Classical Comedy - Greek and Roman: Six Plays (Applause Books) Review

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(More customer reviews)Robert W. Corrigan has complied a wonderful balance of Greek and Roman comedies.The collection is ideal for anyone interested in an overview of classical comedy or wishing to explore the roots of modern comedy.
Aristophanes' "Lysistrata" and "The Birds," andMenander's "The Grouch" represent the Greek plays."TheMenaechmi" (sometimes called 'The Brother's Menaechmi') and"Mostellaria" (sometimes called 'The Haunted House' or 'TheGhost')" by Plautus and "The Self Tormentor" by Terencerepresent the Roman plays.
The plays themselves are a wonderful study ofcomedy from it's dramatic origins to the Roman's translations of Greek"New Comedy."Students of Shakespeare and renaissance drama willfind this book especially useful as "The Menaechmi" is the sourceof Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors" and plays like "TheGrouch" and "The Self Tormentor" greatly influenced theFrench comic playwright, Jean-Baptiste Moliere.
The introductions scribedby Corrigan are outstanding.A master of ancient drama, he has a passionthat creeps into all his essays.Unfortunately, the introductions by thetranslators sometimes fail to relate to the boarder subject of comedy andleave a little to be desired.
Regarding the translations themselves, fourdifferent authors have translated the six plays and some are better thanothers.Walter Kerr's translation of "The Birds" is the best ofthe collection.Palmer Bovie's translations of the three Roman plays aresolid and reflect Plautus' word-play well (which also influencedShakespeare).
My only criticism of the book is that some of theintroductions are now dated by references to several Hollywood comedies andBroadway plays that might be obscure unless you have a background in thesesubjects.However, the book is for the plays themselves and the playsthemselves are delightful.Overall, I recommend this collection asintroduction to ancient comedy.

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Rich anthologies of dramatic art and critical insight - varied, stimulating, broad in its view and deep in its perceptions...exciting variety of translations...enlightening essays from some of the most stiumlating minds of the century.- Leonard C. Pronko, author, Theatre East and West, Chair, Dept. of Theatre, Pomona College
Includes: Aristophanes: Lysistrata, translated by Donald Sutherland; The Birds, translated by Walter Kerr; Menander: The Grouch, translated by Sheila DÕAtri; Plautus: The Menaechmi, translated by Palmer Bovie; The Haunted House, translated by Palmer Bovie; Terence: The Self-Tormentor, translated by Palmer Bovie.

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Classical Tragedy - Greek and Roman: Eight Plays in Authoritative Modern Translations Review

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(More customer reviews)my product arrived quickly and in good condition. the details about the product's quality were very accurate.

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A collection of eight plays along with accompanying critical essays. Includes: "The Oresteia" - Aeschylus; "Prometheus Bound" - Aeschylus; "Oedipus the King" - Sophocles; "Antigone" - Sophocles; "Medea" - Euripides; "The Bakkhai" - Euripides; "Oedipus" - Seneca; "Medea" - Seneca.

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The Life of Tymon of Athens: Applause First Folio Editions (Applause Shakespeare Library Folio Texts) Review

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(More customer reviews)Not really one of Shakespeare's better stories; it had potential, given that it's NOT a love story (my largest single objection to most of Shakespeare is that his concept of romantic love strikes me as not just mistaken, but downright pernicious, given that so many people use his concept as their model of what "love" is, and that has led to many, many emotional traumas through the centuries) but even without that difficulty to cause problems in this play, I found the plot somewhat lacking; imagine a story that begins somewhat like the movie "It's A Wonderful Life", starring Jimmy Stewart, in which the main character is a very generous man whose friends have all benefited tremendously from his liberality. Then he runs out of money, and his friends (unlike in the movie) all prove to be flatterers and false friends who do not stand by him. So he goes off and lives in the woods, wears rags, becomes a misanthrope thanks to the disappointment his faith in people suffered, and dies. The end. This is hardly an uplifting story; I realize that it's a tragedy, but it seemed to me that there could have been a LITTLE bit of uplifting turn in the plot before the hero was killed off. And what's more, there doesn't even seem to be a single memorable line in the whole play, which is all that saves SOME of Shakespeare's plots.

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If there ever has been a groundbreaking edition that likewise returns the reader to the original Shakespeare text, it will be the Applause Folio Texts. If there has ever been an accessible version of the Folio, it is this edition, set for the first time in modern fonts.
The Folio is the source of all other editions. The Folio text forces us to re-examine the assumptions and prejudices which have encumbered over four hundred years of scholarship and performance. Notes refer the reader to subsequent editorial interventions, and offer the reader a multiplicity of interpretations. Notes also advise the reader on variations between Folios and Quartos.
The heavy mascara of four centuries of Shakespearean glossing has by now glossed over the original countenance of ShakespeareÕs work. Never has there been a Folio available in modern reading fonts. While other complete Folio editions continue to trade simply on the facsimile appearance of the Elizabethan "look," none of them is easily and practically utilized in general Shakespeare studies or performances.

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The Comedie of Errors: Applause First Folio Editions (Applause Shakespeare Library Folio Texts) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is great reading materil-what can I say?In this book is a great storyline and a fun, exciting plot.It has its high points and sad points, like any other, with other things mixed in.Shakespeare again displays his wonderful talent in writing and acting.This is a perfect book for anyone.

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If there has ever been a groundbreaking edition that likewise returns the reader to the original Shakespeare text, it will be THE APPLAUSE FOLIO TEXTS. If there has ever been an accessible version of the Folio, it is this edition, set for the first time in modern fonts. The Folio is the source of all other editions. The Folio text forces us to re-examine the assumptions and prejudices which have encumbered over four hundred years of scholarship and performance. Notes refer the reader to subsequent editorial interventions, and offer the reader a multiplicity of interpretations. Notes also advise the reader on variations between Folios and Quartos. Prepared and annotated by Neil Freeman, Head, Graduate Directing Program, University of British Columbia.

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A Midsummer Night's Dream: The Applause Shakespeare Library Review

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(More customer reviews)The book was in the perfect condition, exactly as advertised.Shipping was quick, seller was great to respond to my question.Thanks so much!!

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This Applause edtiion allows the reader and student to look beyond the scholarly reading text to the more sensuous, more collaborative, more malleable performance text which emerges in conjunction with the commentary and notes. Readers and students are faced with real theatrical choices in each speech as the editors point out the challenges and opportunities to the actor and director at each juncture. Readers will not only discover an enlivened Shakespeare, they will be empowered to rehearse and direct their own productions of the imagination in the process.

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The Bacchae (The Applause Classical Library, Featuring New) Review

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(More customer reviews)"The Bacchae" was written by Euripides when he was living in Macedonia in virtual exile during the last years of his life.The tragedy was performed in Athens after his death.These factors are important in appreciate this particular Greek tragedy because such plays were performed at a festival that honored the Dionysus, and in "The Bacchae" he is the god who extracts a horrible vengeance.The tragedy clearly demonstrates the god's power, but it is a terrible power, which suggests less than flattering things about the deity himself.
Pentheus was the son of Echion and Agave, the daughter of Cadmus, the founder of the Royal House of Thebes.After Cadmus stepped down the throne, Pentheus took his place as king of Thebes. When the cult of Dionysus came to Thebes, Pentheus resisted the worship of the god in his kingdom.However, his mother and sisters were devotees of the god and went with women of the city to join in the Dionsysian revels on Mount Cithaeron.Pentheus had Dionysus captured, but the god drove the king insane, who then shackled a bull instead of the god.When Pentheus climbed a tree to witness in secret the reverly of the Bacchic women, he was discovered and torn to pieces by his mother and sisters, who, in their Bacchic frenzy, believed him to be a wild beast.The horrific action is described in gory detail by a messenger, which is followed by the arrival of the frenzied and bloody Agave, the head of her son fixed atop her thytsus.
Unlike those stories of classical mythology which are at least mentioned in the writings of Homer, the story of Pentheus originates with Euripides.The other references in classical writing, the "Idylls" written by the Syracusean poet Theocritus and the "Metamorphoses" of the Latin poet Ovid, both post-date"The Bacchae" by centuries.On those grounds, the tragedy of Euripides would appear to be entirely his construct, which would certainly give it an inherent uniqueness over his interpretations of the stories of "Medea," "Electra," and "The Trojan Women."
I see "The Bacchae" as being Euripides' severest indictment of religion and not as the recantation of his earlier rationalism in his old age.The dramatic conflicts of the play stem from religious issues, and without understanding the opposition on Appollonian grounds of Pentheus to the new cult readers miss the ultimate significance of the tragedy.This is not an indictment of Appollonian rationalism, but rather a dramatic argument that, essentially, it is irrational to ignore the irrational.As the fate of Pentheus amply points out, it is not only stupid to do so, it is fatal.Consequently, "The Bacchae" is one of the most important of Greek tragedies.

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THE BACCHAE was not only the last and greatest of EuripidesÕ tragedies, it was very close to the last of the great Greek tragedies. The story of the play is in part about this cultural dissolution in Athens. ItÕs also about the theatre itself, and how a sane society needs strong, intelligent theatre to survive. THE BACCHAE makes a perfect first entry in the new Applause series of classic dramas, because it argues so passionately and beautifully and convincingly for the need for such a theatre, in our era as much as in EuripidesÕ. Herbert Golder in his new translation has turned an ancient play into a new one, one just as potent for an applicable to our troubled times as EuripidesÕ own.

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