Revolution, as well as Man and Superman, a hilarious cocktail of farce, Nietzchean philosophy, and Mozart's Don Giovanni. Acclaimed as a "second Shakespeare," Irish-born Shaw revolutionized the British theatre with ideas and issues enlivened by fascinating characters, a brilliant command of language and dazzling wit. Softcover, 535 pp. $11.95.

Pygmalion
George Bernard Shaw
Shaw dismissed Pygmalion as a popular potboiler. To thwart productions that hinted that Higgins and Eliza would marry he wrote a short story epilogue with a bittersweet ending (included in this edition). Nevertheless, Shaw's dramatization of a Cockney flower girl's metamorphosis into a lady is not only a delightful fantasy but also has much to say about social class, money, spiritual freedom and women's independence. It's combination of ideas and social comment, together with its rich comic characterization, make it one of the most enduring and entertaining of English comedies. Stratford will be mounting My Fair Lady during its 2002 season; be ahead of the game, read the original play now. $11.99.

The Rivals
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, edited by Tiffany Stern
The New Mermaids collection is a modernized and fully annotated series of classic English plays. Each volume includes the playtext, in modern spelling, edited to the highest bibligraphical and textual standards, textual notes recording substantive changes to the copytext and variant readings, glossing notes elucidating obscure words and word-play, critical, contextual and staging notes, photographs of the productions where applicable, a full introduction which provides a critical account of the play, the staging conventions of the time and recent stage history; discussed authorship, date, sources and the text; and gives guidance for further reading. Softcover, 182 pp. $18.00.

Aristo
Martin Sherman
Aristo is the story of the last years in the life of Aristotle Onassis, and of his complex and interwoven relationships with Jackie Kennedy and Maria Callas, and his son Alexandros. Based in part on Peter Evans' book Nemesis, Aristo is an explosive account of how those in positions of enormous power and wealth often live lives detached from the realities and moral codes of everyday existence. Softcover, 90 pp. $16.50.

Strandline
Abbie Spallen
Following the death of her husband, Mairin, an artist and an outsider living in a small coastal village in Northern Ireland, gathers three local women to her house. Each of the women has a reason for being there and a bloody good reason not to be. These women have secrets. This community has secrets. And, as the evening passes, Mairin learns more than she bargained for about the man she loved. f-5. Softcover, 98 pp. $22.00.

War Horse
Nick Stafford
At the outbreak of the First World War, Joey, young Albert's beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. Caught up in enemy fire, fate takes Joey on an extraordinary odyssey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no man's land. But Albert cannot forget Joey and, still not enough to enlist, he embarks on a treacherous mission to find and bring him home. Softcover, 98 pp. $23.95.

Punk Rock
Simon Stephens
Young, disillusioned, privileged, and deeply troubled, the sixth formers of a fee-paying grammar school in Stockport struggle to find their way through a world they neither understand nor fully trust. Punk Rock is an aggressive, startling look at the dislocation of youth. Softcover, 102 pp. $18.00.

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Simon Stephens Plays: 2
Simon Stephens
Includes: One Minute, Country Music, Motortown, Pornography, Sea Wall. Softcover, 297 pp. $29.00.

Harper Reagan
Simon Stephens
This new Simon Stephens play tells the story of Harper Reagan - a mother and wife who walked away from it all and just kept walking. She told nobody where she was going and she put everything she ever built at risk. For two lost days and nights, until it looked as though her whole life might unravel, she didn't turn back. Harper Reagan navigates the UK, exploring family love and delusion. Softcover, 102 pp. $16.95.

On the Shore of the Wide World
Simon Stephens
Stockport 2004. Peter Holmes' dad is mastering his card tricks. His sons are plotting ways of leaving home. His wife has never looked so tired. And something is about to happen that will change all their lived irrevocably. Set over the course of nine months, On the Shore of the Wide World is a play about love, family, Roy Keane and the size of the galaxy. It is also a play about recovery. Softcover, 136 pp. $19.50.

The Long Road
Shelagh Stephenson
When eighteen-year-old Danny is fatally stabbed in a random attack his family struggles to find meaning and forgiveness. His mother's determination to understand the atrocity brings her face to face with his killer and forces the family to confront the bitter senselessness of their loss. Softcover, 58 pp. $16.50.

Five Kinds of Silence
Shelagh Stephenson
Billy controls his wife and two adult daughters to the extent that they can't leave the room without asking permission. He runs his family as a personal fiefdom, and the women are there to service him and his madness. One day his family shoots him dead. Five Kinds of Silence shows us a distorted world of madness, control and dispair through the eyes of dead Billy and those of his family, struggling to understand reality outside their stifling tomb. Stephenson's play handles the subject of brutal violence quietly, honestly and chillingly. 3M, 3W (doubling). Softcover, 31 pp. $9.99.

Ancient Lights
Shelagh Stephenson
Old friends spending Christmas together in the English countryside are forced to to examine who they have become since their youth and what price they have paid. Stephenson has created an acute and funny play with a light touch that cuts surprisingly deep in Ancient Lights.
2M, 4W. Softcover, 74 pp. $9.99.

Rock 'N' Roll
Tom Stoppard
Rock 'n' Roll spans the years from 1968 to 1990 from the double perspective of Prague, where a rock 'n' roll band comes to symbolise resistance to the Communist regime, and of Cambridge where the verities of love and death are shaping the lives of three generations in the family of a Marxist philosopher. 5 F / 6 M. $19.00.

The Coast of Utopia
Tom Stoppard
A collection of three of Tom Stoppard's plays: Salvage, Shipwreck and Voyage. Hardcover, $64.99.

The Coast of Utopia --
Voyage / Shipwreck / Salvage Master
Tom Stoppard
Playwright Tom Stoppard turns his mind to the birth of Socialism in mid 19th Century Russia and charts its development in these three plays which move in locale from Russia to Paris and London. The result is brilliant theatre and fascinating history. Just when you thought you could only see large casts in musicals, Tom Stoppard gives birth to dozens of finely drawn characters.

Arcadia
Tom Stoppard
A brilliant masterpiece. A play of ideas, theatricality and sophisticated entertainment. The action moves back and forth in time and explores the nature of truth and time and the disruptive influence of sex on our orbits of life. $13.99.

 
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Tom Stoppard
An original and engaging play which takes place in and around the action of Hamlet. The play that made Tom Stoppard's reputation. It's wit and verbal verve have made it a contemporary classic. $15.99.

The Real Thing
Tom Stoppard
An intelligent play about love. Max is married to Charlotte; Annie is married to Henry. But Charlotte and Henry have fallen in love. But is it the real thing? $13.99.

We Happy Few
Imogen Stubbs
Inspired by the true wartime history of the Osiris players, Imogen Stubbs' new comedy follows the adventures of a small group of women who come together to form a 'girls only' theatre company to take the plays of Shakespeare around a culture-starved Britain. We Happy Few is an uplifting, touching and often hilarious story of overcoming adversity with dogged determination--and a passion for theatre. Softcover, 105 pp. $22.95.

The Playboy of the Western World
John Millington Synge, edited by Malcolm Kelsall
The New Mermaids collection is a modernized and fully annotated series of classic English plays. Each volume includes the playtext, in modern spelling, edited to the highest bibligraphical and textual standards, textual notes recording substantive changes to the copytext and variant readings, glossing notes elucidating obscure words and word-play, critical, contextual and staging notes, photographs of the productions where applicable, a full introduction which provides a critical account of the play, the staging conventions of the time and recent stage history; discussed authorship, date, sources and the text; and gives guidance for further reading. Softcover, 86 pp. $18.00.

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Last modified July 18, 2012.
Please note that all prices are in Canadian dollars. All prices are subject to change without notice.